Woodshop 11 Blend of Many

This is the first bottled offering from North Park and it seems fitting that a component blended “STRONG ALE” representative of a melange of their ba beers should hit the glass.  At its core this is essentially a BA Baltic porter with a slightly heftier drag and a massive barrel presence.  I drank this in the fucking moving theater while watching The Shape of Water bc, why not, life is too short.  In blending BA porters and stouts and different barrels the tapestry of this beer stays enjoyable albeit lacking focus.  It never gets massive enough to flex on the bigger boys, nor exhibits enough pure cask to drive the BA Everett lane that some continental european offerings like DeMolen love to inhabit.  It just is.  There is a lingering tootsie roll and Knob Creeky kinda sweet/oaky interplay that those familiar with the Beam canon (KAMEHAME) will already be well inundated.  Slight touch of dry roast and a Zero bar sweetness make this easy to drink except perhaps not the most dazzling display of any one factor.  Decoupage is the name of the game and from a stylistic and conceptual pulpit like Woodshop (cf. a bunch of sweaty screen print tee wearing SoCal neckbreads leveraging rare ticks and undulating generosity) it makes sense.