Last year was the embrace of Czech Dark Lagers or CDLs if youre in the wellness community. For a New Jersey brewery to come out swinging with this as one of their standouts, my attention was seized.

The brewery is named after an Emerson poem but it doesn’t drip in the trappings of that Vermont pastiche that may come to mind. These are crushable beers for people who don’t have #wanderlust in the bio or an airplane emoji. The brewery itself wants people to use it as a calm reading space which seems antithetical to industrial park big jenga and the Garden state itself.

The beer has this double helix of tight roast and tootsie roll malty sweetness. The carb is fantastic with a cling and heft to the lacing that runs counter to how soft and light the beer itself is. The predictable and basic demeanor of an Eras Tour fan, but clutching a Jean Stafford novel for a pop of uncommon complexity.

Roast is kept in check and this doesn’t veer into some porter or black IPA zone with bitterness. Sorry, Cascadian dark ale. I don’t need the Pacific Northwest coming at my with their sacred geometry tattoos and unviable business subsidized by generational money.

The average Asbury Park customer probably wont order this, but they are missing out. The weird merger of lager and wild ale emphasis doesn’t make sense on paper. It’s like dudes who love outlaw country, but also law enforcement, but also not being tread on. Levi Funk teaming up with Live Oak seems cool but would likely result in some hateful bottom-fermented chimera. This is just clean simple lines, no wildness involved.

The end result is a crushable lager with a pop of pumpernickel complexity to chain combo the sip to gulp ratio. It’s very good but falls below the Moonlights, but that’s a tall order for a brewery barely a year old. The good is merged with the forgettable. The rockabilly boyfriend meets his scarlet begonia gf and they are united by their love of buying pants that are too small.

It is tasteful bready muffintops all around.