Yearly Archives: 2014

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LOL at the butthurt regarding Bruery’s full disclosure about these infected porters.

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So the Bruery announced today that their imperial porter collaboration with 3 Floyd’s might be infected, and basements shook with rage as sausage fingers pounded on their COMPAQ keyboards.

Some would call this entitlement, people being pissed about not getting their money’s worth out of a $300 – $700 club, and that’s fine, but you also joined a $700 club for beer, so I am pretty sure you lost your 14th amendment privileges at that point.

Others might think that this boils down to some crazy profiteering, from a brewery openly acknowledging flaws with their product…and warning their customers…before it is released for sale. I can’t really address that without colorful pie charts and clips from Yo Gabba Gabba, so I will move on.

I like the fact that, were this released the other way around, 3 floyds would have tossed it into their generic 750mls, hand numbered it, charged $50, used a lottery system, then later not used any lottery system and just sold it at the brewpub, and then ignored patron’s complaints after the fact when it was discovered that they sold a clearly infected beer at a huge markup.

oh and Indiana traders would ask for V012, etc.

Thank God we avoided that result.

I guess you could try and have a field day complaining about QC, but the Bruery was upfront about it, like a classy escort that lets you know she has HSVII but she is not currently shedding. And like a classy escort, knocks a few bucks off the fees.

If you don’t feel like doming a 15% porter within a couple of months, maybe you are a raging pussy? Maybe let the real drinkers pass through while you as picking up scattered Midols all over the ground.

sometimes i ask, "WHY WOULD I WANT TO SEE THIS SHIT?"

sometimes i ask, “WHY WOULD I WANT TO SEE THIS SHIT?”

I think we can all agree: yes it is shitty that the porters became infected. Here are a few solutions used by other breweries:

1) “we pasteurize the beer, sell it online in a fire sale, don’t make enough for even half of our reserve members” – Cigar City rocked this amazing strategy and people were still drinking their cum off of glass plates. It sold out instantly.

2) “Don’t tell them, maybe they wont know, we cant be responsible for beer held over time” this is the usual whipping post for smaller breweries that have zero fucks to spare. Dark Horse rocks this shit all the time, changes a label a bit here and calls it a day. SOUR OLD ALE YOU SAY? SIGN ME UP.

3) “We are gonna sell this beer, if people don’t like it, allow them to potentially abuse our marketing department and do a full refund across the board.” This is classy as fuck, but not really realistic. Bruery did this for Cacaonut and the other beers and people not only rocked full refunds, but then still bitched about how they could spend their refunds for beers they may have enjoyed or traded away. CCB pulled this white knight move for Huna day and you can basically do anything short of lighting pug puppies on fire as long as you have an apology like this. Noble, but expensive as fuck.

4) “OUR BEERS ARE NOT INFECTED, that BA Stout is supposed to taste like merlot and have a 5 finger head.” This is a classic move from the smallest of breweries, it essentially shifts the onus onto the customer for buying them in the first place. I love this one the most. YOU DONT LIKE THAT FUNKY BUDDHA BOTTLE WELL MAYBE BEERS ARENT MEANT TO BE DRANK OVER 5 WEEKS AFTER RELEASE? Basically shaming people for not drinking things immediately is dope as fuck. A certain East County San Diego brewery might be implicated in this cadre as well.

5) “This is potentially infected, sorry in advance, no refunds but at least we are dealing it straight.” I remember this going down with Hellshire II and we had the same bowlegged sore nutsacks complaining. I prefer this approach the most: you wanna spin the black circle? God ahead, we warned you.

you could complain about shit, or you can look at this pic of baby otters. choice is yours.

you could complain about shit, or you can look at this pic of baby otters. choice is yours.

So is a brewery to do? For every million they make, more complaints ensue. I guess the underlying moral is that complaints from husky beer nerds are kinda like hearing sobbing from attendees at the Farscape/Babylon 5 convention: literally no one gives a fuck about them. This is the razor edge of 1 percenters in a hobby predicated on consumables. Until there is craft ice, this is the absolute nadir of hobbies and I will continue to treat them as such.

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@drugstorebrewer Ale Apothecary Triple Scissor Shootout: Those sub-300 bottle count bangers, for the haters.

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Slowly but surely, beta tickers are starting to turn off their Tae Bo tapes and now are discovering saisons. As much as I didn’t want this to happen, like those first tufts of curlies, all those baby 2012 bitches are taking those wobbly farmhouse steps, jingling daddy’s Wallonia keys. I guess this was the logical extension of waiting on kids who were all about Black Note and KBS last year, now they have a litany of ultra-lactic, wild, high abv super saisons at their disposal and suddenly we have a new crop of saison masters.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those same weak peninses who thought saisons were all Hennepin and Red Barn suddenly are flexing their traps in the yard, tryna run shit. I am fine with that because I let my Biere De Garde lats swole like bat wings. So what is the deal with all these small run saisons that push the inner butthole of the American Wild Ale game? Cory King is kicking out these 400 bottle runs monthly and now has main bitches and side bitches in his Sidekick. Chase started crushing up lines of Caravienna on a CD case and letting tickers wipe it on they gums now guess who is hooked?

Today I wanna holler at these mountainous farmhouse purveyors up in Oregon. I picture head brewer, Paul Arney, doing burpees and deep dips in a hollow out spruce coolship, cooking up these super saisons turned wild ales, working on his chest piece. So it wasn’t like their “normal” lineup of Sahalie and…uh…La Tache I guess, were easy to come by. Those were already like 700 bottle runs and asspensive. So I moaned initially at the idea of having to seek out their LIMITED shit. The waiting list for their AA club is over a year long and I don’t have that kinda patience. Luckily, the PNW traders are staggeringly charitable and hooked it up.

Today we will be counting down the recent limited Ale Apothecary releases, RANKING THEM, and tossing beats along the way. Because I am not writing no 2700 words with narratives and shit.

THIRD PLACE:

We are not the same, I am a Martian, approach these cellar doors with caution

We are not the same, I am a Martian, approach these cellar doors with caution


The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | ABV 9% (handwritten, hard to see?)

Why is this a bitch:
270 bottles produced
Ale Club members will receive theirs automatically, leaving “100-150 up for grabs”
No bottles will be available for public retail sales

– Alright first and foremost this is by no means a “bad beer.” Not unlike the Blind BABW tasting results the competition is fierce because we are talking about top tier super saysuns/AWAs. I initially opened this super cold because I had carbonic acid issues with MASSIVE carb and gushing. It’s like AA takes a page from old Logsdon on their attenuation swag. This spill out as lively as Champagne and just sits soapy with a thick domeshot of Palmolive bubbles.

This is strange, but you welcome it lovingly. RIEEEECHARD PARKER farmhouse swagger.

This is strange, but you welcome it lovingly. RIEEEECHARD PARKER farmhouse swagger.

– This beer is just too. fucking. sour. I know some people do naked diamond pushups and call me a pussy but the lactic profile coupled with the low ph, intense dryness, and crackly overcarbing just makes this hard for the 750ml trudge. I mean, I still finished it and really enjoyed it but god damn, it’s like going to Mormon summer camp, just running your mouthraw with that farmhouse heavy petting. This has a tart bouquet of tangerine, light bitterness like orange pith, grapefruit juiciness, and a closer that is bittering like some of the Blaugies offerings. I still killed it, would love to try it again, but this is the least balanced and more extreme of their offerings. Still def. recommended.

SECOND PLACE:

IN CASE THINGS GET TOO EXTREME INSIDE THAT ARTISANAL KNOT WILL KEEP THE CORK IN PLACE

IN CASE THINGS GET TOO EXTREME INSIDE THAT ARTISANAL KNOT WILL KEEP THE CORK IN PLACE

The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | 10.70% ABV

Why people lose their shit over this:
SPENCER (The Dispenser of Provisions) is our annual fruit beer. In the early fall, we harvest wild blackcurrant fruit and add it to a batch of year-old SAHALIE. The sugars in the fruit produce another fermentation and the blackcurrant tannins create additional structure over the 8-month aging period. Prior to bottling, the beer is dry-hopped for a month in oak barrels. With close to 2 years in oak, Spencer has a much more developed Brettanomyces character than our other beers.
 Because of the extremely limited quantity of wild blackcurrant available, we produce only one oak barrel of Spencer every year. This beer is unlabeled and reserved exclusively for our Ale Club members.

This tart sniper looks inviting and will put you down just as fast

This tart sniper looks inviting and will put you down just as fast

– See all of that above? That reads like a romance novel for the modern beer trader. All those adjectives just create that perineum tingling that people who seek Raries just gotta have. I really enjoyed this beer and loved the riff on the same Ale Apoth offerings. This has even MORE absurd carbonation, on the same level of Sahati where you pour it and just stand back like “alright, enough already.” When this finally settles down it has a radiant golden, quasi turbid precious metal allure to it.

– This beer is less dry than Sahalien and is easily the most drinkable, the abv in all of these beers is laughably imperceptible but this one drinks like a belgian table beer and you could pull some PUNK’D stunts on your bisexual roomate with this sleeping beast. You get apricot, tart kumquat, there is light graininess to it and this would be the closest to the super saisons and less in the AWA realm. If you liked Fantome Extra Sour, you will really dig this beast. Again, highly recommended. Top tier, china white, not stepped on product.

WINRAR: THE BEER FORMERLY KNOWN AS LA TACHE AGED IN RUM BARRELS WITH WHITE PEACHES or “TBFKALTAIRBwWP” for short.

Prepare to not drink this beer. Fucking top tier AWA/Saison, whateveruwannacallit. It goes in hard. Multiple climaxes,

Prepare to not drink this beer. Fucking top tier AWA/Saison, whateveruwannacallit. It goes in hard. Multiple climaxes,

The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | ABV ?

WHY ARE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR SHIT:
First and foremost, I think La Tache got caught up in some petty wine litigation not unlike SUCABA, because now we have this disclaimer version. I can only speculate, but any way. The base beer was fucking awesome, then they RAR’ed it hard in rum barrels, then added the WHALEFRUIT: white peaches. I think this was a 230 bottle release with most of the bottles taken to the Second Annual Portland Wild Ale Festival. I think the AAclub members then got the chance to buy maybe one? If you areolas aren’t tingling then maybe you need to go back to drinking Colette.

This doesnt fit in AWA or Super Saisons, it just stunts hard as fuqqq

This doesnt fit in AWA or Super Saisons, it just stunts hard as fuqqq

– God damn, if this is the Goldlocks paradigm, TBFKALTAIRBwWP just tears it up and is “JUSSSST RIIIITE.” If Sahalien pulled your hair too hard, but Spencer wouldn’t talk dirty to you, this is just the right amount of wrong. The balance is incredible between the juice, acidity, funk, barrel, and laughably hidden abv. The carbonation is the most retrained out of any AA offering thus far, the hue is a perfect deep orange, slightly murky, that orange and pineapple ester profile just banging, peach jolly ranchers falling in but dropping a 2/4 acidic beat, not a sticky sweetness. The nose has a muskiness, light funk that is dominated in equal parts by the acidity and juiciness which wasn’t metabolized by that high ass attenuative yeast strain. This is like if Fou Foune and b1 Persica were all tongue kissing and you are peeping through a painting with the eyes cut out. It’s that decadent and tawdry, but so fulfilling.

– The taste is fucking phenomenal top to bottom and I would be surprised if this isn’t within the realm of DDB top beers of 2014. I really can’t offer many descriptors for improvement aside from a slightly sweet cloying aspect at higher temps, light fusel presence in the low 60’s, and other nit picky shit. But in all honesty, the fruit interplay with the acidic tannic finish and caramel underpinnings of the rum barrel make for a peach jubilee that is both dry but assertive, juicy but gentle, you can take her to your parents but also pull her weave.

This is the real deal, through and through. Cannot recommend highly enough. Now I will never try this shit again because asshole DDB readers always ruin it for me on the ISO;FT boards.

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WHAT IS THE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BOMB AND BIBLE BELT: An inquiry into synthetic knowledge

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I have gotten this question a few times and figured since I finally stopped fucking around and ticked Bible Belt, I would address this once and for all.

First and foremost, this is Bomb! (mandatory exclamation point, like P!nk)

HANDS UP IF YOU LIKE ADJUNCT STOUTS WE ROLLIN DEEP IN THAT VIP

This set the world on fire last year and was touted as being an “off-shelf Huna” which is largely true, because Huna should have been off-shelf in the first place. That’s like saying “Holy shit I got laid at a Gundam convention and didn’t even have to pay for it.” If you are dropping 12,000+ bottles, put that shit in distro already, stop torturing the latently racist Floridian populace. Alas I digress.

Whichever one you choose you are going in deep on that 13% adjunct swerve

Whichever one you choose you are going in deep on that 13% adjunct swerve

So this is an adjunct heavy imperial/chili stout with coffee, cocoa nib, vanilla bean and chili. I know what you are thinking “where the fuck is the coconut?” well you can’t get every adjunct in one stout, them’s the rules. So I already noted that this beer is awesome and better than Huna in my full review this was well-tread ground. They ended up making batch after batch of this, showing that Cgiar City has been twisting some cocks for quite some time now.

BUT THEN EVIL TWIN COMES ALONG.

Evil Twin is a band of vagrant European pikers who squat in established breweries and turn out fantastic/overpriced/sometimes shitty beers. Jeppe balls the fuck out, opened a bottleshop, brewed, and was discovered by Brian from 12% Imports. The owner, Brian, was like “Hey Jeppe, what’s ur fukn dream?”

Jeppe was like “I think my dream is endless actually.”

Then the dudes at Prairie were like “hey we already have this wildly successful stout from last year, wanna take your base beer and basically rebrew it with a different label?”

and Jeppe was like “I am definitely one of the most adventurous people that I know.” [FN1 – http://craftbeercoach.com/brewery-biography-jeppe-jarnit-bjergso-of-evil-twin-brewing/%5D

Chase was like “that’s chill as fuck, grab that mash paddle, Captain Adventure.”

So essentially, Jeppe is not a “brewer” per se, he is an intellectual property generator, a recipe creator, a flavor alchemist, a Danish twin who will grind your palate like a fresh sybian on the highest setting.

If you skull a few of these, you will probably end up in deep shit

If you skull a few of these, you will probably end up in deep shit

So what the fuck is Bible Belt then?

A RADICAL DEPARTURE FROM A PRE-EXISTING BEER

A RADICAL DEPARTURE FROM A PRE-EXISTING BEER

So the base beer is different, but with a similar abv, and similar adjuncts cacoa nibs, chilies, vanilla, and chocolate. So one has coffee another has chocolate, “WHICH WON IS FUKN BETTER THO DDB?”

Even More Jesus has a slightly thicker consistency, coats a bit better, and ratchets the chilis back. Bomb is more akin to Huna where the adjuncts seem to be on full display with chilis and the coffee notes taking top billing. I prefer Bible Belt, but again this is like preferring a Camaro to a Challenger, it’s the same full throttle balls to the wall imperialism you are expecting, just with minor nuances. I wish I had more to say about this but that’s the long and the short of it. Maybe when I get my online Certified Beer Server certification I will have more adjectives for you.

The short answer: they are pretty fucking similar. That is to say, two amazing offshelf beers that are quickly becoming the Dogecoin of the beer trading world. “BA Derk Lerd? That will be 8 bottles of Bible Belt/Bomb.”

Seek them both out, or wait until Huna hits distro next year and give up 2x$4$ brewery-only releases to Tampa traders. Either way.