Only memories remain is absolutely phenomenal and a ddb top 10 beer of 2021. I want you to pause and think how well done a dark Czech lager has to be to get that superlative. I simply cannot improve upon it.

@goodwordbrewing and and @bluejacketdc did something remarkable: take an obscure low abv style, maximize the flavor and lose nothing in translation. This delivers optimally in every way. The body is clean and intensely efficient. Lean malty vascularity like a bottom fermenting fencer swinging a toasted scone epee. The carb is flawless and feels like it was whipped with egg whites. The cap separates masterfully from the watery mouthfeel below and sheets in wispy doilies.

This beer shouldn’t exist. It will lose the brewery money. And yet, it is one of the best beers that locals will never drink. The swallow has a fantastic honey buckwheat scone with a burned crescent roll finish. It’s a market segment this is both underserved and worthy of blowing up.

The Lotus Elise is powered by a Toyota Corolla engine but it’s tiny frame propels it with panache and Grace. The small body on this dark Czech lager thrashes and remains so poised. The nose is like almond milk shakerato, cracked walnuts, and pretzel roll, salt kernels in the brackish water profile and all.

I don’t know how they did this. It is a page directly from Suarez and Moonlight, in Georgia, from a place not known for this degree of old world nuance. I pray they can somehow replicate this because people need beers like this in their lives.

This isn’t that contrarian hyperbole to present a counterpoint to present excesses, this beer is just beer flavored beer in the most classic way. If this were Halfway Crooks or Bierstadt I would be like oh they just made the best beer of their year. Instead this collab blew the doors off of comparable entries in the field, globally.

Please flick this malty gem into some turns and watch it handle the understeer and remain gripped as a beer you can give to anyone and drink anywhere.

Beer can be like this again, but only if you buy beers like this.