Yearly Archives: 2012

0

Goose Island Bourbon County Vanilla Brand Stout: PART 3 – Revenge of the Midwest Shelfwales

|

Ah those old 13,000 bottle release shelfwales, they have entered our fair community with panache and aplomb that would make even Balzac blush. This has been a noticeable oversight for quite some time and beer nerds have often asked me why this beer of all the variants was so scornfully cast out of the house like a coffee drinking Latter Day Saint. The simple answer is: this is the worst of the BCBS variants. Now it is still BCBS at heart so that is like saying that the Gallardo is the shittiest lambo; it will still get you some lackluster handjobs. Let’s look at what kinda beans this beer is grinding in today’s review:

Oh shit, the elusive non-standard toaster shot. This is like the BCBVS rookie card up in this mix.

Goose Island Beer Co.
Illinois, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 13.00% ABV

A: Get ready for some serious Hitchcock twist to this review: IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE BCBS. There are no raw pieces of vanilla or flecks of artisnal beans up in this medium. It is just deep dark murky blackness with minimal lacing, light sheeting and carbonation that phones it in harder than the Miami Dolphins. Not a particularly beautiful beer but, whatever, I AM JUST LOOKING TO LAND A BOOS WITH THIS ALRIGHT.

I feel bad for anyone who drops crazy bottles on this in a trade, you know that feel.

S: This is overridingly sweet, not in that Bruery White Chocolate fashion where you give it a playful shove, like so sweet that you ask it to pull over so you can get out. This has the roast and charming marshmallow meets oak profile with coy little chocolate peeking downstairs at mama bourbon wrapping presents, then holy fuck, Papa Vanilla comes home and starts making declarative statements about how he pays that bills and no one respects him. This is just sweet sticky vanilla extract overload that ends up coming across less like an Oreo/Coffee/Chocolate treat, and more like the lipsmackers lip balm from all those chicks you weren’t making out with in 9th grade.

T: This starts out pretty awesome as BCBS is wont to do, then vanilla jumps with its sweet cloying claws like the T1000 getting dragged behind what would have been a pleasant stout journey to Skynet. There’s a chocolate and coffee presence and vanilla adds this Torani syrup quality like drinks from Starbucks that prevents everyone from getting laid, just beanblocking. This beer seriously makes me just want a regular old BCBS and to leave this sticky sweet interloper out of things, a boy can dream.

This beer tries too hard and ends up coming out as a lesser product as a result. JUST BE YOURSELF BCBS, WE LIKE YOU FOR YOU.

M: This has a generous coating and leaves a deep lingering roast, char, sweet milk chocolate and guess who is riding shotgunning, fucking Vanilla, messing with the radio controls making you listen to Static X and other shit you don’t need or want. I am not saying this is worlds worse than even ::gasp:: BRAMBLE, but what I am saying is that, it would have been better if what makes it so desired was left out. No one is pining after megan Fox because she has toe thumbs, its just something you put up with for the rest of the package.

D: This is less drinkable than every other variant and as it warmed I wish I shared this with someone. Again, this is not a bad beer, it is still BCBS at heart, but you just wish it would cool it with the Baskin Robbins sticky sweet overload. The vanilla is distracting and the types of things that this beer is commanding at this point is downright confusing to me, but then again, toottoot shelfwalez only get more rarerer and not less rare, no walez on the train, mixed metaphor leaving the station. vrroooooom.

Disagree with the midwest cadre about one of their crown jewels? Fuck the police.

Narrative: “Ok here he comes, he’s walking up the drivewa- oh no, his cousin Nigel Beansington is with him, everyone get down get ready to yell surprise!” All of Mark’s friends hid in his small one bedroom apartment and could smell Nigel’s sickeningly sweet DKNY APPLE cologne as he entered the room. “AND SO I TOLD THEM IT WOULD BE OBVIOUS TO YOU THAT THEY WERE PLANNING A SURPRISE PART-” “SURPRISE!” the crowd groaned in unison. Nigel had ruined things again. He was sweet enough and it was hard to fault his blissful ignorance but he just always ended up in places that he did not belong. “Ya see? Told ya, surprise party, obvious right?” Nigel quipped and pushed a finger into the uncut birthday cake and ate a dab of frosting. “EWW BUTTERSCOTCH frosting, what is this a COSTCO, oh KIRKLAND, ya KIRKLAND means Costco cake.” The party universally exhaled and reflected how this overpowering asshole ruined what would have been an incredible affair.

3

St. Bernardus Tripel, Last Week Fucked Around Got a Tripel Dubbel

|

Here’s a style that doesn’t get enough love from this site, or people in general I feel. For some reason, restaurants always seem to stock this, but rarely quads and even more rarely dubbels. I would trade all the tripels in the world for an army of saisons, but it’s still a legit experience nonetheless. Westmalle is usually the go to for this style, but why not bring old Bernardus up in this bitch, get some diversity going, you damn intolerants.

Last week fucked around and got a tripel dubbel. Today was a good day.

St Bernardus
tripel 8% abv

A: There is a glowing mild gold meets light amber hue to it with some interesting tangerine notes at the edges. It looks good with the carbonation, full lacing and body. The head is relentless, but some people appreciate that obvious euphemism. I am too old for this shit.

You bring up tripels to most beer nerds, their faces be like

S: There are some fruit notes similar to a crisp pear and pineapple. It just feels like someone chopped a granny smith apple in your kitchen while grinding coriander. You know how often that happens. There’s a bready cornbread with honey note to it like a souped up belgian golden.

T: This has a great apple sweetness at the outset that fades into some sticky turbinado sugar and finishes with light hop notes. It is very refreshing and begins to take the Rhineland back for the Tripel as my forgotten favorite. There’s a great biscuit malt quality and light muskiness to it, with a sort of light plastic finish, but it isn’t bothersome.

I drink beers, say things, sometimes I get free boxes from people.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore.

M: I usually neglect this style for quads but this shows me what I have been missing. Most people love their Saisons, love their Gueuze, love their quads, yet this is a great example of the style. It is not quite any of the foregoing, but it is so much more as a result. Very thin but just presents a bevy of experience like an overstated 8th grade science fair exhibit: your suspicions of parental involvement are present but unconfirmed.

D: This has a crisp light body with a pineapple juiciness. Additionally, there are some apple juice notes and very refreshing grapefruit character that resulted in the genre standard ten percent. If I could forgo deep dark fruits, I would return to the old tripel from the quad chestnut. It is great but I can’t place if it is great within the style or just a reminiscent return to an old favorite. Just second to Westmalle, I would say this is the iconic flavor that you think of, that belgian clove and spice underpinning with a golden frothiness.

This is an exceptional beer that is strange, yet familiar at the same time.

Narrative; No one buys these old YOUTH PROGRESSIVE FICTION TITLES. “I knew when I started,” Albert Ranking thought to himself, “if only I had written a self help book, or a book on mild economics, a memoir, or even a self aware survey of publishers’ rights, I would have been swooped up immediately.” The Avion Newsprint stand couldn’t move his books out of O’Hare Airport but by a parable. Albert stared at his books just sitting there, unthumbed, unmolested by the general public. “Why oh why would they prefer the less salacious books about Dragon Tattoos and Hungry Gamers?” He couldn’t understand why his book about an internal revolution of the metamorphic versus the igneous beds of rock was not selling. “Kids love geology, kids love revolution with their anarchy signs, how did these old stables get overlooked?” He folded his arms knowing that one day, the public would come around and his sigh simultaneously aligned with Thomas Pynchon in his resolve awaiting the return of post-modernism.

0

Founder’s Backwoods Bastard, A brewery I love meets a style that I hate

|

I enjoy almost all of Founder’s releases, so long as no one brings up Cerise. I figured I would grind the stones of one of the most reputable breweries and review a style that is completely offputting to me for maximum lulz. If you are one of those shitstains that actually loves scotch ales, maybe you won’t empathize with today’s review, hey, even I was misguided enough to love amber ales at one point. No one is perfect.

Torani syrup be creepin, tempting me to make a vanilla variant all up in this bitch.

Founders Brewing Company
Michigan, United States
Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy | 10.20% ABV

A: dark caramel color with hues of deep blood red amber, moderatee carbonation, one finger head with light lacing. If you like the color of pennies in a coinstar machine, this beer is for you. Maybe it is just my distrust of the Wee Heavy empire, but something about this style just looks dull and unappealing to me. Shine up that armor Daedalus, show a lil scottish luster.

You go into this expecting one thing, and confusion ensues.

S: there’s an intense cherry and alcoholic sweetness, very sweet on the nose, lots of turbinado sugar with notes of caramel, no surprise here you get some bourbon, caramel sweetness, and oak dominates as this thing warms up. Again, this is certainly its own style but it makes me long for an English Barleywine or even a light old ale.

T: in the front of the beer is a slightly smoky sweetness, caramel notes, hops are understated but well done, just enough to balance out the sugar blast of the malt, again, this may be a problem with the style, but it just feels like candy water, with not enough complexity to justify it. Definitive beet sugar and slight boozy note that gives a little warmth on the palate, the oak is pervasive throughout with vanilla and bourbon notes on the backend. I once knew a dude who physically cut the top of his Oldsmobile Cutlass off, it’s bold moves like that that some people love, this is a bold move into dubious territory.

Ultimately, this offering might be a bit too strange for me, despite the grounding in novel territory

M: for all the bourbon, oak, vanilla, and caramel cherry notes, youd figure that it would have a malty chewiness to it, but that is not the case, it is surprisingly thin. A noteworthy hybrid between a belgian quad and an amber, with the boring effect that a cross-section of those two would produce. It’s Punnett’s square, recessive edition. Again, if you love this style, it is dead on for the style and pretty much as good as it gets for this genre, no alerections inspired by this offering.

D: Very drinkable and boasts a ton of diversity. I could give this to plenty of friends in a lot of different situations, illegal timbering, amateur meth lab creation, ice road trucking, all kinds of stuff. Does something being diverse make it good? Well I guess in the way your tomboy girlfriend can feel at home in a summer dress or equally gangly in wrangler cutoff jean shorts: diversity.

It’s like a blend of two familiar things, with strange results.

Narrative: You could feel the idle particles of dust drape upon you bit by bit, your unused glass with a wanting pallor for the warm touch of active paper. They knew what you were when they took you home from Staples: An All In One. Sure you’re not not exceptional at scanning, what with your plastic internal parts, but YOU CAN DO IT. Sure you may not print the best photos with your blotchy low quality ink, but IT CAN BE DONE. Faxing? You’ve got that covered, in a halfhearted, paper jam, off-contrast sorta way. But it is still faxing. The perfect package for a man who needs to a variety of things, very little of the time. Oh, here comes a formidible 5th grade sciene projec- oh I see, they just opted to take a picture with their camera phone and email it to themselves instead of your very capable scanning parts. Perhaps variety is the spice of life, but boring needless diversity, that’s more like UC Davis.