Shout out to Good Beer Hunting for the donation box, got my t shirt game on lock.
Author Archives: dontdrinkbeer
@Degardebrewing The Lily, Those Tillamook Ballers Unequivocally Hit Wild Ale Excellence.
If you are like the average person, you might grow a little confused with the 14 different De Garde beers released every month, each with moderately different labels. Some are Keepers only others are Trappers only, some are sold inside of Trapper Keepers reserved only for Founders members. It gets confusing. Other times you will seek out a beer only to find “OH YOU JUST GOT THE REGULAR CHERIMOYA BU? No that one sucks the currant gin Imperial Cherimoya Bu is THE SHIT.” Well rest assured, this beer is the best beer that De Garde has brewed to date and it enters into the realm of God Tier AWAs so forcefully that I don’t see how Trevor and them boys can outdo themselves after this masterpiece. Let’s review this 180 (?) bottle jammer in today’s review.
It took me a long. ass. time. To finally land this. For some reason when people know they have the best bottle possible, they dont want to trade it away. WEIRD.
De Garde, Tillamook Cheeseland, OR
7% American Wild Ale with Tempranillo Grapes
As usual, let’s let the FIVER employee do his commercial copy for the beer:
“One of the oldest barrels from our stock, a lambic influenced sour ale.
We added a hefty harvest of whole cluster Southern Oregon grown Tempranillo grapes from a favorite vineyard. Big rustic and spicy fruit aromas with a bracing acidity, and earthy backdrop.
We expect this beer to evolve positively in the bottle over a long period, but the brightness and fruit character is very enjoyable now!”
A: This looks quite a bit like Grrzz Druiven at the outset and I kinda rolled my eyes with an “OH YOU” thinking I knew what was about to go down. The carb crackled away with light pinkish marroon foam that subsided quickly. There was minimal sheeting and it just drops into this ruby purplish amber three point stance and starts poppin for dollars.
If they named this beer BRISTOL it would have left a more sour taste in my mouth
S: This is where shit starts to get real, the dry tannic grape aspect wafts like a massive pinot noir and raspberries. This is certainly dry to the core but it also has a sort of madeline bready sweetness to the nose with a touch of vanilla, on the tip of your nose like an ultra cute first date where you schedule a baking activity because both of you are socially awkward and need a crutch to facilitate interaction before you decide if you want to fuck. WAIT A SECOND. There is a bit of ultra lactic Cascadey shit going on here like Cascade strawberry, but I guess I will give it a pass depending on how it tastes.
T: PASS OBTAINED. This delivers the most nuance of any De Garde offering to date and never is hamfisted in its pucker, or too brash in its acidity. In a staggering move, this De Garde impresses by sheer balance and moderation. If your face was melted by the Ambrees and you need speech therapy, this will be your Esuna. The grapes are present like a blend of Alexander the Grape and Strawberry Short Cook otter pops, you get a smuckers strawberry jamminess, acidity that serves to compliment instead of dominate, and a lingering tannic closer that tells your stepdad that he can sleep on the couch tonight. It is a beautiful moment.
Gotta offset those AWA kCALs
M: I was bracing myself at each swallow for this to pull off the mask and turn into some punitive Upland dominatrix just stepping on my cubes, making me beg for less acidity because I BEEN A BAD BLOGGER O FUK YA. But that thankfully never happens. It provides this dry, yet jammy execution like a well done Rose, bursting with fruit and then dropping off the moisture cliff like when your Sig Ep buddy TRAVIS tries to guess women’s bra sizes at the club.
D: This is exceptional through and through. It stands head and shoulders above the whole De Garde canon, and approaches that near impossible rank of Southampton Black Raspberry Lambic, Cable Car Kriek, Pipeworks Blue Lady and all the other usual suspects you see listed as flawless iterations of the AWA genre, if maybe a touch below. If for some reason you can’t land this I would suggest uhhh, taking Omniscience and Proselytism, mixing it with Cerveza Tempranillo and a splash of Atrial Rubicite. Landing all three of those would probably take less than this elusive minx. BUT WHY GILD THE LILY AMIRITE?
Whenever someone talks about Oregon, this is what I imagine.
@hillfarmstead that danky g13 brother soigné. God damN
The January 2015 blend really makes trading for any other saison a very difficult proposition. That lemon lime drop top I call it the sprite when I pop the HF you can call it a night. It just delivers on every level and people somehow sleep on this relative to other offerings.
I am fine with that. It doesn’t have a 2.8 ph and everyone else can go for lacto heavy bangers. These “normal” hill steeze just keep blowing the whistle harder and harder.
Let Bruce Bruce hit it
Tell your mom
Cigar City/Mikkeller Life is Like, A Cherry Cordial Trainwreck of Saccharine Proportions
I think I have finally figured the modern beer community out: shitty tastings have generated the worst scores/reviews ever. First Untappd introduced this single digit system for beta casuals to quickly log their 1 ounce pours, then BeerAdvocate, never slow to the development game, added a single digit feature like 5 years later. You see these photos of 71 bottles at a share, and 19 redfaced greasy dudes, one sad asian girlfriend, and wonder “what the fuck are these people even doing?” The end result is the fanfare and celebration of today’s undrinkable glucose leviathan. Sure if you have a 2 ounce pour, the relentlessly sweet and aggro beer will stick out and you can quickly drop a “5” on an unbalanced monster before moving on to a BORING NOT EVEN SOUR saison, “3.5.” In this format of increasingly rare beers and tickers who need to supplement their self esteem with honorary pours, of course you will need a cadre of dumbshits to land all these bottles, and they will all open them on the same day and split them like fractals into ever infinitesimal bits.
Today’s beer is perfect for the emerging community.
This beer is a perfect 100/100 on BA. It is flawless to those people.
Cigar City, Flerida
15% abv milk sweet stout with confectioner’s sugar and Dr. Pepper soda syrup added
A: Ok so it’s a 15% milk stout, so we get those deep black tones and beautiful beige foam capping things off. You get streaky lacing and it is admittedly a very pretty beer. It doesn’t stain the shit out of your glass like Huna or Abyss and things seem pretty okay…for now.
everything seems okay at first
S: WAIT ONE SECOND, I think someone swiped my bottle of BCBS and dumped a few capfuls of cherry Nyquil into it. There’s sticky mexican chocolate from the Panaderia and then this intense red life savers, sucrets, cherry cordial, a sort of port sherry meets Nestle Quik with a 5 hour boil. The whole thing wraps up with a sort of black patent malt sharpie undercurrent that is Mikkeller’s own panache and spin on a milk stout pumped with Mako straight from Shinra.
T: Oh god, the nightmares just keep intensifying and the cherry trees from Oz molest me relentlessly. This has an incredible burst of melted fruit roll up, cadburry creme eggs, cherry gushers, and waves upon waves of hefty Betty Crocker frosting. It’s like when you finish cooling stout wort and dip your finger in and taste it, then you mix that with a Roy Rodgers. Grenadine notes are on full pump, like they made this chocolate Tyrant with one huge cherry tree for an arm and only Umbrella Corp could engineer such a behemoth to be released upon the public. Your mouth is a Racoon City left in chocolatey shambles.
2 many cherries: 2 much feels
M: This isn’t as thick as some other Cigar City offerings and that almost makes it even worse because at least with a massive heft it could usher away some of the sickening cherry notes. If you have ever left a cherry Home Run Pie in your backpack you will know these feels. It isn’t fusel at 15% and feels integrated if not for the completely distracting domestic violence taking place in your sweet zones. This makes Cherry Rye seem reasonable by contrast and Cherry Rye was already pushing the envelope in trifling levels.
I understand how someone might think this is passable in small doses, why should that be a valid context? Y THO.
D: While not as completely vile as one of the WACKY barrel aged darklord offerings, it is pretty damn similar in that regard. I drank this whole thing by myself and watched Samsara, contemplating my own destruction and integration back into the nothingness. All that would remain of my doughy frame would be immutable red 5 and chains of C6H12o6 pumping into space. It is really not enjoyable and, perhaps in the new community of stupid shits with FlickR or self aggrandizing through liquid mediums, this may work. If you gave me 3 ounce of this I might just power through it and not look back but, an entire 750ml feels like a cold punchline executed upon the consumer. Maybe Mikkeller is just Andy Kaufmanning the fuck out of the beer community and giving high fives back in Denmark, ever contemplating what else the Americans will subject themselves to. Maybe that.
That feel when you watch the last sip cascade down the liter mug and you know it is over.
@moderntimesbeer red wine barrel aged funky Lomaland, the best saison MT makes…so far
Red wine barrel aged funky lomaland
Modem tones brewery
Red wine barrel aged Brett saison 6% abv
Man this beer on paper had me all musking, farmhouse doors gaping so hard. 3 per person, $25 dollars, that stellar funky lomaland base and then FUCKINN BARBELL AGED!? Well, taper your expectations, but don’t lower them.
Yes it is admittedly beautiful. The carb is intense and this will gush like a sassy homosexual friend in a 90s romcom. The Label says that this has a SRM of 16 with deep red Robey tones. Lol psyche. No Robey, all modem.
The smell is crisp and floral, hibiscus, musky Brett c, wet bike seat, lemon and damp newspaper. It is really refreshing and doesn’t go for the bottom shelf acidity, phoning shit in with heavy lacto reliance like so many “saisons” these days.
Errybody tryna be a saison cock.
It is the taste that gets a touch more generic and it reminds me of so many of the yawny prairie normal offerings, regular logsdon seizoen Bretta, and a touch of Darbyste. None of the foregoing is bad by any stretch but if you want red wine tannins and MALBEC skins and an oaky explosion, slow your roll big homie. There’s a bready sourdough, wheatgrass, pink peppercorn and an herbal closer and it all is crushable and works so well….if it were a regular offering. That barrel aged promise makes this seem more on par with like Puncheon if you nomsayin.
Again this is refreshing and a drillable nine syllable but I can’t fully endorse a $25 brewery limited yaddayadda of this quality when Basic ass oaked Bretta is sitting on the shelf not giving a fuck for 4 dollars less, with no limit like a gold tank. This is Objectively tasty, but relative to ease of acquisition, flawed.
@santeadairius Palimpsest, A NEW FLANDERS CHALLENGER APPEARS, Alexander about to defend the throne
Man I really was torn whether to do a write up of this incredible Flanders Red or write a piece shitting on the profiteers who are currently arguing that their bottles of Huna are worth $50 each due to the $200 ticket. Cooler stretch marks prevailed and you get this instead of a tired rift on the same hairy backs. So what do we have today? Sante Adairius, not content with dominating several categories in the farmhouse world has now cast those Omega Red tendrils into the Flanders region. If you were invited to their Cellar Society, you got a single bottle and the option to buy a second bottle of this. No public sale. Fret not, you can argue that your $50 Huna costs over twice as much, dont even trip.
Let’s see how this stacks up to the Cherry Oude Tarts and Alexanders of the world in today’s review.
I added some cutlery so no one gets confused and thinks they are at THEBEERHEADS instead of old DDB.
Sante Adairius, Capitola CA
6%, Barrel Aged Flanders Red Ale
Let’s get this commercial full release on the sheets so we can continue with a level head:
Palimpsest is our interpretation of the classic Flanders style ales, lovingly dubbed the “Burgundies of Belgium.” Like its ancestral counterparts, Palimpsest matured in oak barrels, while time, simple and elegant, burnished Palimpsest to reveal a bright and bracing acidity. As its numerous layers are exposed, traditional characteristics including dark cherries, leathery parchment, and earthy bark round the palate. With excitement, we offer Palimpsest as a harbinger of great things to come in 2015. Sante!
A: This is admittedly not the most beautiful flanders you have ever seen. It has a ruddy brown and light brick and amber hues at the edges. FUCK WHY DIDNT THEY COLD CRASH AND ADD GELATIN AND IRISH MOSS AND THEN CHERRY JUICE AND RED 5 LIKE ALL MY OTHER FAVORITES. It looks pretty similar to oude tart and has a clean slickness on the glass and leaves spotty lacing, like when your homie be drooing on himself in the passenger seat after you drove 13 hours to that SICK SR71 release. Worth it.
Honestly I can review whateverthefuck right now and all my CPAP readers will just be fantasizing about running outside in this hot new simulator.
S: I braced myself for the typical acetic onslaught that makes me eschew Flanders Reds, but like a Mormon camp counselor, it never came. Instead you get a lovely waft of cherry blossom, raspberry, a sory of jammy preserve and fuji apple finish. There is a mild touch of red wine vinegar aspects at higher temps, but for the style, I knew that minx was gonna pop its head up eventually.
At least they didn’t go this route, holy shit those cliche puns are more tired than HOP portmanteaus.
T: This is exceedingly dry even when it hits the sweet zones it starts clearing ground like a Terran Firebat. It never becomes excessively sour or allows itself to get of pocket with the acidity along the gumline. There’s a lovely creamy maraschino cherry and shirley temple sweetness on the middle palate and an entire cort of oak spilled down your back palate on the swallow. NOT THE FIRST TIME YOUVE SWALLOWED THAT MUCH WOO- alright. It is very pleasant despite my picayunes, they all essential arise as a result of the style itself and they could have easily put cherries in a sour blonde to get shitsacks to fall in love, pulling the tarp away like TADAA LOOK AT THE NEW FLANDERS RED. But they didnt, and I love them more for it. It’s like when coach makes you like run laps in front of his bicycle, making you put in those extra reps so that you can get to like the State finals or something. Full disclosure, I am not entiretly sure what coaches do exactly.
M: The acidity is dry as noted above, BUUUUUT i will note that this has a heavenly frothiness and creaminess to the mouthfeel like if they made Cherry Nestle Quik. It is truly tasty stuff and good luck finding a comparable barrel aged Flanders Red, just drink pasteurized La Folie and use your imagination extra hard or something.
FLANDERS RED GOD TIER MOVE. Ask all these #newmoney ballers about Alexander and they be like
O: Is this better than Cherry Oude Tart? Sure. Is it better than the goliath Alexander? No, but it falls somewhere above Caracterie Rouge and below those waley C&C La Folies. Obviously you should seek this out as it is within the pinnacle of the genre, but in all honesty, unless you are completely apeshit for the style, just trade for Cherry Oude Tart and hang up your spurs. I can only assume this will be tough to land and if you split this 12 ways after 12 other bottles, youll probably be like “FUKN DDB AND ALL HIS RECOMMEN I AM…I NEED TO SIT DOWN…HEY DID ANYONE LOSE A NUVA RING?”
U guize The Bachelor is over now mondays only have trade boxes and Dancing with the Stars.
This is a box from Ohio.
This is a beanie baby from Pennsylvania.
Grapefruit Sculpin Still banging hard on those 808 drums
I love how people piss the sheets over how this costs $18 a six pack but back in 2012 they had no problem dropping $8.99 on a bomber of regular ass sculpin.
Maybe the 🐋🐋🐋🐋adjunct ipa game isn’t for those people. They still sell Barefoot Chardonnay at the grocery store for like 9 bucks.
This beer is damn tasty but I might honestly prefer regular sculpin if I am going to be drinking several of these, the grapefruit gets a little cloying after the second one. But if you have to look presentable for a paternity test, go with a single grapefruit sculpin, it’s all the juicy resonant citrus and pine but then they game genie the fuck out of the pithy grapefruit notes and enter that infinite orange lives code. No clipping
I’ll spank the shit out of a grandpa if the price is right
@ballastpoint Manmosa grapefruit sculpin and ojeezy. Also catan cities and knights.
Let’s make a complicated beer less complicated. Let’s make a less complicated game way way more complicated.
A box from @santeadairius ? Great, now I need to call my physician about this erection that will inevitably last longer than 5 hours
Like clockwork.
dontdrinkbeer 