It’s good and healthy to lay on your side and feel your stomach flesh roll lazily into your palm like a supple sourdough starter. VSOR is the recognition of your legacy of decadence. The intense rye and long pecan pie filling is akin to feeling the slick elasticity of your stretch marks. They are badges of your dietary shortcomings, a testament to unchecked indulgence.

And yet, when you taste that allspice and dusty praline character, regrets subside. This beer is for that guy you went to high school with who is now a small business owner who never left your hometown and inherited upper middle class wealth and poise with minimal effort by virtue of time. This is refinement aggrandized by way of least resistance.

This is not a showy Beer. It excels in stealth wealth. VSOR asks casually when ING pays dividends and shrugs it off noting “I’m waiting on something.” You suspect it hasn’t earned its place but that grace and poise, the gift of time and effortlessness, the ease of integration and position, heir apparent to the Sazerac18 crown: something is happening and you resent its majesty. The way VSOR performs is so gentle but magnificent that it is an affront to other brewers who actively need to try. The mallard kicking under a caramel current with a steadfast forest green cowl above water.

This beer is softer than VSOJ and doesn’t need the approval of BOSS ryeway. It’s too classy for that. It expresses cinnamon thrift store jean jackets and epithets like “buying a used car is buying someone else’s problems.” It makes you feel small and lesser by contrast. You feel worse having had this beer. While VSOR does equestrian on a caramel Hanoverian, you’re acutely aware that your family steals cable.

While VSOR glides at 120fps through life, you feel like a trash person and it accentuates your struggles. It’s so pillowy soft and the result of endless pulls of caramel saltwater taffy, while you were just denied an auto loan for a 2011 Chevy Sonic. You’re not as good as this beer, trace that finger along your supple stretch marks and confirm your flawed existence.