Six new ticks

Didn’t see no wires

Then I smelled hops

Out them clarifiers

  
No one will get this

No one will laugh

No one will get laid

Fuck beer festivals

Some students from the Austin Independent School District drew the DDB Banner.

There is a rad charity raffle and opportunity to support them going on at Talkbeer right now, I strongly urge you to check it out. It may feel weird giving your money to a good cause and not a profiteering black market shitlord for once, but try.

http://www.talkbeer.com/community/threads/iso-donations-ft-lambic-beer-mead-awesome-student-drawings.33009/

Alternatively you can pay $90 for a spot in a 15 slot KBBS raffle, WHOOPS that one is all full, looks like you will have to make a meaningful change in a student’s life instead.

Like the changing of the leaves or snow runoff from the hills, my self-flagellation occurs every year after Dark Lord Day, as consistent as the 3pm stroll by Immanuel Kant.  While it make seem like I am intentionally throwing myself on the pyre and complaining about the chafing flames, I legitimately WANT these Dark Lord treatments to be good.

The whole experience is akin to seeing a trailer for a new Transformers movie, suspecting it will be completely shitty, but deep down HOPING it will defy your expectations.  Sauternes barrel aged Dark Lord is liquid synthetic CGI that is inorganic and repugnant to the senses and body alike.

GFCI outlets are the new toaster.

I realize that part of this disappointment is my own fault.  We all saw the list of potential bottles and guffawed like an 18th century barrister. We all knew that Dark Lord would be sticky sweet and underattenuated, as is tradition.  We all knew that putting it in a cloyingly sucrose dessert wine barrel wouldn’t IMPROVE the base beer, but I had no idea of the Lovecraftian depths that this cyclopean flavor hell could represent.

At the outset, the beer doesn’t pour out so much as it trudges, with a recalcitrant undulation into the glass.  This beer doesn’t want to be a part of this either.  It knows what it is and you are complicit for opening Trump and Pump in the first place. The carb is minimal and the lackluster presentation gurgles with hesitant fervor.  The blackness is like killing a Heartless in Kingdom Hearts, but then going DOWN ten levels as a result. I don’t know if disappointment is a valid option when expectations are more tapered than Pharrell’s pants.  Like a government employee, it showed up, and that’s about all you can honestly expect at this point.

The nose is actually the best part of this beer, and it is the selective 3 photo spread that makes you swipe right, only to find the possessive borderline personality within. The sticky taffy and burnt confectioner’s sugar is present, but at higher temps there is this legitimately lovely port meets ice wine sort of waft to the sweetness of the tannins mingling without compulsion.  It reminds me of the “not bone dry” versions of Gewurztraminers, in that is has a sickly white/green grape waft that somehow provides a prosecco/moscatal charm to it.  This is almost specifically geared towards the THOT/thirsty ratchet in the club, as the abv is masked entirely and even seventh graders would blanche at the overriding glucose character.

I can do all things through the Lord who is my strength, the taste though, fuck.  I once put a Tootsie roll in the microwave when I was younger and my dad should have spanked my ass stopsign red because it would let me know that this is a dangerous potation with which to tangle. The heft of this beer has no comparable analogue, even Double Black felt more nimble than this tank class.  However, unlike a tank spec, this beer cannot take or deal much damage simply because you get fatigued easily and early on by the waves of ever sweetening madness enveloping ever flavor zone.  Your bitter taste buds readily accept the c6H1206 refugees but soon are overcome by melted grape fruit roll ups, Bimbo pastelas, and a haunting chocolate syrup that overwhelms your taste infrastructure.  This pushes the limits in a way that betrays your humanity, it is a liquid snuff film, and the experience takes more away from you than you entered with.

The coating exceeds Robitussin in scope.  I don’t mean that in the way that a level 1 Cicerone lauds praise for new intense flavor profiles, I mean that it expands like mocha gelatin and seems to violate the law of conservation of matter: IT IS CREATING MORE DARK LORD IN YOUR MOUTH.  If you spread Welch’s jelly across a Hershey bar and then endeavored to consume it entirely, you will know the framework that this beer presents. Even in moderation, this blow any attempts at asceticism well outside the scope of the Aristotelian “Dark Lord Mean.”

I pushed my tongue forward through these chocolatey North Vietcong jungles of dessert wine nightmares.  I knew this struggle would be unwinnable, that the opposition in that hateful 750ml outmatched both my liver and pancreas.  With the fiercest of valor, I made it through 55% of the bottle and it took almost 90 minutes.  I have suffered through the Battle of Biggleswade and sustained heavy losses at the Moscatal Conflict, but this outflanked me in every way.  It wasn’t as off-putting in brute strength, but it was more of a violation because I felt like I could TRUST it more thoroughly. It had the cajoling caress of an abusive licorice lover, and every painful sip was my own shortcomings realized in the inky flavor.

I don’t like to reach for top shelf hyperbole merely to whip up exaggerations, a spinning stout bowtie, I demonstrate some prowess for imagery and we all maliciously high five: that is not my intent.  This beer is Dark Souls III difficult to finish, let alone reach a checkpoint.  It would be a vast understatement to classify it as a drainpour, because the inherent value is in the “test your might” sort of carnival game for your palate that this presents.  The sickening sweet wine profile is like dripping black novelty hammer you swing in front of a wholly disinterested Floyd carnie. They care not for your rebukes or calls of cheating, you paid to ride this hateful ride.  Every year patrons line up to dip cotton candy into brownie batter and act surprised when it doesn’t present some ambrosial treat.

In sum, I am to blame. The beer is unquestionably bad but I am a co-conspirator, an enabling felon through engagement.  To what extent should I myself be the object of derision for these constant assaults?  Three Floyds are well aware of what they are doing, I simply cannot determine if my tastebuds are the setup or the sick sweet punchline.

I try not to pander with abject hyperbole but, honestly, try to name another beer that is 1) canned and 2) as compelling as Sebago barleywine. 
 At this point someone will undoubtedly mention like BA ten Fidy or some treehouse shit, but let’s return to reality. In what realm do you exist where a barrel aged, multifaceted malt bomb is presented in aluminum confines? Even finding a barleywine in a can at all is remarkable, but to add layers of nougat and oaky depth, coupled with residual herbaciousness from faded hops and a baker’s cocoa closer: this is apeshit.

I wanted to include this in the old BLIND Ba barleywine shootout but didn’t have one on hand. This is a criminally overlooked gem that hovers somewhere in between Sucaba blended with Ba behemoth. Considering the latter sells for a comical $40.00/750ml, they could charge $12 a can for this and I would still be on board. 

The depth of the barrel is structured with a sweet but lightly bitter malty magnum/warrior type of fade. It’s a 2 guard on the sides but a blast of barrel driven length up top. 

I constantly count my blessings that the cadres of dessert stout dipshits have yet to unearth the majesty of old ales and barleywines, because that is the last thing this segment needs. I hope they continue to trade low and enjoy the sweet shade of less complex giants. I will sip Great with contempt and nod at the uninitiated in the rank and file plight, for they enlisted in a battle of brownie batter and candy aisle bullshit. Those who silently secret away bottles of Bbomb will rip their cap knowingly to Sebago and keep the tenants of this underground society within a clandestine lapel. 

If nothing else, buy a ton of these and take them out on the lake. Shit will get real very fast.

  
Stoked to see what David is up to after his studying at the now defunct Blue Lobster.

Can he rival their classic White Mountain Wheat? The bar has been set so high.

  
One of those nights.

  
I have a soft spot for a well made dorty. It is low key the best beer that Short’s makes, the Great Lakes version slays as well, and this might be the best I have ever had.

If you’re n00bing it hard, Moonlight brewing is not the meadery and actually they have been embroiled in a trademark dispute with those haters for a few years now. These are the Bay Area ballers that made the best Pilsner of all time: Reality Czech. I am not kidding. So if comes as no surprise that this dorty just crushes on many levels.

Aside from being beautiful with those brassy amber “petrified mosquito” Jurassic park tones, the nose is a gentle and subtle massaging of cut lawn grassiness and a cornbread sweetness that never swerves into the DMS lane. There’s a light minerality to the end of the nose like pumice that lets you know ur gonna drill this up in ur mouth no Novocain.

 
The taste is exceedingly refreshing with a watery mouthfeel, light bittnerness and fast swallow that makes pilsners seem hefty by contrast. The faintly herbal aspects make a dryness to the swallow the warrants another sip. The middle body of this beer has a light ritz cracker sweetness to it and you could drink gallons of this without pause.

In a world obsessed with barrel aged everything, 1.040 FG and ph 3.0, this is a marvelous example of how hard it is to tread with nuance and subtle intent. Moonlight thrives in this zone and brews like they have come straight from 1993.

Because they did.

  
Double Fuzzy Baby ducks and some custom Final Fantasy Six merch. What a time to be alive.

But what about the beer? This isn’t some manga stroke fest, if you want some 16 bit fap material this site will just make it take longer.

So on the face of things, abv, ibu, ICU, maltCU’s: this looks nominally double. It’s like if someone referred to their Camry as a DOUBLE COROLLA. Further damning is the fact that regular ass Fuzzy Baby Ducks is already so so so good. So why even bother with the QUASIDOUBLE? Well if you didn’t like the Societe-esque wiped out body of the original, this has a touch more of a two row ritz sweetness but nothing like the OG east coast malt bombs, just more “structure” if I were to cop some Som jargon.

The nose is intense in the realm of trillium’s finest and this beer stomps [politically correct]Bot to a degree that makes you wonder why this isn’t NeBco’s standard offering. It is lovingly danky but not to an off putting degree, the line between fragrant garlic and fresh kale is a good delineation for this boundary. Lemongrass and tangerine pith make this a weird hybrid between Kern Citra and prebuyout Nelson. If you have had both you know how hard this makes your hoppy uterial lining shed.

  
The taste has a heft that I don’t enjoy as much as the regular duck tales. It’s a weird trade off like when you spec a character in western RPGs or I guess MADDEN CREATE A PLAYER if you need hand holding. Both are totally equal and completely exceptional. I might give it to the original by a hair for sheer scary drinkability but these are easily amongst the best in their respective styles.

If you enjoy a lightly syrupy mouthfeel, a blast of chinook, simcoe (?) Amarillo (?) and citra, then you will love this. I hate even trying to identify the hop blends because there’s always some dipshit who points out the “errors” in a flavor profile. Chard and ruby red grapefruit with some arugula underpinnings, there you fucking go.

  
No one will even try to trade for this. Why do I even bother? Oh bother.