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@crookedstave Petite Sour Blueberry, vastly better than the passion fruit with loads of berries and tannins. Delicious stuff.

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Like the passion fruit this is incredibly clean and intensely refreshing like an ocean spray cocktail. Unlike the passion fruit, this exhibits massive juicy fruit and tart tannins like a bunch of Syrah barrels burst inside of a Smuckers factory.

The mouthfeel is incredibly thin and nimble never leaving too jammy of a presence but offering a dry tartness and an oaky finish like a crisp Chardonnay. It could stand to be a touch more substantial in the grist since the Brett profile finishes so low that it can feel limp wristed in its punch. Thankfully the berries add depth and make this beer perfect for warm weather or extravagant sessioning if you are fucking loaders

One of the best releases from CS this year, shouldering with Brett d or grand cru and cherry grand cru. And oddly enough, generous ass CO traders flip these like silver dollar pancakes. I will never understand their generosity and sheer high quality, limited beers. It’s like the beer game ten years ago when this shit used to be fun. Colorado is still having plenty of fun, somehow. There’s no horrible releases, no auction trades, no instawhales, no famous assholes you can readily cite from the area.

I am blaming the weed and high altitude. This beer is really damn good though, enough patting CO on the back.

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DDB staff recommendation.

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@blackbottlebrew Black Bottle Brewing Buys Up All Fort Collins Count Chocula, Local Colorado Weed Smokers Express Disappointment

In riveting cereal-based news today, it was recently announced that Black Bottle Brewing went to a local Fort Collins grocery store and bought up every last box of the limited Count Chocula cereal.

In a state barely recovering from the legalization of marijuana sales, this came as a complete shock to the lethargic residents of Fort Collins. “We had just finished loading up our Subaru Forester for a bouldering trip when we heard the news,” local resident Carol Jennings noted. “At first I was afraid it was going to be our Whole Foods, but then I remembered that Count Chocula had processed caramel dyes, synthetic marshmallows rendered from horse hooves and polymer cocoa starches, so I knew the Whole Foods was safe. I put on my Vibrams and ran out the door just to make sure.” The local drum circle participants from Stewart Case Park expressed stern disapproval of Black Bottle Brewing’s baleful actions. “Count Chocula is about freedom, like the freedom to eat 50g of sugar to start your day and this brewery is just here harshing everyone’s mellow, typical corporate move, we’re just tryna dab it out here,” park resident Jacob “Cruncher” Balmsly noted.

When asked for comment the representative from Black Bottle Brewing, manager Stever Marrick, appeared unapologetic and noted, “listen, it’s a free country okay? If you want to eat several bowls of cereal and listen to Godspeed You Black Emperor, that’s fine but we have a god-given right to make adjunct beers laden with completely irrelevant fermentable materials. We need our sugars to be in the form of amorphous marshmallows and we need our corn pieces to have at one time kinda have resembled a fictional Count. What next, you gonna go tell Pipeworks Brewing ‘hey maybe you don’t need to make that Abba Zabba Brown ale?’ yeah I didn’t think so. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have wort to ruin.”

Despite this tragedy, the resilient residents of Fort Collins noted that they would press on. Dietician, Nancy Olmstead noted, “listen, if at the end of the day a brewery wants to make an absurd beer, that’s fine. There’s plenty of other ways to get sucrose and empty calories into your children at the top of the morning, there’s still plenty of Boo Berry on the shelf or, if you are punishing your child, Frankenberry works just as well.”

Stunned Fort Collins residents sat in disbelief staring at the parking lot for an uncomfortably long period of time.

At press time Black Bottle Brewing noted that they would be pilot brewing a batch BlaeooBaerry and that no box of Boo Berry was safe from the ever-grinding maw of their insatiable grain mill.

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@geneseebrewery Genesee Cream Ale, finally gonna review this touchstone that Atlantic tickers been creaming their jeans over.

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It is 76 degrees in October, time to put on a screen printed tank top and review some salt of the earth staples from the other coast. This is one of those Yuengling-tier items that people swear by and will shiv you with a sharpened Oral B if you attempt to take it down a peg.

So how is this beer really? Is it all nostalgia predicated on heritage, like the way people act like they enjoy Jenna Jameson videos when the smut industry has evolved in the passage of countless straight to DVD releases. This is admittedly a pretty beer, golden pilsner aspect to it, a radiant brassiness that would shoulder lovingly into any bbq buffet in a backyard with an above ground pool. Like that guy who works in shipping and doesn’t give a single fuck if you don’t like his demeanor, this beer has a certain brashness in the packaging and stripped down aspect.

This is as reductionist as beer gets and it takes a certain soul to appreciate it. If you see a roll caged crx and think ” good for him” you will dig this. It has a lightly sweet honey to the nose, some pear, the esters are a touch in the realm of baked corn but not exactly DMS to the fullest. Hops are saaZ or some place holding zero and don’t play a real part in this production.

The taste is pretty okay, again sweet and a little bit of waxiness to the swallow that finishes clean but nothing really stands out to make you say “oh fuck, if you don’t try this, your life will be forever flawed.” If you have ever been to Enterprise and they assign you a Chevy Cruze or something like that you know what I mean. This beer is present and accounted for on all aspects and glosses over the areas where it could make a statement in lieu of guaranteeing it’s place in office.

I can only assume this is like $2.00 a can and, from that standpoint, it represents a noble and exceptional offering. I would pair this with lawn darts or give it to David Chang and watch the precum webs spin as he effortlessly paired it with a $35 bowl of peasant ramen.

If you haven’t had this beer, you still probably have. It is the base upon which all else is built, the power chord of beers, the Ramones of the ale world that some can overlook in lieu of some apeshit prog rock lambic. That doesn’t diminish this beer’s charm, but it doesn’t make it add any depth either.

At the end of the day, the Raiders are gonna lose and your children will come to hate Sundays.

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@crookedstave Petite Sour Passion Fruit, a gentle if not forgettable wild addition to CS’s stellar quiver of ever-increasing musky arrows.

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Let’s set the record straight, this is a very tasty beer. It is understated and demure like Banana Republic neutral basics you can always turn to regardless of the capricious winds of couture. That being said, it lacks that crimping point for those sour boulderers who want something to latch onto in a flavor profile. It isn’t exceedingly sour, nor does it jam your bung with fruits. It exhibits a faint chalky musky like gypsum and twine but that isn’t the real star either.

This is the beverage equivalent of an ensemble movie where all the parts are well oiled and you can crush the gentle acidity and mango water with rapacious delight. If you need a title character and hated Crash and Magnolia, maybe this isn’t for you. You can always go drink flaming fury if you want to point at something. This is moving in it’s simplicity and if you have ever suffered through a lecture from someone really into Vienna lagers, they will tell you endlessly that the clean simplicity is the hardest task in brewing.

Except in this case we aren’t addressing pedestrian smoked pilsners, we are talking about entering the sour octagon and getting Vaseline rubbed on your broken wounds. Is this good? Sure. Is it fantastic? I guess it depends on if you like outside stimulation or deep penetration. It is a soft fruity hug where the middles don’t touch, but you know it means it.

You can do far worse, but perhaps you could drink Brett d or grand cru and do far better as well.

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Str8 lounging.

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Four Roses single barrel, Skulled the entire bottle solo boss p0urz

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As far as bourbons go , this has an intensely bright and fruity profile bleeding bruised peach, plums, pluot, and a Carmelized fig, waft will water your eyes with a deep rip but has a great cream of wheat burnt brown sugar and the slightest hint of oak.

It’s easy to see why this hits the taste and flavor g spot without pushing into the back wall, causing discomfort in either realm

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Ithaca Luminous, a gently tart crackly lil Brett beer that is a fond throwback to the Brutey days of yore.

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This is essentially Brute 10 calorie edition. All the things you love with the volume turned down, nice Brett L tartness, mild acidity, light citrus and Brett B musk all wrapped up in a clean easy to drink package.

It makes me miss Brute more than anything, back in 2010 when that used to be considered a wild ale, now brewers would probably just call it a saison and give zero fuxx.

Luminous is pretty tasty tho, worth your time and consideration.

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@alsofhamden Pizza Boy Brewing Absacio cell, dude have you guys even seen The Cell, Jennifer Lopez is amazing.

pizza Boy Brewing, those elusive minxes who for so long disallowed offsite bottles, well now we knock out another one of these tiny run bottles AT HOME.

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The carb on this beer sizzles and immediately dissipates leaving you with an essentially flat beer that is intensely lactic and acidic on the nose like fresh cut apricot and peeled tangerines. The carb would help ratchet back some of the acrimonious tartness but thankfully this is not an especially complex beer and drinks easy with a thin dry mouthfeel like angry Chardonnay pricking the gum line playfully. As it warms there is a tropical fruit and a sort of 1D type of beatification , like if beat were a table beer.

Ultimately it gives with one drinkable hand and takes with a rapacious lack of complexity hand. What a horrible metaphor. This seems like it would be a fantastic base for fruited variants but seems incomplete, like buying a Mitsubishi Mirage and wishing it were an Evo. Some things need a touch of power panache or poise, not that this beer necessarily lacks any, but it fails to move me beyond the subcompact realm.

I need that Permasmile, obviously.

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DDB Nukes them PA beers, gotta nuke something.

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Upland Brewing Company Announces Bold New “Expectation Society”

Associated Press
Indianapolis, Indiana

Upland Brewing Company is no stranger to delivering consumers exactly what they want. From their celebrated diverse sour program replete with authentic lambics, nuanced fruited wilds, and universally celebrated Russian Imperial stout program: these Indiana brewers know how to satisfy the most demanding beer palate. Their new Secret Barrel Society is no exception:

http://uplandbeer.com/2015-secret-barrel-society-memberships/

Expectation Society also includes brick and mortar location to pick up purchased beers, for no extra charge.

Expectation Society also included brick and mortar location to pick up beers at, for no extra charge.

In an unprecedented move, early last week Upland announced a bold new secret society, only clandestinely made available to public on a website via press release. “Upland was formed by a glacier, that’s always been our motto, but we don’t intend on moving at a glacier’s pace, probably much faster even,” noted President Douglas Dayhoff after consulting an excel spreadsheet, “our sour program is definitely faster than a glacier.” We were allowed to tour the spacious Indianapolis facility where Dayhoff explained the innovative new program. “Everywhere in Indiana you hear people expecting things, in our brewpub you hear things like ‘I hope local home prices don’t continue to fall’ and ‘God I pray these Pacers get their shit together this year’ and that means one thing: Upland customers love expecting things,” Dayhoff noted as he slipped on a neoprene hazmat suit to enter the brushed aluminum Sour Containment Room, “you’re gonna wanna put the goggles on, the beer will burn your eyes even through the barrels.”

While surveying the intensely acidic potations slowly eating through the oak vessels, Dayhoff explained why hope was such a critical part of Upland’s business model, “we didn’t want to be like all those other breweries that accept upwards of $300 and then just give the consumer beer in return. Where’s the hope in that? Where is the romance? Sounds more like a transaction to me, and that simply is not the Upland way.” Upland’s business model has long been predicated on carnival games, raffles and parlor tricks. “We initially loved the idea of raffling off every beer needlessly, but then we started exploring retail models like throwing a ping pong ball into a fishbowl, knocking over Upland bottles with a softball, things of that nature, but they didn’t prove stable enough for a true reservation society.” Shortly after the polyurethane gloves began to bubble after handling some of Upland’s young lambic, we were led to the marketing strategy room. “What we ultimately decided to sell to the consumer, at the very fair price of $250.00, was the right to hope to be able to pay for a beer at a later date.”

Upland brewers hard at work crafting that authentic Pajontenland lambiek

Upland brewers hard at work crafting that authentic Pajontenland lambiek

The bold new strategy left many market analysts dumbfounded and perplexed that they had not thought of monetizing expectation based transactions earlier. “Now instead of entering a lottery or guessing the number of marbles in a jar to earn the right to buy an Upland beer, we cut that right out with a $250.00 membership which then allows you to give us money. It is exceedingly innovative and the perfect way to distribute our iconic ph2.0 libations to the public,” Dayhoff noted as he administered alkaline tablets to brewer, Pete Batule, as he lay on a cot with occupational GERD.

To ensure that the Upland consumer got the maximum amount of expectation per Expectation Society membership, they have guaranteed the right to pay for AT LEAST 100 Upland sour bottles with each membership. “It really wouldn’t surprise me if some people bought multiple memberships to ensure the right to pay Upland as much money as possible, Indiana residents are no dummies and love paying for the right to expect things,” Dayhoff nodded confidently while monitoring bright red litmus strips. “One red-faced patron Bloomington patron even asked me at our pub, ‘at least tell me I can come here to pick up the beers, please dont ship them, my home life is so sad I-‘ and I couldn’t help but feel for him, so every member will not be inconvenienced with having them shipped within the state to their doorstep, unlike some OTHER barrel programs.”

Nearing the end of the tour Dayhoff directed us to the gift shop and looked lovingly over the shelves of Upland branded merchandise, “this stuff practically sells itself I tell ya. Well I mean, it kinda does when we force the consumer to take it with their $250.00 membership, I mean look at this glass! That’s gotta be worth something right?” Dayhoff quipped and stared at the goblet for an uncomfortably long period of silence, brow furrowed.

"I will prolly buy a couple memberships for tradebait," noted local resident, Daniel Rosenbalm

“I will prolly buy a couple memberships for tradebait,” noted local resident, Daniel Rosenbalm

“One ex-employee noted that ‘Hey maybe actually sell the consumer some beer for upwards of three benjamins, I mean Upland is a brewery, right?’ and I mean, he was subsequently terminated for poor performance, but it got us to thinking. So in addition to the mountains of literally imaginary benefits already conferred, I also put this spicy little rider into the Expectation Society: ‘Other awesome events and benefits we decide to add on, spuriously and with adequately questionable notice, throughout the year for members.’ So if the first deluge of expectation and hope wasn’t enough, HANG ON COLTS FANS, a full year of mysterious hope COMPLETE WITH YOUR MEMBERSHIP!” Dayhoff noted walking around the parking lot, taking in the majesty of the local flora and fauna.

At the conclusion of the interview one employee slid a piece of paper into our hands which noted:

http://uplandbeer.com/about/secret-barrel-society/ ….. shhhhh”

and insisted that the society was of the utmost secrecy.

We will continue to update the consumer as more expectations become available.