Alright since we are slaying whalez, might as well gut the massive heart out of this cetacean beast and lay another one of these AWA monsters to rest. You probably don’t recognize this beer without ISO: in front of it and some shit like FT: HUNA following it, but this acidic banger is izzy prox, aka dat 6/28/08 birth that rocked balloon knots back before people knew what a folding chair release was. These 1620 bottles still live on in people’s hearts and dreams but most in OCD hater tickers nightmares. When this was rolled out in 2008, that $30 price tag puckered many-an-O-ring, now we just call that shit Battle Priest and go back to work on a Tuesday. Anyway, let’s mouthkiss this lady and see if she shows her age.

The Lost Abbey visit their website
California, United States
American Wild Ale | 7.00% ABV

If you don’t know about this shit, here, read this and let the rest of us get on with our lives. Let’s hope your offshelf liver can keep up:

A collaboration between five of America’s best craft brewers – Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey, Adam Avery of Avery Brewing, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River, and RobTod of Allagash – Isabelle was created from a common base beer to which each brewery contributed a yeast strain and barrels for aging. After 16 months in oak, the beers were blended to create the final product.

A: To be honest, Izzy is not a particularly beautiful or bubbly woman. Perhaps she has lost a touch of grace in her old age but there is a deep amber meets pyrite sort of glow to her but it is nowhere in the realm of those OGV curves or even a radiant Brute finish. Of course it might have been those baleful gold tinted windows but I took her into the bathroom to more carefully- nevermind, just, ok next section.

S: This smells like a shitload of tart movie candies smashed up and then mixed up in blender with peach juice and limonata. There is a peach ring, apple ring, sour patch kids, tangelo, an acidic middle body to it that is almost nectarine/stone fruit in a way but then gets back to the Harvey Dent face melting fruits on the finish. You could huff this all day if you were a well connected 13 year old. Huffing is for 13 year olds only.

T: This kicks down your sweet zones and breaches the perimeter with a lemon/grapefruit flashbang and lights up the elite tastebud guard with a fucking SMG popping off apricot and kumquat shells. There is kum everywhere. There is a single quivering child tastebud left in the bitter zone left unharmed, to tell the others who did this. The hateful siege is complete and that lingering lemonheads taste makes you want to take another sip. It’s like how you leave the movie theater with pounding ass kankersores and you aren’t sure if it was the 300g of sugar you just ate, the salt, or the clearly HSV chick you were necking on. Life is a sour mystery.

M: Well see above, this shit is painful in a way that even the most hurtful Belgians could not engineer. It took some American access codes and ramp up the pH levels and I am sure at least a few brewers were kicked through some boxes when prompted for the access codes to this SOUR WARHEAD. Oh wow, if puns were jizz I would be a 14 year old home on a sick day. But seriously, this is exceptionally dry and just hits those bicuspids harder than Steve Buscemi’s orthodontist. If this beer were a lady she would be Anna Paquin because your grill will be fucked after you skull this. I drank full pours of this side by side with Armand and Tomme and pound my anoos if this wasn’t straight peroxide next to that gentle Belgian mama bird.

D: This is probably the closest American Wild Ale that I have had to a straight Belgian gueuze but like everything else from America it strolls out with amped up DD sour tatties, tart pumped up duck lips, musky tummy tuck, every aspect of it is overdone in an amazing Spearmint Rhino sort of way. I drank almost this entire bottle like a complete fuck out of a Martini glass and I never once was like “ooh that’s plenty.” I had mean ass ulcers afterward, I am sure. But tiring of Izzy is like paying for an escort just to beat her ass in Call of Duty. No one does that.

Narrative: Izzy Arthur decided at age 15 that she had enough of the Deliverance church services that she had attended for years. Sure, for a child, people wretching and rolling in the aisles had a note of noble bitterness to it. However, after years and years of this behavior, the sad rancor in the room was just an overriding malaise. “ALL OF YOU CAEIUFH WREGHHHH BERRRRR!!!!” Izzy sighed as she held down a middle aged woman down with an outstretched blanket as she expelled her demons. “Wreghhhbleghhh-” to her right, the local librarian gagged and spit into a paper sack. Sure, it wasn’t the AVERAGE triumph of good over evil, but in the end it was still a type of grassy purity that came from a solid agrarian community. It was this deeply acidic character and complex inner monologue that made Izzy so strong. A local mechanic burst into the building covered in lemon juice holding two anacondas offering up a pithy prophecy “And until the BLERGHGHHA norway titans cannot UNTIL GEHHHHHIIHHH IN OUR LORDS NAME!” Izzy popped a Shocktart into her mouth and soldiered on with an austerely regal posture.