To be honest I have never even ticked the one on the right. I’ll figure out some way to honor these slammers soon enough.

Not content to just score just one of these 300 bottle releases, I set out to land all four and have a WWF Battle Royale, Columbian ladder match, RCp90s in the Stack, slappers only.

taking down four rare 750s m’lady

So we all know about the PAjotenland turning out all of the authentic american lambic, all those tired ass jokes.  But what about this darkhorse in Missouri constantly sniping with a .300 knockout from the weeds? What about Side Project’s headshots?  The only sensible thing would be to make a cuvee in my liver and let them duke it out.  The only loser is my body and the resultant GERD.  Let’s drop acid in today’s review:

MATCHUP #1  – PEACHES

peach, I could eat a peach for days. Faceoff reference completed.

Peachfunker vs. Peche Du Fermier

Both of these bad ratchets were $30 and a 300 bottle release. So even weight class, with equal hype in their corner, but who takes the belt in this stonefruit seed? Well first and foremost, can we all take note that the Pizzaboy bottle looks like trubslurry autolyzed garbage? I mean really, that’s beyond turbidity to just straight up Kerns and juicer dregs.  It looks like complete shit and the carb is minimal.

The nose on the Funker is admittedly awesome, like working in a fruit packing warehouse, reminds me of that one scene from La Bamba, except migrant workers are far too exploited to drop four hours wages on some stupid ass consumable. The nose on the Fermier is good but lacks the tannic punch of the Funker.

TFW the pits kick in

Taste wise the Fermier destroys the Peachfunker without mercy, it isn’t even close.  It is like when you pick M. Bison and make the other person try to use Zangief.  The fermier has exquisite balance, not too acidic, not a one dimensional lacto Cascade/Upland adventure, it delivers on so many levels.  It has wafts of Haribo peach rings, chardonnay, white grape must, peach jolly ranchers and tropical jolly ranchers.  I was bracing myself for excessive acidity but it seems to have avoided that route as well, which sucks for old DDB because that low hanging fruit is so easy to bomb on.

The peachfunker is just deficient and reminds me of the fucked up bottles of Bruery Filmishmish, to compound that I traded big for this and it costs twice as much as the defective bottles of Bruery slurry further compounds the problems.  The hefty sludgey mouthfeel doesn’t do itself any favors and it comes across like Roebeks over and above a nimble american wild ale.

WINRAR:

that panamera is shitting on the 911

ROUNDTWO: APRICOT MEXICAN STANDOFF

Alright so Peach Fermier took the first round, but can the Funkers make a bold comeback with those tinier, tarter, more stoney of fruits?  Let’s fucking find out instead of all this neck kissing and freak dancing.

Tile work on fleek

The apricotfunker looks better, but still, come on now, look at that fucking shit.  Out of the gates it is hard to equate these two when one is attempting to do backflips looking like an emptied White Labs vial. You can dip your finger in it and it coats like pie filling, lemon meringue pie smashed on a Foreman grill. The Fermier looks standard, nothing really to comment upon one way or another, so it wins by virtue of not dropping a pulpy deuce in its True Religion jeans.

On the olfactory, the Funker wins again and I can only assume that adding a staggering amount of fruit will do that.  At a certain point I question the credibility of the underlying beer because it is shrouded in so much fruity fondant.  The base beer could have been a Dortmunder or a fucking Gose, with that much fruit you are pushing an apricot cart and happen to have coronas in tow as well.  The apricot nose on the fermier is sharp and exhibits a massive tannic presence, juicy and dry like kumquats.  It is by no means bad, but the nose on the Funker is straight up Dole mouthkissing Sunkist.

i opened so many rare bottles guize my real life is so cool just trust me

The taste front is much much closer in this one because the Apricot funker is actually really fucking tasty.  It has this 2% milk mouthfeel from the weighty fruit and orange julius tones are present in full force.  The fermier is nimble as fuck, FG 1.00000 and contributes this finish that is as long as the credits to Metal Gear Solid II. Both are fucking stellar and it isnt any of this boring Mayweather shit, no technical sparring between these two, it comes down to preference.  I feel like the Fermier is more refined and demonstrative of poise and ability, but the Funker just hits hard with pulpy fruits.

WINRAR:

THE FERMIER. pic not related

OVERALL BATTLE:

If I have to put the fermiers at each other’s throats like Amores Perros, it would almost be a dual knockout.  Both are incredible in different ways, and equally impossible to land so why are we even bothering with this shit.  I would say that Abricot Fermier simply because it exhibits this distinctly regal quality of intense drinkability, brett C depth, and a long dry finish ranking in that untouchable Persica batch 1 realm.  When you see the ISOs you dont WANT it to be as good as it is, because fuck anyone who demands a 5:1 with comparably rare bottles.  It is admittedly top tier and no tums were harmed during the documentation of this stonefruit battle.

Once a year necksbeards from near and far huskily flock to Anaheim to enjoy 1oz pours in the out of doors to get a taste of what living in the midwest feels like.

 Except unlike a brewery even in say, Florida, there were a staggering number of pouring stations, quick lines, and nobody even rioted or attacked a storehouse.

  Since there were unlimited pours of everything, they made it clear that they knew beer nerds have zero self control or good judgment. As a result 1oz pours of vanilla coconut Black Tuesday for all.

 These guys are doing some great work.

  Probably one of the truest to style megastouts I have ever had. Valiant brought two entirely forgettable offerings, but at least it wasn’t a lemon head 12% belgian golden like last year. At least.

  The grapefruit kolsch garnish game was on point. This was the first fruit many attendees had seen in weeks.

  The award for shittiest beer of the day goes to this train wreck. Chocolate vanilla Gose with mint Oreos. 2oz was way too much. It’s like eating cookie crisp as a kid home on a sick day then throwing it up while Mr Face stares in Nick Jr based arbitration.

 Kinda disappointing to see beers over 24 hours old at the event, if they could have brought a sloshing full brite tank over on a flatbed that would have been far better. 
The cucumber cask trade winds was actually phenomenal. I was being a judgmental prick in line gurgling out quips and then it was refreshing as fuck. Black Tuesday on nitro was pointless as fuck, especially in a one ounce pour, such meniscus mouthfeel.

 Their barrel offerings are still frustratingly on point, leaving me little to rip on. Selfish bastards. 

 That dreamboat Jeff Bagby was off at a crossfit competition or something and just dropped off a to-style sixtel then peaced the fuck out.

 Best in show. Hands down. 
The best beers of the event were brought by Bottlelogic, trust me I was surprised as well. But one of them was an Arizona Wilderness Collabo so I guess that isn’t too shocking. 

  The guys at green flash were not amused when I asked why they didn’t bring duet or Nelson.

  Fantome carriage was- wait a second.

  I heard a lot about 7 barrel 10 barrel and 15 barrel systems, municipal laws, packaging regulations and market saturation. Ddb picked up enough industry buzzwords to be a philistine for at least another 6 months.

All in all, a pretty fun time, even if Melange 12 was complete wet apple cider spiced garbage. Stone even brought their reduced gluten delicious ipa for the kids with inhalers. Someone stole my taster glass while I was in the bathroom but the joke is on them, I have HPV.

That’s how you get HPV right, drinking from glasses people put on their buttholes? SUCCESSFUL EVENT.
 

The hoppy beers flowing from Vermont are a well ensconced commodity at this point and it seemed only natural that overflow markets would emerge from the runoff behind the bulwarks of that state.

 Brett saison, 5.6% 
Austin street has surreptitiously been flying under the radar in days of late. They are rolling out farmhouse meets Brett forward offerings something in between the scissoring nexus of Prairie meets Crooked Stave. They have a core underground following that comes off akin to a Yeasayer fan’s enthusiasm. In fact, when I initially posted the Austin street bottles in a photo I got a few messages pleading that DDB don’t expose their coveted honey hole to the unclean masses. The same shit happened when DDB reviewed the OEC bottles. Those covetous New England scamps don’t want anyone muscling in on their territory.

So what do we have here today? Sure it is an elegantly packaged 750ml that pangs of Allagash branding, but is this saison relevant in an increasingly crowded farmhouse marketplace?

 TFW you see a new saison you want so hard 
The pour has an incredible frothy orange sherbet hue to it, unfiltered wheat grist looking like pineapple juice mixed with milk. The carb is borderline overdone and cascades upwards in time consuming waves like when BAE be staying in the bathroom before you tryna smash for hella long and shit.

The nose is bisquik, sliced honeydew, honeysuckle, ritz cracker, a touch of Brett c musk, closing long and dry like lemon zest. There is a certain “fresh baked” quality like when you go to a tiny panaderia and know someone actually gave a shit and made these sticky bready gem in small batches with attention to detail, none of this industrial mixer bullshit.

The taste dry as a Star Ocean game is long and it eschews the sweetness on the nose for a transmuted grass floral aspect similar to oleanders. Again it feels like White Labs ripped off the 12 Brett strain from Chab Yakobsen, gave it to Chase at Prairie for execution and this fantastic hybrid goat baby was born in the manger filled with hay. If you have ever ripped your favorite lego men In half and recombined them in loving new permutations, this feels so much like that. 

The ultimate farmcomplex 
This beer is familiar enough to feel comfortable but different enough to be exciting, like schmanging your ex- girlfriend’s twin. It is unquestionably well made and those greedy fuck who didn’t want Ddb to talk about this brewery make perfect sense. It is my intent to ruin all the nice things for everyone else. No secrets withheld, a shocking brewery tell all that will leave everyone yeasty and breathless.

As a corollary, this brewery has a hop game that is pretty on point as well. If you enjoyed noble King or Dorothy, this is exceedigly similar and worthy of your face sampling:

This isn’t mixed ferm, so it might be odd for some people to reconcile alpha oils with 100% bretty bone dry pithiness, but the end result is a great hybrid for warmer days.

Maine traders about to get lit up hard for these now, just when those Mattina buttholes were contracting ever so slightly.

Since David Walker no doubt printed out yesterday’s review and distributed it as a company memo to all FW employees, I figured it would be fitting to ramp up the hype for the upcoming Firestone Invitational with some more central coast reviews.

  
Feral one, firestone Walker, Paso Robles, where beer is a second class citizen to viticulture

American wild ale, 6.7% abv

Feral One was the first bottled releases to roll out of Barrelworks and it was received with a not insubstantial degree of fanfare when batch 1 was released, but is it worthy of your precious Fedex dollars and mouth contemplation? The response is decidedly ambivalent because there is much to love, but also an index of forgettability to it.

The pour cascades out with beautiful carb and a ruddy amber and deep orange hue that leaves little lacing or webbing on the glass. At the outset it appears nonstandard in the darker SRM than the typical “phoned-in sour blonde” that we have seen ad infinitum from less inspired brewers.

The nose is cut tangerines, clementines, construction paper, orange zest, and touch of musky yearbook. It has a panache akin to sour in the rye and Brettanomite, not deficient, but leans heavily on the Brett L profile. If you have ever made a wild ale with the standard Brett trois strain you know this through and through, but that’s world’s better than retreading the lacto bombs that so many lazy breweries are embracing to push Ph levels downward.

The taste isn’t exceedingly acrimonious and has a gentle degree of gravity to the mouthfeel, never over drying but also leaving things in the 1.00000xxx FG realm. There are notes of pluot, nectarines, kumquat and touch of bready grist to the swallow akin to challah almost. It is intensely drinkable and never asks you to pull over at the next offramp because it needs to pee, like seriously again Feral One with the restroom breaks, what the fuck feral one. 

 Take the word wild ale out of your vocabulary 
The whole experience is pleasant albeit a touch uninspired. I am not saying they should have been indolent mash paddlers and tossed predicable ass peaches into this, but it leaves one without remark, which is ultimately a softer hue of unremarkable. It is hard to fault them because their barrel program is top notch and this fails to exhibit any real shortcomings, but it also fails to demonstrate anything earth-shattering either. Three years ago this would have compelled heads to turn, but the market is saturated with pretty good wild ales on the shelf and this shoulders ranks with the other very good offerings.

Maybe it didn’t set out to be the next Mimosa or Cable Car Kriek, and that is fine, it is in the end a very tasty wild ale without noteworthy flaws. That should be enough for most consumers if they don’t have sand dollar nipples and a pension for perpetual grumbling about fermented water.

 Latrobe started the proud history of american LAMBICS with their signature corn wild ale, rolling rock, the local terroir from Pittsburgh industrial plants contributed to the microflora which gives PA beers a signature earthiness to their monocultures

I am learning so much from BA magazine I wish I subscribed sooner! 

Well what do we have here? Another one of those capriciously renamed/restyled bottles from Firestone Walker? Well if the Stickee Monkee release has taught me anything, it’s that Firestone has a world class barrel program that sometimes trips over its own award ribbons at times. Jeffers goes hard in the paint and even missteps like Double Double are forgivable in light of how many final loot releases they pump into so many markets.

Backsplash game fully turnt.

So what is the deal with this “brownywine” and does it bear any saccharine underpinnings akin to a “central coast quad?” Well, a bit of exposition is in order. Los Angeles has these rival HOMEBREW gangs, one is called Pacific Gravity, the other has been around since the Papazian Paleozoic era, the Maltose Falcons. If that film noir ass name isn’t a dead giveaway, the latter are old school, but both are hella into puns.

From the outset, I feel like a second class citizen without a baller ass paper box for my barrel aged FW beers. Even trifling ass FWXI got a box. But the beer itself pours a luscious tantalizing deep brown, burnt sienna at the edges with silky carb and ample lacing beneath the venomous legs to this boozy joint.

 Brownywines: not a BJCP certified pajotenland product 
The nose feels like a marriage between Sucaba and FWXVI. It is decidedly ENGLISH barleywine but less vinous than sucaba and presents a toasted brown sugar, cream of wheat, carmelized creme brûlée shell, and Oh HENRY! Bar on the closer. It doesn’t seem to live up to the saber rattling from weak palate assholes who decried that this beer is too sweet, neither the nose nor taste is excessively sucrose or under attenuated.

The taste is decadent but refined, like a Ferrero Rochet, nougat and hazelnut, milk chocolate with macaroon. The malt profile finishes anomalously dry and clean on the swallow, further underscoring the precision, pushing the ENGLISH yeast strain to apotheosis. The barrel is a supporting parapet that serves to allow the sweet malts to perform with nodding confidence. The almond and coconut aspects from the barrel never seem to dominate nor does the hefty beer exhibit an ethanol waft or burn even with deep swallows.

 Look at me. Look at me. I am the brownywine captain now. 
The real gripe attendant hereto is: why the fuck are they shipping out Hell Dorado and Stickee Monkee and not this far superior beer? All those baby palates got diaper rash when velvet merkin wasn’t BIG enough for them, then unleash this on them, call it a PasOld Ale or some shit and drain both BALs on the consumers’ collective chests. This is a phenomenal beer and fedex shouldn’t be in the equation of acquisition.

Also, since Firestone unquestionably follows DDB, the finest purveyor of beer news, unleash Krieky bones on the masses. You can even put it at that sphincter tightening Lost Abbey price point and fanboys will still line up to get their cherries busted.

Make it happen, you 805 hucksters.

 Kiwi got that stingray swag on fleek.
Too poverty status to afford the sterling or G&L I don’t even wanna talk about it. 0/10 don’t even own a tube head.

If you follow DDB you will know I have a love hate relationship with Cory King and those Side Project hucksters. They have a sky high K/D ratio, pulling farmhouse head shots, but like FPS games, their fan base is full of the biggest shitlords in the game. If you don’t believe me, go try to land an accessible bottle like Saison Du Fermier and watch those STL opportunists finger your dickhole whispering “best saison in the world according to BA” and then unabashedly ask for Zomer.

But that isn’t Side Project’s fault. If anything the rapacious nature is cultivated on both sides, generating rectum stretching in equal parity. But what does butthole stretching have to do with today’s review? SO MUCH I ASSURE YOU

  Side project brewing, st Louis , InBevland, 7% abv

Commercial tug job:
Blend of Puncheon-Fermented Saisons that used the house Saison strain from Off Color Brewing in Chicago and the house Missouri cocktail from Side Project Brewing. Fermented and aged in French Oak Pinot Noir puncheons for 6 months before blending

This is admittedly a beautiful radiant beer with ample carb that I cant stop admiring. That translucent clarity and microcarb sitting atop the surface like on golden pond, imdb game on swole.

There was a recent row when the BJCP attempted to update their standards to note that Saisons with Brett were nonstandard and therefore within the ambit of american wild ales. I don’t need to point at a Pontiac Aztek for you to know it’s the dumbest shit ever, you just know when you see it. Similarly Side Project sometimes gets kicked square in the taint when this debate comes up due to the clear interplay of monocultures in their “Saisons.” I am here to tell you this is decidedly their most saisoneyey offering to date and it shines in a traditional way.

 Best saison of 2008, hands down 
The nose is estery, crisp, pear with green apple, part of me wants to toss the DMS flag but it sublimates Into a sort of cornbread and Riesling that is inviting. This isn’t some lacto Bomb tearing ass over the farmhouse world, and perhaps the Apex Predator-esque elements from Off Color pull this into a more Sacchro forward realm. Who knows, but it works and hits you with those billy blanks tai bo farmhouse kicks.

The taste is more bitter and estery than any other offerings in the SP catalog and serves as a welcome rejoinder to show their catalog can do more than fruit up 7% wild ales and attract midwest assholes. The taste is lemon merengue, Jansport backpack, bitter yard trimmings, banana pith and a dry Chardonnay closer. This isn’t sour and instead aligns itself with the likes of Darbyste or Pipaix, which is quite a feat for a brewery entrenched in AWA execution.

 TFW the dregs kick in. 
This, like the grisette and Biere du pays will likely be side projects least well received beers, and serves as a testament to the new money dipshits who are flipping these bottles, uptrading, turning them into brew balls or upcoding them on list serves. The things worthy of drinking and appreciation will never see the light of day so long as the worst fans keep pushing the bar lower. It is a cyclical paradigm of the tastiest beers attracting the shittiest people in a closed feedback loop.

Seek this beer out, and prepare yourself for some Dodge Caliber driving asshole to demand a Cable Car in return. Because priorities.