WHAT IS THE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BOMB AND BIBLE BELT: An inquiry into synthetic knowledge

April 18, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

I have gotten this question a few times and figured since I finally stopped fucking around and ticked Bible Belt, I would address this once and for all.

First and foremost, this is Bomb! (mandatory exclamation point, like P!nk)

HANDS UP IF YOU LIKE ADJUNCT STOUTS WE ROLLIN DEEP IN THAT VIP

This set the world on fire last year and was touted as being an “off-shelf Huna” which is largely true, because Huna should have been off-shelf in the first place. That’s like saying “Holy shit I got laid at a Gundam convention and didn’t even have to pay for it.” If you are dropping 12,000+ bottles, put that shit in distro already, stop torturing the latently racist Floridian populace. Alas I digress.

Whichever one you choose you are going in deep on that 13% adjunct swerve

So this is an adjunct heavy imperial/chili stout with coffee, cocoa nib, vanilla bean and chili. I know what you are thinking “where the fuck is the coconut?” well you can’t get every adjunct in one stout, them’s the rules. So I already noted that this beer is awesome and better than Huna in my full review this was well-tread ground. They ended up making batch after batch of this, showing that Cgiar City has been twisting some cocks for quite some time now.

BUT THEN EVIL TWIN COMES ALONG.

Evil Twin is a band of vagrant European pikers who squat in established breweries and turn out fantastic/overpriced/sometimes shitty beers. Jeppe balls the fuck out, opened a bottleshop, brewed, and was discovered by Brian from 12% Imports. The owner, Brian, was like “Hey Jeppe, what’s ur fukn dream?”

Jeppe was like “I think my dream is endless actually.”

Then the dudes at Prairie were like “hey we already have this wildly successful stout from last year, wanna take your base beer and basically rebrew it with a different label?”

and Jeppe was like “I am definitely one of the most adventurous people that I know.” [FN1 – http://craftbeercoach.com/brewery-biography-jeppe-jarnit-bjergso-of-evil-twin-brewing/%5D

Chase was like “that’s chill as fuck, grab that mash paddle, Captain Adventure.”

So essentially, Jeppe is not a “brewer” per se, he is an intellectual property generator, a recipe creator, a flavor alchemist, a Danish twin who will grind your palate like a fresh sybian on the highest setting.

If you skull a few of these, you will probably end up in deep shit

So what the fuck is Bible Belt then?

A RADICAL DEPARTURE FROM A PRE-EXISTING BEER

So the base beer is different, but with a similar abv, and similar adjuncts cacoa nibs, chilies, vanilla, and chocolate. So one has coffee another has chocolate, “WHICH WON IS FUKN BETTER THO DDB?”

Even More Jesus has a slightly thicker consistency, coats a bit better, and ratchets the chilis back. Bomb is more akin to Huna where the adjuncts seem to be on full display with chilis and the coffee notes taking top billing. I prefer Bible Belt, but again this is like preferring a Camaro to a Challenger, it’s the same full throttle balls to the wall imperialism you are expecting, just with minor nuances. I wish I had more to say about this but that’s the long and the short of it. Maybe when I get my online Certified Beer Server certification I will have more adjectives for you.

The short answer: they are pretty fucking similar. That is to say, two amazing offshelf beers that are quickly becoming the Dogecoin of the beer trading world. “BA Derk Lerd? That will be 8 bottles of Bible Belt/Bomb.”

Seek them both out, or wait until Huna hits distro next year and give up 2x$4$ brewery-only releases to Tampa traders. Either way.

@Tiredhandsbeer So It Goes, For Those Times When You are Firebombing Dresden and Get Thirsty

April 16, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Ok, you have read Slaughterhouse Five. We get it. Shit, you may have also read Breakfast of Champions, hell you probably will email me with some Bukowski references just in case. I get it, you like post-modernist literature, random DDB fan. Let’s couch that and talk about TIRED HANDSESES FIRST WILD ALE. Some haters will likely chime in with “they have made wild ales all along, they just chose to call them farmhouse ales.” A monocle-polishing dipshit like that probably does great with the ladies.

Anyway, let’s take a look at this Flandersy wild ale before we become unstuck in time. OK LAST VONNEGUT REFERENCE I SWEAR.

DOES ANYONE NOTICE THAT MY NEW CAMERA TAKES LESS SHITTY PHOTOS? God, there’s no impressing you assholes unless I take things to Adam Jackson/Sean Van Taggen lightbox levels.
You simply aren’t worth it.

Tired Hands Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States
Style | ABV
Flanders Red Ale | 9.00% ABV

510 bottle release, 2 per person, people have gotten shanked for less. Ardmore Pennsylvania putting work in the streets, that PANDEMIC, yellowtops.

A: This looks like a straight up flanders red that got a lil tan, maybe did a 15 minute bed when the hot chick told her to only do a 11 minute bed. You don’t get that ruby red, not the Ring Pop sort of affair that you might have gotten all swole, and it almost starts toeing towards the Oud Bruin benchmarks with the old SRM. I know just mentioning OUD BRUIN makes some people’s buttholes pucker so we will move on. The carb is substantial and looks great, frothy cherry mocha whip, sitting on top of a dark burnt brick red medium. The whole affair feels more “substantial” than those bitch ass Rodenbachs you sip after your Zumba class. Sick vascularity, full range of motion.

this is bit bigger, thicker, redder, and more powerful than you expect, but the result is pretty cutty.

S: This toes the old Flanders line and drops you somewhere in between a vintage Rodenbach (like the 2007 cellar reserve) and Caracterie Rouge. To clarify, you get a substantial acidicty and that borderline acetone/acetic that you would expect from the style, but it is lighter than the Oud Bruin side of things. There is the black cherry, marascino cherry, red chapstick, sucrets, some malty presence, and a tannic finish that reminds me of a big Napa cab. Again, this isn’t my favorite style but they are going hard in that cherry paint.

T: This takes the traditional flanders and jazzes it up with some hammer-on/pulloffs, bends, and slurs within the cherry/malt scales. Things feel more boisterous, the malt profile is ramped up and presents a sort of baked bread interplay with the cherry profile, the huge acidity mixes with the cherry cordial, the 1’s and 2’s are constantly cutting from dark cherries and bruised fruits and jumping back to balaton merlot beat drops. Tired Hands remixed the fuck out of your Duchess and you can’t even handle it. The closing taste is a bit too tart at cold temps and if you want those fruits to balance shit out, you need to let this open up. But once you let this warm up the abv starts peeking its head, so there’s a cost benefit analysis. You get some raspberry and pumpernickle bread, all laced with ornate acidity that never overstays its welcome, but chaperons throughout.

Them cherries will put you on that SubbyDoo swerve, other blogs start tucking they chains in

M: For the substantial malt profile you would expect this red wine monster to close with balance, but it remains pretty dry and thin due to the noteworthy acidity. I don’t want you to think this is some Upland Cherry sort of affair, but it isn’t exactly Cuvee de Tomme either, its a tart and puckering Flanders that underwent the Weapon X project in Canada but instead of adamantium in its bones, it was infused with powerful cherry acidity. WILL IT USE THESE POWERS FOR GOOD OR EVIL?

D: Given the dry profile, acidity, and lack of overwhelming fruit profile to reel things back in, I would say a 500ml is about right. I never tired of the beer, but I think a 750ml would be a touch ambitious for most people. If you like Griffin Bruxellois or some of the ultra tart Jackie O’s offerings in this same vein (Evelyn, things of that nature) then you will love this. If you approach this expecting a Tess D’Urbervilles walk through the garden with a flower tucked in your lapel, you will probably end up getting pounded like she did.

That face when you pop a legit wild ale and know hater tickers are gonna tell you about their Costco Duchess

Narrative: Detective Walter Janicsykowski had been working this beat for 13 years and had never seen anything like this. “Sir, it’s the same as the others, victim laid in a prostrate position, cherry juice on the hands and mouth, grenadine in and around the vaginal area,” forensic scientist Mark Walmsly noted, pointing to the woman’s wrists and ankles with an LED light, “you can expect to see more of these.” The Squeez-It killer had been ravaging the Ardmore populace during what was an unseasonably warm May. The cherries were ripening at an alarming pace and Walter took a deep pull of his Wild Cherry Slurpee while surveying the glossy black and white photos. He noted pits and stems arranged with care near each victim’s body, each cherry homicide executed with more intent than the less. It was a paradox in itself. A pitted sweet fruit, the subject of multiple serial murders. Somewhere in the streets, the killer was pouring himself a Shirley Temple and planning his next mark.

@gooseisland Brettanomite, Chicago Cultures Bringing those Brettangomeechies Heaters

April 14, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Back in November when Cahutlow dropped people went apeshit. Somehow in the scramble this solid gem got overlooked. This seems anomalous given what we know about Illinois and their previous trading propensities, a brewery only release with a sub-400 bottle count? This should have been the second coming of VSB, wild ale rapture for stretchmarked Cubs fans mashing out on overloaded hot dogs. Alas, the Humean proposition holds true that we cannot predict the future except by inference, and this one was relatively quiet: UNTIL NOW.

But on the real, this is a solid sour beer and I am gonna go irie on today’s review

Damnnn 750ml and waxed, shit is this had an ornate carboard box you know shit would have been way too real

Goose Island Beer Co.
Illinois, United States

Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | 6.30% ABV

One-off steeze. 350 bottles.

GI BE LIKE: we’re releasing Brettanomite, our final beer of the 25th Anniversary Series. The brewers hand-bottled a sour wheat that was aged 13 months in oak barrels with Brettanomyces, Lambicus, Bruxellensis and Lactobacillus (6.3%) It’s golden in color, has wild aromas of ripened stone fruit, a spicy tart flavor and a cleanly balanced finish.

A: This is a touch darker than I was expecting given the “wheat beer” base, maybe I was thinking I was in for some 312 Urban Wheat Beer (now in cans) but this presents a much darker countenance, more in line with them Sour in the Rye offerings, but still inviting nonetheless. The carbonation is substantial and drops foam left and right with cascading rings of lacing fighting against the noteworthy acidity ripping down them malty residuals like tannic sandcastles. Bubbling like girls when they see they have 4 episodes of SCANDAL on the DVR.

You met her on Plentyoffish but wait until she finds out how much you spent on this dumbshit tick. u dead homie.

S: This presents an awesome apricot bouquet at the outset with mild oakiness, nectarine acidity, dented peaches, pluots left to ripen and fall of the vine, and the slightest hint of musky complexity. For all the brett in the name and brett this and brett that, it seems more like a Lactomite or a Pediomite, but only completely worthless brewers use Pedio puns in their labels, so I understand the move. This is an inviting beer that has a slightly less acetic nose akin to Sour in the Rye Kumquat. This will be a running theme so dig in, this beer is essentially a SitR deviant, albeit 10% better executed. The edges rounded off and a coat of lacquer applied for that showroom glean. Then again if GI sent this nationwide, to Whole Foods, to Bevmos and Total Wines, we could anticipate that loving $30+ price tag that we enjoyed with Halia. So there’s also that.

T: This is a touch more acidic than the nose would suggest but it still remains in balance, not exactly in a Belgian tradition, but somewhere less aggressive than the testicle twisting pH of say Upland offerings, more dimensions than the Cascade lineup, but falls short of some of the wild farmhouse offerings that the top tier American Saison purveyors are offering. The taste is almost more in line with “saisons” in the Prairie and Side Project realm with that amped up acidity and pineapple, light oaky/grassiness in the finish and the fruit tannins overseer making sure those malty fields are tilled with care. For posterity, take Sour in the Rye and dial back the acidity and the spicy rye character, you get this beer. Which is to say it’s a tasty treat.

Dont hoard these low bottle count ticks, fuck school, pop these burners. These bitches love Sosa.

M: This isn’t the sandiest vagina at the beach, but it isn’t exactly some juicy treat either. It presents a lingering dryness but Zambonies things to an even plane with a juicy profile up front. The coating is minimal and leaves some sort of bitterness and acidity on the swallow but you can still swing a big dick at a tasting with this, stunt on tickers opening BRASH BROS offerings.

D: This is highly drinkable but not into the “CROOSH” range if we are using terms of art. The GERD factors arent in play as the acidity is blaanced out, you don’t get rumble guts and this remains pretty consistent throughtout all temp ranges. You don’t get cankersores and it isn’t overly drying, but it isn’t the most memorable beer either. You could buy a Juliet instead and, while different, you are on a similar level of stunting. Giving up mad bottles for this is like an injured Chris Paul it aint got no point. Some people think the Panamera stunts on the 911 hard, but ultimately you don’t need to drop Persian stacks to run those sub-5 times, it just boils down to panache. If you want to bosst your petty ego with a shitty website, post grainy pics, talk shit on fictional interlocutors behind a computer screen, bolster your inferiority complex predicated on beverages, then sure this is for you. So if you aren’t DDB, you can still hang out the window and get your Suge Knight on without this bottle.

my face when tickers be like “you rate Geese Islands beers unfarely!”

Narrative: The F-18 screeched along the cloud cover awaiting final orders. This escort mission had gone horribly wrong and now he was stuck in this Blue Angels mission from hell. “Commander, primary guns are shot, nothing left on frontline support, only offensive materials available are AIM-Sidewinder missiles.” The commander sighed and turned off the intercom, “ALL HE HAS IS HEAVY FIREPOWER! We are talking 4 big shots to make an impression, this is a suicide mission!” “Sir, you left the intercom on, and I know what I am going into, I know what to do, GODSPEED!” The intercom went into a thicket of static and the sound of hissing bombs cutting through the atmosphere cut through the airwaves. “That crazy son of a gun just did something I have seen very few men capable of, a one-sided honorable assault. Godspeed.” The smoldering robusto appeared not unlike the failing jet engine, cutting through the mist. That acidic bastard just went out in a rare showing, a balance blaze of glory most would never see again. The demonstration was hardly necessary, but the sheer showmanship made it all worthwhile. Commander Jennings took a deep pull from a pineapple juicebox and watched the LED green dot disappear from the MCOM scanner.

BFM (Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes) XV (√225 Saison) – Math nerds cupping them swiss saison racks

April 12, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

I sometimes have to field dumbshit complaints like “you never review beers I have heard of,” or “where is your KBS review? I need to know, plz, DDB captainsaveaho” and then I lol and drop 900 words on another obscure farmhouse beer because, this site ain’t bout that basic bitch shit. We aren’t on doing Frozen “LET IT GO” covers and posting instagram pics of us at Coachella listening to Lorde and shit. Go to another trifling beer site for that, there are plenty.

So today we have an ultra-legit top 50 saison that I have been longing for, ArchEnemy hooked this up. Apparently people in the PNW dont want to drop $30 on a weird looking “18 century ale.” MOAR FOR ME. Today we finna huff that Swiss Mist, tickers be like “SwizzySwizzy when your saison droppin?”

I was gonna chope this bitch up, but then I realized I might not tick this again. BOY WOULD MY FACE BE RED.

BFM (Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes)
Switzerland
Style | ABV
Saison / Farmhouse Ale | 5.00% ABV

A: This rolls out of the bottle like a broken dishwasher spraying luminous foam all over the place, attenuated as fuck, that 90% strain just working those malts like a laquered floor at Magic City. Those straw red bottoms are clacking at the top of the saison pole and the webbing looks like Peter Parker just re-upped his subscription to Brazzers. The whole affair is turbid like a roll in the hay and the haze looks like someone is smoking dro in a tanning bed. The whole thing is dirty and fulfilling, like watching 3 hours of Nostalgia Critic and lying about it.

Beers like this are strange, but somehow you respect them because you know they mean business.

S: This is incredddddibly musky. Holy shit, I can only imagine how this tiny 5% abv ramped up and boosted out this huge acidic cheesy nose. You get some lemongrass, jamba juice rinds, The brett takes top billing and dips hard, accenting the acidity from the wild aspects of this yeast. This is chunky and dry, acidic curds and whey, lemon meringue cornbread cooling on the windowsill, and then you gotta change your Anchor Blue jeans because you just farmhoused so hard.

T: This takes the acidic nose and takes the cheesiness and funk to gruyere levels. The musk is like the Brabantiae of the saison world and I wish I had an old ass bottle of this, top tier farmhouse ale no question. The middle is a touch of breadiness and biscuit, with a sharp cheddar rind dryness and this pithy orange/grapefruit peel finish. It is incredibly dry and leaves a linger herbal creaminess along the gumline like you just sucked off a Shaman, but you are ok with it, because you finna tick. Incredibly complex beer on the nose and the mouth, call an ENT and get some biopsies done.

You pop this beer and a sense of urgency rolls over you.

M: This is creamy not unlike Ete, but imparts an intense dryness from the musk and funk. The FG on this must be like negative platos, anti matter sucking all nether-malts into the void. It is acidic but so balanced in the approach that you can chain these hard, 750ml is a LOL serving size and the 5% abv just gets your all excited and it ends suddenly. You can guzzle this, the carb doesn’t slow you down, the acidity doesn’t dry you out, the musk isn’t cloying, and the thin body isn’t substantial enough to fill you up. THIS IS A ROBOT SAISON THAT CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. I don’t know if Wallonia would give this a full nod, farms all on the sides of the alps like Snowboarder Kids [fn1 – N64] but in the end it is just fucking delicious and if this was a true 18th century ale, I would not have gotten jack shit harvested or planted. I would have been all swerved in Zurich chopping up Roussean flows; what were we even talking about-

D: See above and make a quick inference whether this is exceptionally drinkable. This is a top tier saison for sure and I wish it would either 1) be more available or 2) dipshit tickers who secretly love AWA would leave beers like this alone. My site isn’t helping my cause by exposing saisons on the reg to stoutmouthed masses. It is a double edged sword, I want to show the world the new way i found out how to touch myself but then everyone steals my bit. So if you like wild ales and ultra acidic lambics, go drink those and leave us poor farmhouse drillers to our provincial toil. I can’t have it both ways, I can’t both praise beers like this and then continually rip on people who seek out KBS and black note like they are whales. The plaintive truth is that the second the 2013 wave of tickers moves to the next evolution of their palates they are gonna babyboom the fuck out of the farmhouse world. Draining our resources, not paying into the system, you know. Let’s just hope these newbz still think saisons are all Red Barn and Hennepin for the time being. Let us pray.

Tired of hearing dipshits argue over stout values? Drink saisons. It’s basically like calling Social Services for your liver.

Narrative: Jacob Donalds surveyed the contents of his spacious “cellar” and nodded in calm approval. The northwest corner of his parent’s basement in northern Ohio was his palatial estate, racks upon racks of IKEA shelves with bottles upon bottles of stouts and porters distributed nationwide. While submitting resumes on Monster.com he would take brief breaks to run his finger along his collection of Stone IRS bombers, lovingly caressing the cardboard boxes from each of his Parabola mainstays, kept in perpetual slumber. There was seldom a time that he did not mention his age when presenting this opulent stash, “NOT BAD FOR A 24 YEAR OLD RIGHT?” he would importune to his uncaring friends. Still, when the sun would dip low across the insubstantial horizon, he felt a panging and a hollow emptiness that perhaps he was not the most knowledgeable person in the entire world. His self image was affirmed regularly by his 134 person Facebook group and the accolades that followed upon posting photos of 2 bottles of Abyss were not insubstantial. Still, while running his fingertips over bottles and bottler of BCBS there was a vision of a higher calling, a more perfect style, as high as the Swiss alps, as refreshing as a kumquat harvest, running barefoot across fields in northern france. For now he would content himself to chocolates and coffees, for to embrace the unknown was to lay prostrate to a tradition of history whose power lay not in starting platos, but finish gravity.

@tiredhandsbeer Tired Hands, The Emptiness is Eternal; the void in my farmhouse jeans is eternally filled.

April 7, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Tired Hands and I have a turbid history with their bottled offerings. They released one of the best saisons of recent memory but then they also release intensely strange beers brewed with esargot shells. Thankfully this falls well within the realm of the latter and even goes beyond all prior iterations and offerings.

If we are going to use something in the realm of Blue Label Arthur as a benchmark, this hits real close to the pin and is one of the best American saisons of recent memory. Take that Cask 200 swagger, add some Lil Lobster on the Prairie, and you get the idea of what Kobe shit we are addressing. This farmhouse puts up 83 on those haters.

Workin them persimmons, clacking those red bottoms, putting itself through saison college.

Tired Hands Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States

Style | ABV
Saison / Farmhouse Ale | 7.00% ABV

Notes/Commercial Description:
The Emptiness is Eternal is an oak barrel fermented Saison conditioned on a copious amount of Hachiya persimmons grown by our dear friend Tom Culton at his family farm in Lancaster, Pa. We produced 400 bottles of this beautiful Saison.

A: At the outset you get this intensely radiant beer that just LOOKS bone fucking dry. They golden notes look like radioactive hay like it came from some locally sourced Chernobyl farm. There is a mild turbidity to it with frothy thin bubbles that crackle and toss up some wispy stacks and let them rain. The lacing is decent but cling isn’t this beers mainstay, it’s all about that yellow ringpop glow. Marcellus Wallace briefcase shit.

Get your mouth on this golden treat ASAP

S: This is acidic but not in that Side Project/borderline AWA realm, it has a tangerine and white grape waft, since this is a 400 bottle release you get serious rare notes at the outset the sublimate into a sort of “unobtainable” and dissipate. The persimmons are light and, as a side note, as a complete bitch to capture in the flavor profile, come through lovingly in the waft. You get some sour skittles acidity and faintly brackish aspect but again the whole thing comes across as a tropical fruit stand with a faint biscuit underpinning. Drank this in bed and had to change the sheets, got that horse blankie all dirty.

T: This is more acidic in the taste than the persimmon sweetness of the nose would indicate and it imparts a riesling dryness upon swallow. The middle is all clementine and orange zest, intensely drinkable, but never going overboard on the acidity and maintaining its wheat backbone enough to paint the ph canvas. Admittedly this is not the most complex beer in taste execution, but it really doesn’t need to be. If you strip down a Datsun 240z and drop an acidic 350 in it, it will get the job done without complexity or panache. This shit drops Molly all in your champagne and people be fuxxin after you pop one of these.

Some people can’t handle the farmhouse lifestyle, do u even rustic

M: This is on the dryer side of the farmhouse realm and doesn’t provide a lingering creaminess for the gumline, but again, it never loses its identity within the folds of that ATP acidity, Kreb’s citric acid cycle kept all in check. You can drill this and wont be left with gerd or cankersores. It exits with a white wine oakiness that is almost drowned out from the fruit notes, but when you see them sparklers in the club, you forget all about the minor details.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and you can lay these down racksonracksonracks, well, relative to the 2 per person allocation I guess. If ever a 7% beer needed to be in a 750ml, this is it. THe 500ml is like a full release massage where you never get to flip over. I want more and will tip up, but the opportunity is over all too soon. This isn’t some musky complex banger, but it is awesome in the 3 tricks it does turn out. I can safely recommend this to anyone, stretch marked Cicerones or size zero BEBE dress wearing ASU students alike. This beer goes in.

borderline wild, but domesticated enough for you to fall in love

Narrative: Billy was commonly known as one of the Double Dragon brothers, but there was so much more to Mr. Lee. While some would protest that an industrial garage was an uncomely location for a citrus garden, he still pressed on diligently. He had a small plot of land in the year 19XX and tilled the soil arduously in between rescuing his girlfriend from local thugs. He would pack a few tangerines in his pocket and then proceed to strike a woman armed with a whip directly in the face. There was a simplicity to his agrarian existence, romantic in his goals, and a Roussean nature to his exploits. Billy pushed a huge bald man off of a conveyor belt and peeled a clementine and watched Abobo fall to his death, another day for an industrial farmer caught in the grips of modern existence.

OWA Brewery, Ume Lambic, Just When you Thought I was PLUM OUT of Lambic Reviews

April 2, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

On this one episode of Tailspin, Kid Cloudkicker jumps out of a plane with a bag of table salt and pours it into the clouds. The result is that it starts raining due to a chemical reaction with the salt and the cumulus clouds.

I don’t know how to science but, in today’s review I am going to make it rain on these tickers with a 100 bottle lambic release from the Pajizzzotenland.

YMCMB MAYBACH MUSIC MUSTARDONTHEBEAT.

Gotta have some srs plums to go after obscure Japanese lambic.

OWA Brewery SPRL
Brewed at Brouwerij De Troch
Style: Lambic Style – Fruit
Bruxelles, Belgium
5.5% Abv

100 bottle release

A: This beer presents with a bit darker hue than I anticipated but also doesn’t really have any fuschia or magenta from the ume tannins- OH WAIT, that’s probably because ume looks like this you ignorant fuck:

peach pears plums I am inches

so the carb comes out in soapy bubbles you could count individually and rises up to an eggshell collar that subsides pretty quickly but, nothing too apeshit, all things considered. There is insubstantial lacing and the legs are watery with minimal cling. The center of this beer is very inviting, got that amber meets wulfenite sort of glow to it. Google wulfenite and leave me the fuck alone.

Time for a trip to Japan or…Belgium. wait fuk

S: This is a tasty treat for the old face holes. At the outset you get a light sweetness like lemon meringue that subsides into a citrus acidity akin to a tangelo, there is a touch of musk and cheesiness that is almost like topsoil/silt, it closes with a zesty Sierra mist lime that is ultra inviting. It’s like when the woman is all on them satin sheets running her hand in a small circle and YOU WAKE UP ON THE METRO WITH A VISIBLE ERECTION OH GOD DAMN IT.

T: This takes the foregoing Sprite and tangerine aspects and ratchets them up to levels that can only be described as “mid to extremely trill.” The first swallow is a 160 bpm trap beat that cascades sweet, brackish, then tart in those waves. You get this opener kinda similar to lime lucas, if you grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood. It subsides into a sweet honeysuckle and grapefruit pith bitterness. Finally the closer comes out and it tightens up the game with a sort of “aged Printemps” sort of lemon-lime feel to it. It is never exceedingly sweet, and remains drinkably tart, yet has this bitterness like citrus rind to keep everyone in check. It could use a touch more from the attic fairy, but I imagine that will come with time, as will I.

The malts are restrained and take on a new, equally amazing form

M: This has a bit more heft than I would want out of a fruited lambic, but never drags deep into that honey coating too aggressively. It is dry but balanced by a light sweetness along the gumline that combos into the next sip like Glacius. Alright people complain my references are too obscure, you want to know who the fuck Glacius is?

There you go. That’s Glacius, do you even Killer Instinct?

He is excellent at ground-air combos. Alright can we get back to the fucking review? Ok so take that lemon lime and add a bit of acidity, not much, but say in the realm of a young 3F Kriek, just enough to keep the blue vein pumping. It is fully satisfying.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable with the caveat that you keep it under 55 degrees. The honey and sweet aspects closer to room temp make the sweetness a bit heavy handed when it gets warm but, what the fuck is wrong with you, letting 100 bottle Japanese lambics get all hot you insensitive asshole? All in all, a very good lambic likely unlike any other offerings you have tried. I guess you could mix 2006 Doesjel with 2006 Printemps and get a similar, less bright execution. In fact, go do that, report back to me. I posted a pic of this in a Facebook beer group all warming up my rotator cuff thinking I was about to serve up a backdoor breaking ball on some tickers. People had zero fucks to spare, too bust doling out Likes for KBS pictures. But that is part of the reason why you are here, and not fingering your dickhole talking to some anti-In Bev noob. We have the same issues. The type of beer drinkers who seek out this type of shit are not the ones who review Hopslam by reading the label in present progressive tense “”getting hoppy, getting malts, getting yeast, getting water, getting Bell’s, getting Michigan. getting…a guy with a hop cone on him…getting barcode…”

You expect some naughty funk but get some citrus loving instead.

Narrative: Tetsuo Otomo was the most esteemed botanist in all of Kyoto and his scientific renown brought inquiries from across the globe. Upon the behest of the European Union, Mr. Otomo traveled to the Senne Valley to analyze the ground-water table and its effects on the local fauna. “Hmm…ish a nooo good,” he noted in a borderline offensive accent “glound tabre has too much a sart! Need nitrogen frixation, lower minelal crontent.” The group of Belgian geologists nodded and took copious notes. Mr. Otomo returned to Brussels shortly thereafter and engineered a super strain of Japanese Plum that would convert the atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia at an alarming rate. The process drastically boosted the presence of the diazotrophs, creating a super flora in the classic valley. Soon even the mildest glass of kolsch exposed to the air became an acidic wild ale, almost instantly. German tourists brought kegs and kegs of tepid wit biers over in droves to contaminate and vastly improve their pedestrian ales. Tetsuo had solved a problem with plums, but created a larger one by way of ignorant assholes from abroad.

@anchoragebrew A Deal with the Devil Barleywine, Faustian Propositions; Flipping those boozy Alaska bricks

March 26, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

If you have been jumped in to the barleywine B-DUB crew, you know not to wear Airmaxes in the trap or a Chicago Bulls hoodie unless you wanna get laced up by some legit barleywine hitters. This is for the completely initiated. I know we joke around a lot about barleywines, upsets, and shelfwales around here. This is not to be fucked with. At first blush you might see that looming 17.3% abv and think you are hard, flexing your lats in the mirror remembering how you 1v1 wreked a bottle of Black Tuesday.

This is a whole different battle. Blood sweet and cognac running down your face. In Alaska the male population greatly outnumbers the female residents, this is how they cope: being blacked the fuck out 24/7. Let’s peep this icy beast in today’s review while we venture into the wild.

Seward’s folley.

Be cautious, that boozy is bigger than it appears. This beer gone shake it like a red nose.

Anchorage Brewing Company
Alaska, United States
Style | ABV
American Barleywine | 17.30% ABV

Notes/Commercial Description:
Barleywine style ale brewed with Galaxy Hops. A starting gravity of 37 Plato. Aged eleven months in Cognac barrels.

A: This pours syrupy thick and rolls out of the bottle in an incorrigible manner. You cannot agitate this beer, the bubbles barely escape from the depth and die immediately upon hitting the surface like they have some malty bends. The beer rocks in the glass like a medicinal coating, this murky brown Ohio river sort of tepid murkiness. The sheeting is hilarious and comes down in clear ropes like when you jack it too much in one day, aka that cinco al dia. This is a massive, offstyle monster that swings hard with an overpowered arm like the Tyrant in Resident Evil. It turns me into a Jill sandwich.

Picture above, traders posting ISOs for this beer.

S: Holy god, prepare for a walk to the edge and beyond. This takes the booziness of Xyauyu Gold to crazy new heights, or depths if you have a puckered butthole. This wafts fusel with a huge heat, coconut, almond, sherry, tawny port, caramel, cinnamon, and a massive dark fruit finish like overripe plums or blackberries you can crush in your fist. There’s light spice and oak, but again everything is dialed up to 11, no apologies are given and drinking this at 50 degrees was a hilarious act of futility, it was all oak and hops. Seriously just drink this at 65 and treat it like a liqueur, otherwise fuck it, you are wasting your $30 bottle. God knows what you paid to have something shipped to you from Alaska, better hope your wife doesn’t see that CC statement you irresponsible fuck.

T: This takes the insanity of the nose and renders it into a palpable malty madness. The viscosity is massive and leads with a fusel heat that strikes the gumline and imparts a warm toffee and cognac soaked peanut brittle front with surprising oaky hoppiness to balance things out. You know how in shitty movies when someone is getting bullied they get tossed around, straight getting rattled, that is how you palate feels keeping kicked from dude to dude just straight roughed up in a circle. It is hot but bitter, then soft and sweet and closes with an alcohol footing. This is less a barleywine and more in a class of those “ultra-ales” like Utopias, Xyauyu, Colossus, Five Squared, and the like. We drank this third in the blind BABW tasting and I laughed upon just smelling it, the intensity is so over the top you have a hard time taking it seriously like Crank 2, but it delivers on the nose and taste, if you have power leveled your palate, you will enjoy this sheer blunderbuss of malty glass and nails being sprayed across the deck of this Cognac man-of-war.

Weak tickers will make some comment about how their local barleywine is better, then secretly toss a beat sesh to this pics. That malty longing.

M: This leads syrupy thick, coating massively and heavier than most stouts of recent memory. It just goes overboard with the heat and if you take a large 2oz pull you might feel a tingle of a gag reflex, it is that wafty. But at room temp, just sip it and split this bitch 6 ways. You read that right, DDB is recommending giving this a straight up midwest treatment. Find your closest 10 friends with Untappd accounts and start popping those 5’s off. If you look at the reviews from other people who are pumping out thick loads of 5/5 100/100 all of their pours were like 3-4 ounces. Some American badass took down 5 oz, but any more than that is just too apeshit. No one puts on the entire Dragonforce Discography. That’s just too much face melting, it tires you out.

D: This is clearly not a marathon beer, hell, even powering through a full 8 ounce pour is baller status. I guess if you land a 150 case release from Alaska you should savor it. You could honestly cork this shit and come back to it a couple days later, this is indefatigable and you simply cannot oxidize this massive bitch. Trying to drill this feels like those last battles in Shadow of the Colossus where you are grinding for an hour just to take this bitch down. It is an undertaking that is fulfilling, albeit completely excessive and over the top. Invite your Yu Gi Oh friends over and get swerved.

Pour yourself a healthy portion and settle into whatever deviant ass activities that you have been meaning to get around to but couldn’t bring yourself to do sober.

Narrative: Keanu looked pensively at the floating parchment paper, fixing his eyes on the floor and the mangoat legs of his sinister host. “So let me get this straight, even though I can’t play bass, can’t act, can’t sing, I can have it all, just to give you my soul?” Keanu asked the lord of darkness and took a deep pull of vintage 50 year cognac and bit into a bite of creme brulee. “Yessss Keanuuu, you can have a band, you can call it Dogstar and it still will be successfffullll, even though you are completely without merit,” Bezelbub’s eyes ignited a crimson flame, showing frames from the Bill and Ted sequels, almost terrifying in scope and perspective. “Keanuuu you cannot do thisss without dark interventionnnn” Mephisto importuned with a flaming red plume pen and Keanu took it reluctantly. “Alright Satan, but you have to promise that I retain creative control over Speed 2,” Keanu asked and signed in blood on the bottom line while finishing his Do Si Do, crumbs falling on the unholy document.

Stone Brewing, Mikhail’s Odd, Bourbon Barrel Aged IRS with Ryan Bros Espresso, Giving BA Speedway a Run for its Beans

March 24, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Well it took years and years and years, but we finally have a legit Stone Barrel Aged IRS in a bottle: and both variants are fucking amazing. The abv is boosted, the mouthfeel is silkier, and they took all ratchet elements and made them more ratcheterer. Now I know you are reticent to believe old DDB after Friday’s palate bashing, but trust me on this one: California Coffee Stouts, this beer is ridiculous. I crossed my fingers, popped the most annoying cork in the world and prayed for no infection like those Planned Parenthood waiting room feels.

The Classic Fyodor tastes like a more aggressive version of my 2008 BA Stone IRS Review, which is to say it is fucking phenomenal.

Enough pandering, let’s get up in these guts and grind some of them beans.

Not only is this not infected, it is outrageously good in the platonic sense, good to the point of outrage at its existence. Them Forms.

Stone Brewing Company, Escondido
13.9% Abv (!)
38 ibus warrior hops in the boil, in the mash roasted barley and pale, amber and black malts, Ryan Bros coffee in the whirlpool

A: Just look at that bad bitch, this beer can pull a kickdoe and take the door like a malty black flashbang. The bottle is obnoxiously hard to open, the cork not only got stuck, but it broke under moderate force. At first I almost subbydeuced in my pants when I saw the substantial carb after being traumatized by the 2010 BA IRS debacle. There was no mistaking this shit though, shit looks viscous but not underattenuated, that Aristotelian Golden Mean in the Parabola and CW16 range, where you dont feel like a diabetic fuck (see: Huna) but you don’t feel like you are counting Weight Watchers Points (see: pre-2013 Eclipse/Czar Jack.) The mocha foam looks like a coffee drink prepared by one of those Suicide Girl looking baristas. Beer make you all nervous, you be buying cake pops and shit.

After dealing with missteps and knockoffs, Stone finally knocked it out of the park with its flagship offering.

S: God fucking damnit. Why does this have to be $20 a 500ml with a nose like that? This takes that BA Speedway model and ramps up the roast and acidity like cold brew batches from Stumptown, chocolate and kaffir lime leaf, roasted graham cracker, mallowfoam and milk chocolate. The s’more joke is lingering but the coffee dominates and prevents an overlying sweetness and adds to the balance.

T: The sharp abv lingers more a moment on the tongue but is a perfect compliment to the toasty acidity of the coffee. There is a drying twix/chocolate aspect that warms the bitter zones with a light hoppy touch and closes with that same espresso bean waft that was such a fucking deal in the base beer. Nothing changes here, this beer just took that Impreza base beer and amped shit up to that Subaru RS Rallycar levels. My natural comparison is Morning Delight as it comes across as more substantial than BA Speedway, and I am too pussy to lock down KBBS so I have to leave the imrpession as a coovee between those two. The barrel lingers along the gumline with an incredible vanilla that isn’t that Lipsmacker lip gloss/Coldstone Creamery shit, its like the tannic oaky vanilla you get from Angel’s Envy left at room temp.

Between the magnificent caramel and vanilla of the barrel lies a poised coffee maltness, ready to embrace you

M: This is lighter than the hefty Abyss and massive BT/Huna finishing gravity masters, but so much for the better. Honestly I am not surprised given the character of regular ass, delicious Stone IRS. The coffee and the barrel just lay in bed with you like an exotic Craigslist casual encounter and you have way more than you bargained for. This shocked the hell out of me given how completely shitty most of the QM series presentations are, let’s be realistic here. I am the furthest thing from a Stone fanboy and their saison game could not even be salvaged by Stillwater intervention; but this, this is some other worldly shit.

D: Here we are 650 words in and the bottle is almost gone, exceedingly crushable and the complete lack of the cloying sweetness on the closer is underscored in a helvetica font by the dryness of the bourbon barrel and coffee toastiness. Inevitably some poor dipshit will interject with “BCBW COFFEE COSTS LESS AND IS PROBABLY BETER.” In this instance yes, BCBCS is much more affordable, but it simply is not better as a vehicle for delivery of coffee and barrel character, because this beer is stripped down with them Sparco seats and coffee momo pedals. BCBCS is far more affordable but this beer is simply the better executed of the two. If you are a poor fuck without a Fedex account, tell yourself whatever gets you to sleep at night, I guess. The luxury is in its brashness, both beers are amazing and I love BCBCS, but this is a whole different game. Highly recommended.

This stout is more massive than it appears, take it in carefully.

Narrative: Mikhail Bulgakov rapped his state-issued fountain pen on the rich glaze on his imported poplar desk. The title sheet for his magnum opus, The Master and Margarita, lay unfinished and the onset of writers block lay across his limbs as he slumped into a supple lambskin loveseat. “It is not right, I need…something,” he remonstrated to himself as he rifled through his cabinets, seeking a generic bottle of rye whiskey issued by the local magistrate in gratitude for his recent work and gracious compliance with his stern ban. The silky sting of the rye made him long for a decadent malty treat, the kiss of a deep chocolate contraband, disallowed in the new Republic. “THAT IS IT, by God,” he feverishly sat at the compact Hammond 1B typewriter, fingers rapping out his masterpiece, urging aesthetic to the highest paradigm predicated on a single desire: to drink a fantastic stout free from governmental oppression. “Manuscripts don’t burn” in the same fashion that his desire for a creamy decadent libation burned in his heart. It would take decades to realize his dream, but the stark love of Russian Imperial Stouts and the dreams of free fermentation licenses powered the candid reality behind Margarita. The world was forever changed.

Flossmoor Station Wooden Hell, Getting that whaley wood, the best kind of alerection

March 23, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Boy, you make a joke that you paid $700.00 for a bottle of beer and people lose their shit. Thankfully, I didn’t actually drop 7 bills to get some wood like some MBC ballers, but it did involve a trade that would turn your resctum inside out like a skinned snake. At any rate, cracking those top 10 speedwalez takes some doing, as anyone with shitty priorities will attest. In full midwest form, I only had ~4 ounces of this, so if my review sucks shit, point me to someone who has recently skulled a bomber solo, and I will ask that person why he has no friends.

Anyway, let’s make some more erection jokes predicated on wood puns in today’s review

I kicked off the blind BA Barleeywine tasting with this and no fewer than 5 dipshits pointed out that I did not taste this blind.
Thank you for that.

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery
Illinois, United States
Style | ABV
English Barleywine | 9.50% ABV

A: Despite its age, this doesnt pour a muddy flacid lakewater, but it isn’t the picture of jubilant, pube-free youth either. The carb is gentle and wisps in light rings without much lacing to speak of. In goldilocks parlance, things are “just right.” It isn’t exactly radiant but there is a certain posture to it like sits somewhere between a quad and that deep almond brown with medium clarity that is inviting, but relatively thin looking for the style. If you have fuxxed with CW BBBW you’ll know that look tho.

Just because something is old doesn’t mean it can’t be relevant and refined.
inb4 Ftowne jokes.

S: This is easily my favorite part of this beer, the toffee, almond, creme brulee top, toasted caramel and vanilla just dance seamlessly. I was expecting an oxy sidecar, but it never came. Everyone high fives one another and press their hips together comparing cocks talking about cardboard and “THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN I TRIED IT ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS” but dick measuring aside, I don’t get that thrift store musk that everyone was jizzing their skinny jeans over. Trust me, later I had 2000 BA Leviathan, i know them oxies. The waft was awesome, no old comic books up in the mix.

T: The taste follows the nose pretty seamlessly albeit in a much more gentle fashion. Those kids in the mid to late 2000s must have had more nuanced palates, an appreciation for the balance and front porch lounging with boozy libations. I got toasted coconut, sugar daddies, a light touch of paper/oxy, and some mallowfoam. Again this is all within the scope of things being resonant and lightly executed. If you walk into this with a raging boner for a Mother of All Storms experience, you will probably clip your tip on the wooden doorway. Speaking of wood, this isn’t the barrel bomb or oaky monster the label would imply, and I think it is better as a result. Perhaps time mellowed it, but it was just and easy drinker that disappeared frustratingly fast.

“I ticked won of the raerest barelywines evar, y u jealus of my sick lifestyle LOL haters amirite?”

M: This is on the thinner side of the BABW spectrum but the dovetailing of the gentle flavors makes it seem reasonable. By way of contrast, GI BCBBW has a shitload of raisin, chocolate, fig packed into a similarly thin body so it feels off balanced as a result. I really enjoyed the slick clean finish and sustain of the caramel notes rings like your child when you lock him in the poolhouse for running on the deck. Those sweet dulcet notes of enduring heat.

D: this is exceptionally drinkable and perhaps is a touch past its prime, depending on cellaring conditions. This is the same shithead section where I recommend you seek it out and you tell me to bang my asshole with a curling iron. The give and take of malty tides rolling in, taking hundreds of dollars in its wake. So the operative question is “should I put together a FT: with v007, Fou Foune, Pulling Nails, DDG, and 2 De Garde Berliners + $$$$ to land this bottle?” That is up to how well your life is going I guess, I eat dinty moore in front of a CRT TV and sip whales because I have shitty priorities. You want to live like me? You want to be an internet badass with stretch marks and an inferiority complex?

Fine, then trade for Wooden Hell. Like I give a fuck.

This is one of those last level master ticks you seek out because you are too bitchmade to land M.

Narrative: William Cooper was last in a proud lineage of barrel craftsmen who, until recently, felt the sting of a world embracing stainless containers. That is, until the revolution of the dipshit homebrewer. Every day, while shaving staves down of pure oak, he would be disturbed with importuning phone calls requesting “RARE BARRELS FOR MY IMPERIAL BROWN AGED ON DATES FIRST USE PLEASE.” William would masterfully be shaping a hoop with care and need to set his work by the wayside for shortsighted assholes. In his remote Illinois workshop, Subarus and KIAs would pull up regularly with husky patrons coming to question him about inane aspects of his once-proud craft. “Well what I am really looking at is bung retention, I made an extract Belgian blonde and I want to add Yuzu to it and I need something with a tannic presence, I read that online” they would chime in while inspecting markings. The face palming would not be insubstantial when these mealtymouthed interlopers would examine stave rivets and begin an unsolicited diatribe about Pappy Van Winkle lots. “Please sir, I just, I don’t even know what you are talking about, this is a private workshop,” William would plead, “yeah I have been to plenty of private workshops in Vermont to inspect their processes, nothing but the best for my homebrew you know? Some people really lack class.” The barrel business was booming once again, to the dismay of every cooper in the entire world.

Blind Barrel Aged Barleywine Tasting Results Are In. God damn it.

March 22, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Alright I am going to have to eat an entire plate of shit for this one. Illinois destroyed all competition.

Straight jacket took first place.
King Henry took second.

I can’t make this shit up. For all my shit talking, you cannot deny greatness and these beers are God Tier. Consider this a formal apology for all those times I made fun of KH and called it offstyle and noted the stout characteristics. Actually no, fuck that. No apology, just go buy more Straight Jacket.

I am dead.

Here is the breakdown:

1. Straight Jacket – 16.5
2. King Henry 15.5
3. Kuhnhenn BBW 15.375
4. GI BCBBW 14.7
5. Wooden Hell 14.6 (NOT RATED BLIND)
6. Blendlicious 14.5
7. Dude’s Bane 14.1
8. Old Nuptial and 2000 Ba Leviathan (tie) 13.75
10. Leon 12.75
11. Bourbon Barleycorn 12.5
12. Deal With the Devil 12.25
13. Arctic Devil and barrel aged Hifi (tie) 12.125
15. BA Behemoth 12
16. Central Waters BBBW and Fireside Chat (tie) 11.625
18. Pipeworks BA Murderous 11.5
19. K13 and Sucaba (tie) 11
21. Alpine Great 10.8
22. BA Roosevelt 10.75
23. Bligh’s batch 1 10.375
24. Brandy BA Barleycorn 10.25
25. BA Numbskull Rye 10
26. Mother of all Storms 9.5
27. Twisted Jim 9
28. Old Abominable Red Wine Barrel 8.625
29. Old Bird Brain 6

Beer Average Standard Deviation
MOAS 12 10 8 9 12 14 4 12 7 9.5 3.20713490294909
Alpine Great 6 10 11 13 12 10 13 12 10.875 2.29518128757995
Deal w the Devil 12 9 10 15 13 8 15 16 12.25 3.01188123461543
Old Nuptial 8 12 12 16 17 14 14 17 13.75 3.05894472933769
King Henry 14 15 14 18 18 12 17 16 15.5 2.1380899352994
Old Birdbrain 1 2 5 8 10 3 8 11 6 3.77964473009227
TWisted Jim 1 7 9 16 16 4 9 10 9 5.23722936566382
Straight Jacket 20 16 14 18 18 16 13 17 16.5 2.26778683805536
Sucaba 10 7 11 15 15 7 11 12 11 3.07059789431495
Old Abominable Red Wine 8 3 5 15 13 4 12 9 8.625 4.43806585929373
CW BBBW 6 14 11 16 19 13 13 1 11.625 5.70557371598785
BA Behemoth 13 8 10 11 16 17 10 14 10 12 3.25137333621173
BA Hifi B1 12 9 13 15 16 7 13 12 12.125 2.94897076476329
Pipeworks BA Murderous 10 12 12 17 13 6 12 10 11.5 3.11677488989592
2000 Merlot Leviathan 16 15 8 16 17 12 16 10 13.75 3.32737562824346
Dry Dock Blighs B1 16 6 11 13 11 3 11 12 10.375 4.06860804558161
K13 4 9 12 17 16 8 11 11 11 4.20883424647321
Flossmoor Fireside Chat 10 11 11 15 17 7 13 9 11.625 3.24862608321909
BCB BW 18 13 12 18 20 3 16 18 14.75 5.47070118253332
BA Old Numbskull Rye 4 8 13 12 16 5 14 8 10 4.37525509460387
Arctic Devil ’13 14 9 11 17 18 7 11 10 12.125 3.87067731245358
Blendlicious – Old Hickory 10 16 14 15 13 15 1518 14.5 2.32992949004287
BA Roosevelt 6 11 11 12 14 11 12 9 10.75 2.37546987833084
Bourbon Barleycorn 8 13 12 15 15 12 15 10 12.5 2.56347977784662
Kuhnhenn BBBW 13 16 15 15 19 16 9 18 15 15.375 2.97309362689534
Brandy BArleycorn 14 7 11 12 10 8 11 9 10.25 2.25198325291921
Leon 14 11 13 17 14 10 12 11 12.75 2.25198325291921
Dude’s Bane 15 13 13 16 18 13 11 14 14.125 2.16712449375401
wooden hell 12 10 17 18 16 14.6 3.43511280746353

Brb checking myself into rehab. see u guize in 30 days.

dontdrinkbeer

Drinking beer, so you don't have to.

Category Archives: barrel aged