Hangar 24 Brewery, middle of the desert, CA

7% abv, sour ba blonde with blueberries

Alright so if you signed up for the Hangar 24 barrel roll club then you received a single 12oz bottle of this single barrel banger with your $300 membership. None were sold to the public SO IT MUST BE SUPER DANK THEN. 

If you have been paying attention, puga Royale has been killing the trade boards creeping up like a silent specter, the NECKBEARDS are ever wary of California stouts but it appears to have breached the firmament: but can H24 do the same thing with their wild ale program?

I’m finna twist UR berries bruh.

The beer pours on point with deep hues of violet, fuschia, magenta, and off pink foam that crackles yet subsides. It is an admittedly pretty beer and my nuva ring is pounding inside of my Lululemon pants.

I flexed my traps and waited for the acetic aspect that blueberry beers can generate (see: upland blueberry) but it never comes. There is a tannic blueberry skin like chiraz meets Yankee candle. There’s a lemony acidity present and the blonde ale base has not been wrangled and peeks out with tangerine and Chardonnay oak much in the way every lost Abbey sour blonde exhibits that samey albeit exceptional tart nose.

The taste opens dry with a farmers market berry skin quality that lacks the jamminess of say VSB but never falls into an intense tartness like Cascade Blueberry/Beauregarde. The fruit is more tasty as it warms and the 50 degree intended serving temp has got to be a punchline caveat against attenuation as this beer is far more exceptional as it warms.

The Smuckers preserves never fully emerge, but it doesn’t seem to be aiming to lean heavily on the fruit and instead delivers an oaky tartness like fundip and 0% stainless Riesling. Sure it is sour but, I drank an entire pint with ease, ZFG 0/0 on the ragret index.

If I had to find something in the same vein I would say this is executed akin to Allagash Lil Sal but since, that too, was like 300 bottles, analogues aren’t much help and you’ll need to blaze your own trading trail of you really want to toss your hat in the “exceptional blueberry awa” realm. It could use a touch more Greek yogurt body and I would have liked a more pronounced Brett C character to balance out fruity skins but that’s me being a demanding prick over and above any real flaws in the beer itself. It’s like a more complex version of Brett d or blueberry, I AM TRYING MY BEST HERE. I can find analogues if you haven’t tried shit. Get your voltron up.

This is absolutely worthy of your attention as well done blueberry beers are the exception not the rule with many lactose fisted Brewers these days. If you enjoyed chandelle, consider this the ‘merica Blabaer to that SHASTA foune. The 12oz bottle is as frustrating as Silver Surfer for the NES because you won’t want to share it but the cost of entry almost precipitates it.

If you are skeptic, wait for those airtight single digit BA reviews to pour in, I find those exceptionally helpful in calibrating my palate. A FOOLPROOF PREDICTOR OF VALUE.

About to peel out like Wedgehead on his cross country drunk driving Shocktop tour.

I be in the kitchen cookin pies with my baby

There are rare beer releases LITERALLY every single weekend (sometimes even during the weekdays, if you are talking uber whales!). People will line up INSOUCIANTLY just to obtain bottles of the sweet nectar, sometimes even to be trading them later for other beers that also can be rare or more rare but not in every case being less forthright(!)

Here are 21 pics that ONLY someone who went to a BEER RELEASE will understand, THESE ARE WAY TOO REAL!

#21

THE FOLDING CHAIR: it becomes ur best friend LOL

#20

That time there were NO folding chairs and you had to stand in front of the liquor store OMG

#19

That time you were behind someone’s GIRLFRIEND when she got the last massive whale offshelf/distributed to countless states

#18

Lining up in front of a huge retailer and neglecting friends and family for a bottle you intend to trade away at a premium AMIRITE?

#17

Making friends4lyfe after passive aggressively complaining about line cutting for 4 hours.

#16

Getting inside the bottle release only to realize that you are accidentally hanging out in an abandoned industrial park for no reason

#15

Laying on the freezing concrete to drive up bottle values with tales of misfortune

#14

Doing depression era bank runs on breweries to obtain bottles that will see distribution a few days later (FOR THE EXTRAS 2 TRADE!!!)

#13

Having 2 many tasters in line then needing to sell bottles on MBC to make bail, LOL WHOOPS!

#12

LITTERING: because fuck these places for making you wait in line in the first place AMIRITE

#11

Giving yourself chondromalacia standing in line for a style of beer you don’t even enjoy or buy off the shelf. OUCH!

#10

Forcibly listening to a 58 year old man in a Tommy Bahama shirt tell you about real ale and all the ESBs that he has logged into untappd. AWKWARDDD!!!

#9

Standing in line for HOURS only to realize you are actually at a human rights protest LOL WHOOPS!

#8

Taking pics of BARRELS while waiting in line, who cares what’s in them, THIS ONE IS GOING ON INSTAGRAM!

#7

When the FUZZ shows up to hassle you for being redfaced, stumbling, with an open growler of barrel-aged barleywine at 10am. WHAT GIVES?!

#6

When you show up and the line isn’t even that long and u kno u can DOUBLE DIP (aka that DUBBEL DIP!)

#5

When they drop the bottle limits and you know your pre-trades are gonna fall through, so you start screaming out of entitlement, WE HAVE ALL BEEN THERE

#4

Buying several disguises to get around the 1 per person limits. LOL THESE BREWERS ARE DUMB!

#3

Trying to wash the X off your hand but it wont come off so you only get one allocation 😦

#2

Getting ur SICK WHALES back home and then hand waxing them because you have no intention of drinking them for years, despite the fact that they are released every year. SCORE!

#1

Logging all those 1oz pours into Untappd before losing consciousness on the pavement in the parking lot. CLASSIC

DONT FORGET TO VOTE FOR DDB: number one source of beer news, on Saveur HERE:

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(I AM NUMBER SIX, vote please if you want more award winning content like this. otherwise we will probably just shut down k thnx)

There is something inherently hard wired into baby palates that creates an aversion to tequila barrels. The initial prospect always generates this close minded revulsion amongst a cadre who were drinking Rogue offerings just two years prior. This is yet another release from Voodoo that seeks to challenge these prejudices. The entirety of their recent releases were novel riffs that are iconoclastic and exceptional in execution. Notwithstanding, sometimes being an excellent brewer is not enough to overcome the challenges attendant to the flavor profile itself. Voodoo unquestionably has a magnificent barrel  program, but can they turn the tides on this controversial style?

The answer is a resounding “ehhhh kinda?” The beer looks pleasant enough, has billowing carb that clings lovingly. The nose has wafts of agave nectar, a sort of honey sweetness, and intense waves of pencil shavings, shop class, sawdust and lingering oak. Sometimes you read “super aged” bourbon reviews like elijah Craig 23, old blowhard, etc and bloggers will get all achy and sad complaining of the wood profile. Them entry level tastebuds want the sweet, the predictable, easily apprehendable caramel and vanilla. 

This is very much not that.

Low counts won’t convert stubborn NECKBEARDS with preconceived notions of taste.

The taste is challenging and the sweet elements clang noisily against the resounding wood aspects. It is far from the less that was Roble Blanco and is even far from offensive. Brewers walk a fine line with attempting to push beer into those tequila pokeballs. It isn’t a harsh or firey scratchiness, and it even has elements of balance between the honey sweetness and dry toasted wood.

That being said, most of those dinero nuevo ballers will operate on their preconceptions make a pussy face with a 1 ounce pour. It is well executed but takes a swing at huge opposition.

A girl can date the most interesting pen tester ever, but in the end that off putting antisocial undercurrent shows through and no one can take a counter programmer is sessionable doses.

lines in the water, predatory clickbait engage

DDB is in the running for the best beer blog in the entire world of gourmands.  If you know what MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY IS, then you probably have such a fat throbber right now.

I would ask you to vote for old subbydoo, but since you have to log into Saveur, and I know my readerbase doesn’t even buy conditioner, so there’s no way that is happening.

http://www.saveur.com/content/blog-awards-2015-vote?dom=beer&src=2015blogbadge

DDB as a site is nothing but a pile of self-aggrandizing stinkbait

Behold, the shittiest beer that Crooked Stave has ever released. Look upon it in solemn contemplation and reflect upon cherry mixed with stale coffee grounds.

If you are already on the fence regarding dark sours, bail now. This is like the optional dungeon hunt that will tear you limb from limb. I am talking Demon Souls difficulty curve. 

It is bone dry, nimble and opens with intensely sour cherry skins that tingle along the gumline like those acetic caged and corked la folies from the 2000s. That dryness paved the way for this acrimonious coffee ground flavor running in tossing Semtex and leveling what is left. Finally when the tastebud residents are crawling out of the tart bitter rubble, cocoa nib bombers firebomb the back palate with a bitter chocolate sweetness. Palate war never changes.

I don’t understand what this was going for, it starts off like consecration and closes like Chocolate Rain, ne’er should the two be wed. It isn’t a poorly made beer in the way that Jackie Brown isn’t a poorly made movie: there is evidence of genius and mastery that bungles all the details. The end result is a low point in an otherwise stellar lineup of offerings. 

To be fair two other “normal” people  (ie no man tits, not obsessed with sugar water) loved this beer. Like a mimosa sipping Lululemon undergrad, I JUST CANT EVEN

Don’t Act like you aren’t buy curious. 

Such a fantastic beer and gosh darn it if it isn’t the same pedigree as the regular HF lineup. 

Oh sorry it is a golden sour. Not like it would matter, it’s your basic well done exceptional borderline awa, and then with a certain grassiness on the finish.

Thinkin out loud, I must have a hundred new ticks in the cellar right now.

Crooked stave suffering from consistency and predictably tasty beers albeit cloistered within the confines of that porsche single stunning genre. If you drive a four door porsche you are probably an asshole, if you want a crooked stave stout, you are probably an asshole.

17.5 same color t shirt, sippin stouts in that black and orange charger call that a trick or treat

It strikes that impeccable balance of drinkability, complexity, light cheesiness, and faint acidity that only the likes of Ann, Art, older tomes and top tier Saisons hit.

This may be the best saison made on the west coast at this time.