Deep down most haze brewers really want to brew Saisons. Ask Jean, ask Henry, ask the Bissells: they’ll tell you. When they drop elegant, soft farmhouse ales with a careful attention to water profiles they release them to Tampico enthusiasts almost apologetically. Everything in beer is a compromise.

If you want to release a focused, evocative stout that focuses on casking interplay IT BETTER HAVE VANILLA IN IT. I imagine Brewers feel like musicians courting fans with hits, secretly dying the moment everyone gets a drink when they play new stuff they care about.

If you doubt this, listen to any Side Project bro complain about how they are “forced” to buy a graceful Grisette with their massive stout. Brewers have to pay fealty to these dudes in Arcteryx jackets and Merona cargo shorts watching the Untappd scores light up what they care about most.

@foragerbrewery wants to brew saisons, but to set the hook they have to brew wafflecones. After a run of innumerable coldstone creamery bean bisecting, they “get” to release a phenomenal rawdog no adjuncts stout. Finally.

This is a weller CBR wheelie of focused barrel selection and has more sections than a Toblerone. There’s a praline caramel Drumstick woven through the center of extremely dry oaky casks, bakers chocolate and warming butter rum raisin life savers to the swallow.

The carb and retention is laughable but that’s par for the execution. 1.2 units. There’s a slick oily aspect to the mouthfeel that dries with a sweet Frangelico to the swallow.

This is the cask driven clemency i love. I only hope that the fan base stops seeing beers like this as “lacking cookies” or “unfinished.” Blank stouts are better than the heavy handed exposition of cake batter, here is your proof.