In economics there is this theory called Kuznet’s curve that states basically that as a market develops things will get super unequal but then level out to being more equal. It makes this curve like a sad mouth of a beer bro who had it in his cart but Eventbrite hates locals.

Basically, once things get up and running, there’s more capital and efficiency and even the poor hicks get to enjoy the spoils of an advanced economy. Trickle down beeronomics.

In the beginning craft beer was expensive, hard to find, a niche product that you’d have to bust your ass to locate or dedicate a segment of your personality to pursuing. Then 9000 breweries open making mostly fine beers, a few exceptional producers, but thousands of “local-location name + 5 CA ale strain tap handle” spots. It’s fine.

The result is a weird egalitarianism meets stark inequality. Everyone can have a Weihenstephan and have the best most ubiquitous hef in the world. By the same token, if you want a rare, marginally better stout, be prepared to pay someone in St Louis exponentially more for the “best” stout.

So yeah craft beer is everywhere, but is the best craft beer everywhere? Ehh. Kinda?

Moonlight makes arguably one of the best pilsners in the world, but it’s far from everywhere. But what about when these same hucksters make a barleywine? Will that automatically also be the best and reduce inequality? Ehh. Kinda?

If by the best, you want a completely old school, resinous, chickory root, allspice and sandalwood sort of barleywine then yes. Moonlight has captured the past and improved upon it. But is has done so in a vacuum without the forces of modern palates. Most people don’t know to “want” barleywines like this, even if it is well done. The abv is “too low” the sweetness is “dialed down” and the old school Old Foghorn meets Bigfoot cum de Gratitude aserose profile is a relic. American barleywine is an unfinished barrel aged beer in modern parlance.

This is a good beer that most people wont recognize as reducing the inequality of what they seek. Kuznet didn’t account for tradebros and flippers who don’t actually want to experience new things. Palates remain unequal in perpetuity.

After two nightmarish years, it is little surprise that 2022 is shaping up to be the year of Czech dark lagers. People crave robust, dark succor, and with rising temps the clean lager salvation strains extend a hand like a sporty porter. A Sp-orter.

Faisan, a new upstart from Detroit, is providing this malty toasted goodness. If Death and Taxes is the standard by which all of these are inevitably judged, this makes a strong gambit.

The squaw bread and pumpernickel is present and there’s a clean simplicity like how watching a hibachi chef make an onion volcano never stops being entertaining. It just works. The same people gearing up for sun dress smashing season are also amenable to these lean lagers with waves of gardettos rye chips and diner wheat toast.

The carb has fantastic sustain and the can looks like some Coheed and Cambria fan art. It has a universal appeal to both dudes who idolize Elon Musk and for people who watch Below Deck on Bravo. These dark lagers can cover that much ground because they both present with a subtle aw shucks simplicity, but deliver depth with the dark chocolate goodness.

Another benefit: for some reason breweries never charge that much for these despite being a total pain in the ass to make. If you walk into a tasting room and hear Father John Misty, you’re about to pay $9 for a pint of helles. But I think this four pack is like $14. It’s jarring and refreshing like when a car with low bolstering throws you around. It’s so much return on a bottom fermented investment.

Oddly though, no one orders these on draft, so breweries often don’t make them. A grocery store tier consumer sees a 5% lager but OH WAIT IT IS DARK HANG ON TOO STRONG I GOTTA DRIVE HOME. But like people who wear Stone Island, someone is buying these, I just never have never seem them.

This beer is extremely drinkable and provides enduring lasting depth. Like how has Hayley Williams been 18 for two decades? We may never know. While this falls short of the god tier Cohesion/Moonlight/Suarez syndicate of DCL’s but I am stoked to see what these plucky newcomers have up their Mittens.

There exists this strange Gift of the Magi pecking order in breweries that seemingly keeps each from having everything they want. Haze brewers secretly want to be saison masters. Stout blenders will curse the lack of lagers on draft. Lager powerhouses will often release “big ales” that are ironically fermented far too clean to appeal to the glucophile palates of the modern era. If you have a hit barleywine, often that’s the most remarkable thing you do at that brewery.

I love these cross-discipline attempts. Moonlight making a barleywine. Angry Chair making lagers. It’s that ambition that shirks expectation.

Temporal is a weird brewery north of the wall that makes fascinating gentle wild ales. But what happens when they re-spec their character to wield a massive opal malty club? Things get out of hand.

COSMIC SYZYGY was boiled for 8 hours then incarcerated in a hateful 12 year Caribbean rum cask for long time. One barrel, zero blending, 500 bottles, no margin for error.

Rum casks already are a huge gamble. They can become decadent bananas fosters, or pure astringent punitive juice siphoned from the stills of hell. Like freestyle rapping in mixed company, this can go only one of two ways.

Like Temporal, this beer is strange as hell. If the cliché hallmarks are a series of English brown sugar candy comparisons, this leans more towards Papa’s port cellar liquidation in a will execution. It both feels older and untamed than it should be.

It has muddled prune, but with a phenolic oddness to it, permanent marker, but then delicious iced wine. The swallow gives you a touch of unagi and then wait-it’s back to Fig Newton. The net experience feels intensely experimental, unique, and shredding sections of the fretboard with key signatures my liver was not ready for. Perhaps I am the outdated person still buying Leg Avenue Halloween costumes, illadapted to the swiftly modernizing sensibilities.

The execution feels layered, confusing and intentional, like I am the only one not understanding House of Leaves. I did not love this, but everyone else does: so I feel deficient. You should try this, just don’t expect a clear conclusion.

After much reflection on my contributions to the beer world over the past 12 years, I have decided that from this point onward, Don’t Drink Beer will now be a Non-Alcoholic Beer Blog. DDB has done nothing but harm people and encourage excess. In glorifying and damning the best and worst beers ever made, people have been enabled to become their worst selves.

On the surface it seems like pithy jokes about late night raviolis and unsolicited cyber sex, but who is laughing when 14 maladjusted people get together in a backyard and drink thimbleful pours of coconut caro syrup? Who laughs then? Uncle Ben once said, ”With great power comes a trade for Great Responsibility b2, but they need to add.” DDB needs to add some ethics to this entire endeavor.

In addition to NA beers, I will be providing episode recaps for The Black List, decoupage tips, golf swing assistance, and methods to ensure your souffles don’t collapse. Everyone will be better off.

Untitled Art is a project owned by Octopi Brewing who has thankfully disassembled the beer world with seltzers and now are finishing the job with NA beers. Levi Funk is overseeing the Latter Day Saintification of the fermented world and I place the utmost trust in the man who revolutionized American Lambic to now ensure our sobriety at family functions.

The issue I usually ran into with hazy IPAs was, wow this is great I sure would love to have five of these, but then who is gonna do all this precise data entry? Is anyone else in the household even forklift certified? Problem solved, now intoxication is a thing of the past. Even children can line up in Torrance and breath in refinery fumes wearing baby Bapes, toddler Etnies, with little infant Yeti coolers.

The beer has a watery body but a nice sustain on the swallow that prevents it from feeling like seltzer, there’s a fantastic replication of the hop profile like Stetson cologne, tangelo and satsuma, with a noticeably Dasani drag that doesn’t sustain the hop oils like real beer. This is as good as NA can get. Jokes aside, it is honestly extremely well done and Levi Funk will usher my blog into a bold new era of consciousness.