Hair of the Dog Adam from the Wood, Fred was Nice, BUT NOW WE ARE TALKING SERIOUS WOOD

September 19, 2012 | dontdrinkbeer

Adam from the motherfucking Wood. Not regular Adam. Not Cherry Adam, just gangster ass AftW. This is one of those long standing top 100 beers than I had been meaning to trade for off and on for over 9 months, but now shit is getting real and it is time to see if this little 12 ounce heater from Oregon is going to bring the pain in today’s review.

Adam gives beer nerds wood as well. Poplar and pine.

AftW
Hair of the Dog Brewing Company / Brewery and Tasting Room
Oregon, United States
Old Ale | 12.00% ABV

This is Adam aged in American Oak barrels. First released in 2000, and released again in November 2011 in 12oz bottles. This 12% beer has lots of the typical HOTD aromas: Caramel, brown sugar, tons of raisin and tobacco. Fig, date, and plum fruitiness in that order. This has a fairly strong earthy vinousness as well as oak vanilla. Alcohol: 12% by volume.

This is a complex beer that satisfies your basest desires. Wood, bourbon, fast food.

A: This is not a particularly beautiful beer; let’s just get that out of the way right from the top. I mean look at it. It is murky like melted fudge, there’s hardly any carbonation and the sheeting just coats like sticky caramel. I remember when I opened Matt and I was like “wait. What is hapen.” This is the same thing here. I can safely say that Hair of the Dog has slayed beer nerds on the quality of the aroma and taste of their beers, engaging in the Kuhnhenn style of guerilla warfare with regards to appearance. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

S: This is incredible and the olfactory is pumping out siege tanks. This beer opens up with caramel, marshmallow, Zero bar, light chocolate, a lil campfire roastiness in there and closes with a HUGE bourbon kick like kisses from your aunt on Flag day.

T: This is incredibly complex and changes from one beer to a completely different beer as it warms. I feel redundant listing all the terms that HotD themselves listed but, for reals, you get dark fruits like an imperial quad, dates, plums, just fucking read up there. I will add that the oak and bourbon is overwhelming, like Donkey Kong smashing you in the head with a barrel. Kong so hard.

My face be all like dis when I opened this beer. Lemon knows what is up.

M: This is both hugely sticky like a foam party and incredibly boozy, like a foam party. I enjoy this beer at almost room temperature because it suddenly imparts this complex bouquet like a caramel liqueur. You ever get a girl’s number and then there’s a lingering sense of guilt because you know that you aren’t attracted to Albanian women at all? Well that is how this beer operates, you get that bourbon and then it just overstays its welcome, eating up all your Bugles, changing your DVR settings and shit.

D: This is not drinkable. I will just say it. I will not say that this is not something i did not enjoy, read above, I really liked it. I don’t think Hair of the Dog will get their jimmies rustled when I say that I don’t need any larger formats of this beer. I get it. This isn’t some Ayn Rand novel where you need the notes drilled at you over and over in larger than life representations. Caramel, figs, plums, sleep. That’s how Adam rolls when he is swinging wood.

This is a big, complex beer. People fear complex things.

Narrative: “we should do this more ofTEN!” you open up your posture and lean hesitantly back “oh yeah…i know why dont we, yeah we should!” a slight wavering in your voice. This was all going so well, but God does she grate on your nerves relentlessly. “I’ve got this thing next month and you know, the week is always hectic” you look down at your shoes, the lies in the air palpable in a thick mist that she seems impervious to. The bourbon smells impart a cloud like a Eugene O’Neill novel. “well totally, I will work around you, I will call you tomorrow ok? 2 pm?” You can’t believe you are still standing in the entryway of this apartment complex, this could not end soon enough, yet it started so pleasantly. Maybe it was the way she smacked her food, told the same story 6 times with slight variations, smacked her gum, or asked you prying personal questions. “Yeah no 2pm is rough, pretty much all times are tough, so hey I gotta do this thing but…keep in touch k?…” You lick your gumline and taste her caramel lip gloss. What a strange choice. You rock back on your heels and slink towards your car. “Sure, well I will touch back and we’ll work something out” For all your will, for all her shortcomings, you know in 6 months, your curiousity will return and you will inevitably come back to her. The exotic sweetness, with all its lack of grace, beckons.

The Brew Kettle Taproom White Rajah IPA, All Hail this Indian Master

September 18, 2012 | dontdrinkbeer

Time to swing the old geography around to show Ohio some love for something other than eating competitions and the award for most Big Dog t-shirts sold per capita. This beer pops up every once in a while on the top 100 and I figured I would give the midwest a shrift to see how their big guns stack up against California IPAs.

White Rajah is within the same lineage as Maharaja from beers that just toss around Indian terms with careless abandon.

White Rajah IPA
The Brew Kettle Taproom & Smokehouse / Production Works
Ohio, United States

Style | ABV
American IPA | 6.80% ABV

A: Deep orange with amber hues in the center, 1/2 finger carbonation, moderate lacing, a bit darker than most ipas, but a bit cloudier. Single IPAs are kinda like telling your friends about the hot Korean girl that you met, all adjectives make it end up seeming more pedestrian and unimpressive as a result.

IPA cant be walez, hurr derrr.

S: There is a bright aggressive hop profile, cirtusy and bitter to the nose. Not quite overbearing in the juniper/herbal notes, but still that pesky pine pokes its head in like an uncircumsized penis, all conspicuous and out of place.

T: This beer has a very balanced hop profile, not overbearing, not entirely cirtusy either, very light with a quick bitter finish, a profile that transfers from lemon to grassy and are similar to those other poorly done imperial/double IPAs, without a long standing lingering hop profile. Those god. damn. pinecones round things out and just overstay their welcome. This is pretty robust for a single IPA, but not my favorite offering when Sculpin and some other stellar IPAs are available on the reg.

When you have a nice, sessionable IPA, you get this warm hoppy feeling like snugs from a baby sloth.

M: The mouthfeel is exactly where it should be for the style, light finish with a biscuity middle to it that lingers for a bit, doesnt overcoat the mouth so that you welcome the next sip, almost to the point of drinking it too fast. I prefer this to many other jankier double IPAs because I feel like I can drink this without so much of a traumatic profile and continue to keep ruining people’s shit on Puzzle Quest.

D: I dont usually throw this around, but its an incredibly drinkable beer, it feels like a bolder pale ale simply due to its Trojan horse character that sends the abv and aggressive fast moving hops right into the Troy of your mouth. I am certainly able to drink well beyond the 12oz bottle and I think 3 would be perfect to get ready for a custody hearing. It’s an even more dangerous candidate given the relatively afforable price. Good luck finding a series of bottles to support that endeavor. I enjoy this beer but in LA its not too simple to find this beer, or even at all, so slap the Fedex guy on the ass and tell him to move bricks in the trap.

Too many IPAs will put your liver on swole, knock you down like a Goldberg spear.

Narrative: They said that after the nuclear war, there would be no vegetation, no life, just nuclear winter. How ironic, those shortsigted botanists, if they only knew. The hop plant thrives on depleted uranium. The nuclear war didn’t produce endless expanses of rubble, it created a lush verdant world covered in hop flowers. It stings my eyes to go outside with all the hop oils in the air and I leave the communal well smelling like Burning Man. I guess this is God’s sick joke, cover the earth in a beautiful, fragrant, unusable flower, what with all the malt and barley dead. Talk about peanut butter with no jam. Hopmageddon affected us all, but it affected Chardonnay drinkers worst of all.

Russian River Toronado 25th Anniversary, Don’t Tell Me You Forgot Our Anniversary, Baby

September 17, 2012 | dontdrinkbeer

I feel like Toronados is the golden baby of the beer bar world. I swear that anytime that this place has an anniversary, bris, or restructuring of their corporate board, breweries find some damn reason to shower them with .rar walez. Alpine made a double batch of Nelson to celebrate and I MISSED OUT ON IT. But oh well, let’s see what Russian River has up their sleeve in today’s review.

Throw some 25’s on the whip, barrel blend is so sick.

T25
Russian River Brewing Company
California, United States
American Wild Ale | 8.75% ABV

Toronado 25th Anniversary Ale started out as six individual brews, each with their own personality, and all incorporating Brettanomyces and or micro-organisms. Once the barrel aging was complete, Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo and Toronado’s David Keene got together to create the final blend. To create its fine carbonation, we re fermented the Toronado 25th Anniversary Ale in this bottle. Spent yeast cells from a thin layer of sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Pour slowly, allowing the natural yeast sediment to remain in the bottle.

Blend:
4% Sonambic (barrel aged for 15 months)
16% Blonde Ale (barrel aged for 8 months)
36% Strong Pale Ale (barrel aged 12 months)
28% Ale Aged with Currants (barrel aged for 8 months)
12% Strong Dark Ale (barrel aged for 12 months)
4% Baltic Porter (barrel aged for 10 months)

A: See all that going on up there? The result is a translucent orange hue with mild wispy carbonation that crackles and disappears slowly. This isn’t a particularly BEAUTIFUL beer like say, Ithaca Brute, but it has its own subtle charms, like that snaggletoothed woman in accounts receivable who always holds the elevator for you.

This blend got mad swag, gangnam steeze to the fullest.

S: This has a fantastic lactic smell to it that reminds me of Hill Farmstead Norma, since almost none of my readers have had that I GUESS I HAVE TO SAY MORE. There are aspects of cherries, orange rind, currants, fuji apples, and grapefruit juice. I don’t think that the Baltic Porter is pulling mad weight in the barrel as it seems to be incredibly acidic.

T: This is incredibly tart with a sort of refined Red Bull sort of sweetness to it that works well with the acidic profile. While cold, this beer is kinda one dimensional in the way that Beatification is just a 2D sour, but once it hits around 60 degrees the 3D glasses come on in a real way and you get a huge crisp and bright panoply of tart fruits.

This beer will get you rolling so hard.

M: This is puckering and very dry similar to an aged Temptation, let’s say b4. You get the oak and some lingering harshness but it welcomes another sip. The carbonation crackles and hits that gumline hard like Kimbo Slice, and the barrel be wood like a baseball bat.

D: This is insouciantly dry and doesn’t give a fuck if you can’t handle the puckering profile but ultimately, like a 14 year old girl I keep returning for this beer’s affection. It has a car. Ultimately, I wish this was a regular release amongst the other regular “-tions” but given how complex it is, I UNDERSTAND. Taking this beer to a bar with beer nerds present is kinda like getting your clit pierced at Claire’s, no one is exactly mad, but everyone is curious as fuck what you are up to.

This beer is daunting but completely satisfying.

Narrative: I dont quite understand Jacob, why is it that everyone wants to fight you?” You roll your eyes and offer this explanation once again “Alright fine, I got the same name as 5 other though kids in school and my dad is an MMA fighter and my mom is a WNBA player, those two people got beat up nonstop.” A sour taste fills your mouth knowing the struggle that you have faced on a daily basis. He looks puzzled and you stare at the principal’s snowglobe of Alberta and try to form a different explanation. “Alright, it’s like this see, if you wanna define yourself, sometimes you gotta be the bad guy, do things no one else does, like fight the girls softball team all at once…you see….no? Ok, so I got the same name and two bad as-” “LANGUAGE JACOB” “ok so I got two tough parents, so to prove my dominance, I go around trying things no one else does, milk enemas, eating lightbulbs, you know guy stuff, trying to prove my worth.” The tightness in your neck turns into a light acidity in your stomach. You have something to prove. It became clear that your laundry list of exploits was not exactly carrying the day for Principal Schlegel. “Alright to prove I am the baddest kid in school with the two roughest parents, I am gonna have sex with that Alberta snowglobe, see?” “That’s not necessary, you are suspended, get out of my office Jacob.”