This week’s batch of @maltcoutureddb is straight up insane. We previously had @crainsberry on the show and made him drink a @thebruery Black Tuesday horizontal, including 22% abv heaters like BT grand reserve. He didn’t die so we invited him back for more pastry punishment. In batch 83 we have a Bean Grinder Cagematch: three stouts with 1. Coffee and vanilla 2. Bourbon barrel aging 3. An Untappd score of 4.7 or higher and 4. Have sold for $500 or more.

The results are mind boggling. Will @foragerbrewery dethrone the inimitable @3floydsbrewing Handjee? Or will the DDB favorite @moderntimesbeer Monster Tones bisect our beans? We kick everything off with a phenomenal Dunkel from @heaterallenbeer . It’s a lot to process.

You already know that Rev has arguably one of the best barrel programs in the nation right now, so let’s figure out if it is worth standing in line in 30 degree weather on some Kedzie loading dock. There are two new releases: Cuvee De Grace and Ten Year Beer.

Cuvee de Grace is a fantastic gateway drug for your friends who are malt-curious. The problem with this beer is that it wont get out of its own way in lending that sticky chocolate malt hand out to the uninitiated. Two thirds of this beer is fantastic underlying strong ale/barleywine roots. Then oh shit, here comes that one overbearing guy in every improve scene, dripping in bakers chocolate and fudge “NOW WE ARE ON THE MOON” and like god now we have to play out the reality of a cocoa barleywine. The underpinnings of this beer is such a delicate blend of caramel and prailines, planed boards and old fashioneds. It is tasty crème brulee that has chocolate fondant applied to it, gilding the dessert lily. I am not saying every ba beer needs to just be an old ale. I enjoy playful reliance on different profiles. The issue here is that this good beer leans on oatmeal and rye stouts and it’s what a freshman English professor would call “tonally inconsistent” albeit extremely well made.

Ten Year Beer shows that X is indeed gon give it to you. Don’t let this cherry poppin daddy fool you, it is a completely ensemble role. Rev has such a deft hand in nuance and never his the fruited center divider the way say, Goose Island will, in not trusting its consumers to taste the fruit, but not be cardholding GUSHERs party members. The cherry is delicate and this is that same Saharan-dry body we found in Code Switch. It’s exceptionally tight, dripping with cordial, sucrets, Sazerac notes, and some Willett meets Sucrets interplay. I would bet that some people wouldn’t even know that cherry was outright present if they weren’t outright searching for it. It is that restraint that Marty shows consistently in the blending. This is “The Favourite” for people who maybe wont dive deep into Yorgos Lanthimos catalogue, but you toss some saccharine Emma Stone cherries on the bill and suddenly you got a resale market.

Neither hit the fantastic heights of VSOJ or VSOR but Rev is in the unenviably coveted position of being contrasted against its own catalog. Their “pretty good” beers still destroy almost everything else. These are the type of crosses that Shaun Hill must bear, and no one feels sorry for them.

Also come see us at SF Sketchfest on Saturday 1/25/20 at the punchline, tickets still available

https://concerts1.livenation.com/event/1C005775038F8600

New Jersey eyes, and the softest quad.

(To open my eyes and see augie laughing.)

Daytime. Brandy fights. Pitch malt. Night night.

Three typed letters.

(B I L is all we have?)

Beneath me.

(Or is this all just twilight beyond Atlantic Highlands) and @cartonbrewing enters a bold segment of high abv, high risk brandy barrels, high esters, Belgian strains, and somehow some way they sticky the caramelized banana raisin landing. This is nothing like the rest of their casual canon, whimsical coffee cans, imperial cream ales and XXYXXYX001 ales. This is serious genie bottle antics.

Candidly yes this is a touch Fusel and lights up your chest like ET, and there is a degree of brandy interplay that has a solvent character, but as it warms the sacchro takes over and it’s like peeling back the layers of grands biscuit. The malt is ribboned with figs and dates, the swallow is almost cloyingly long and drags resonates with muddled prunes and raisinettes. And you’re like “who smashed my old plums?” Augie Carton that’s who.

Carton stays gripping them plums with a sugar baby twist. I can’t finish the whole bottle but the complexity at higher temps alone sells the fantastic experience. This is big brain mode and I hope people take the gamble on a ba quad, this degree of risk and innovation is that type of brandy capitalism that deserves to be rewarded.