Angry Chair has long held the dripping pastry crown, mallow fondue streaming into the furrowed brow of its Tampa consumers. In an odd change of events, there is now poise and grace to the excess. Like someone with microbangs and a septum piercing who secretly shops at Kooples, it’s a soft indulgence.

Barrel aged Dave’s barleywine was too much for me. It was in congruence with everything Angry Chair does and that “dipping skoal while riding a Yamaha YZ250X dirtbike on the highway helmetless with your underaged girlfriend on the back” sort of Floridian panache. It’s bold but unapologetic.

The double barrel Dave’s is something more empathetic. It has this haunting cask depth that shies away from a residual glucose and leans in to topgrain leather, currant, date, and roasted sweet potato.

If regular Dave’s barleywine is a guy with a SALT LIFE sticker on his 4Runner, then double barrel Dave’s is that person who has a LetterBoxd account whose favorite podcast is Cumtown. It can be elegant or a red flag depending on your level of appreciation.

The carb is flawless and silky with sustain. The mouthfeel provides a casky dryness and mild heat that feels thinner for the better compared to the single Dave. The swallow is long and provides this sneaky link Snickerdoodle that you don’t keep in the house but that cinnamon cookie goodness is there for your moments of liver loneliness.

And yet, there is a sort of darkness to this beer. It has a sort of unsettling evil that not even post-modernism can explain away. If Angry Chair can ratchet things back, if Vodnik can exist, then why is their oeuvre always catering to dudes who bash on MLMs and constantly post about their minor crypto gains? Because platos sell baby.

The same guy who asks to have his bagels “scooped” will toil flipping BAIGCCS and damage everyone else. Furtively, the gems like this and Fionn go under the radar. Then a strange meritocracy of taste is established, a shibboleth for those who know.

Let the awful HGTV House Flipping Sect destroy both the housing and building materials economy. You can sip casky barleywine and watch it burn.