Brewers should be encouraged to experiment. You wanna put Jicama in a Dortmunder? Fucking go for it. Peanut butter and Sriacha cask? By all means, you do you. The one thing brewers should not do is pass off horrible beer as either 1) intentionally sour 2) CUTTING EDGE or 3) a mystified ancient style that they are doing you a favor by unearthing. This somehow covers a bit of ground in each category. A SOUR OLD ALE: the style no one has ever asked for, returns to us in today’s review and holy balls is it horrible.
Two years ago, another Michigan brewery tried to pass this shit off on us when Dark Horse dropped their own SOUR OLD ALE> https://dontdrinkbeer.com/2013/02/08/dark-horse-three-guys-off-the-scale-sour-version-apparently-if-you-ruin-beer-you-can-just-call-it-sour-version/
So maybe people who live in bleak perpetual winter most of the year actually like this style, who knows. Let’s fall down the sour staircase and get some internal old ale bleeding in today’s painful review.
Midwest taster glass in full effect, and even that pour was too much.
Kuhnhenn Old Village Stock Ale
Sour Old ale (?) 14.2% abv
A: This looks fine I suppose, you might even squint and trick yourself into believing that this is a regular BB4d, those muddy lakewater notes on full puddle swerve. The carb is legit for the abv and massive nature of the beer, appearances cant set forth the palate terror to which your facehole will be subject.
Popping this solo before nestling in for a marathon of Franklin and Bash.
S: At first smell, there is a twinge of hope, caramel, molasses, and OH FUCK IS THAT ROTTING CITRUS? What is going on with my old al- oh god its red wine vinegar, followed by an acetic filthy grapefruit in tow. The closer is the sweet peanut brittle, albeit dipped in solvent. You know shit isn’t going to go well from here.
DDB will continue to scour the planet to review shitty beers for your amusement
T: Like the reversed call against the poor Cowboys, this shit is a pathetic travesty of a once proud heritage. How do you pull BB4d down a peg? This is a fantastic demonstration at how tenuous the life of a beer can be, snuffed out with bacteria and off flavors like an orderly pressing a sour pillow over a struggling patient. If you loved the creme brulee and toffee aspects of BB4d, wait until you add stomach bile and orange juice burp into the mix. If you get through half a bottle of this, you should get a text from Guy Fieri for self flaggelation by way of the mouth zone. Nothing works and you feel like a French soldier shivering in a trench at the battle of the Marne, wondering where the BB4d went, dreaming of times past, thinking about simpler days before everything was ruined.
M: This is bone dry, crisp and only serves to highlight all of the awful things attendant to the actual flavor. If a loud venue can make a blind date less creepy, this is a blind date in absolute silence, in a police interrogation room, for your palate. There is no escape and you are gonna do some hard time.
MFW someone offers me a 14% abv SOUR old ale.
D: I cant really quantify exactly how shitty this is with the adjectives and words at my disposal and I can only LOL that this is classified as a “GOOD” beer on BA. In fact it has an 84, just one point below The Bros review of Fou Foune. I am clearly not cicerone enough to appreciate this heap of lukewarm gastritis discharge.
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