@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.

Blue Lobster Is Suing DDB, Wait No, They Are Using the Bootleg Labels Instead, Wait so am I sued?

March 12, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Ok so if you follow DDB, you may remember a while back I reviewed a bunch of “Blue Lobster” items from the “THEN” brewer David Sakolsky. The bottles were unlabeled QC bottles of homebrew that weren’t technically Blue Lobster beers, based on my understanding. They looked like this:

Puns abound. Note, there is no reference to Blue Lobster on the label.

So in a behind the scenes that I didn’t want to go into, the now former brewer, David got in deep shit for sending me bottles of his homebrew. This is a nuanced IP discussion for a forum not as nuanced as the internet minge that is Dontdrinkbeer. So at that time, the owner of Blue Lobster intimated that he was going to sue DDB for what I can only assume libel (?) or misappropriation of company property (?) trespass to chattels (?) defamation per se (?) for posting pictures referencing Blue Lobster beer with “fake” labels.

Here is one such label that may have poised the Blue Lobster owner to sue poor old DDB:

This was the beer that I drank the night that old Subbydoo was banned from BA. Must have been the ABV.

So anyway, that label rustled that jim jameses, because I noted that it was brewed by Blue Lobster, which at the time the owner was alleging, if I understand it 1) did not want it to be identified by that fake label OR 2) that it was not an “actual” Blue Lobster beer.

Fast forward 6 months and David Sakolsky has since been fired. Now Blue Lobster has announced that they are releasing this:

MY IP HAS BEEN STOLEN.

“Hobbie” is a pejorative for sexually promiscuous Hobbits. Fantasy hate speech.

Well it looks like old DDB finally realized its dream of designing labels for breweries. So I am confused as hell, and don’t want to get sued. DDB was never officially contacted by the owner of Blue Lobster nor any counsel connected thereto, so maybe I am just completely misinformed and the owner of Blue Lobster is just a huge DDB fan. Who knows? someone with journalistic integrity should ask him.

So did Blue Lobster release David’s homebrew as a “real” Blue Lobster beer, despite disavowing it just 6 months ago? Or was this a Blue Lobster beer all along and I accidentally provided the springboard for the label?

I don’t know. I just don’t feel like getting sued. My Daredorm and Myfreecamsgirls accounts are already expensive enough as it is.

Hunahpu Day Declared Most Successful Brewery Release of 2014

March 8, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Cigar City is no stranger to well-orchestrated releases. From their bold “trickle out” release of California Brandy Hunahpu which alienated a large segment of their fan base, to their teeth gnashing decision to release three barrel aged Hunahpu variants simultaneously, this Tampa-based purveyor of fine libations has become an expert in making sure that any potential customer will “absolutely fucking hate [them.]”

“If we pride ourselves on anything here at Cigar City, it is making things needlessly complicated, expensive, or just outright not delivering on what we promise to the customer,” noted CCB public relations officer, Daniel Jerkins, “we know people want our beers, and we will have failed as a brewery if we leave a patron ever wanting to deal with us again. It is a touchstone of the Cigar City philosophy.”

Most recently, Cigar City made the innovative decision to line up over four thousand people to distribute their prized Hunahpu Stout. “We know people in Florida don’t have much to look forward to beyond retirement communities or latent racism, so we wanted to give something back to the community,” Jerkins stated while scribbling on a chalk board, “it would have been simple enough to separate pickups, or to bifurcate the event from the actual bottle sales, but that simply is not the Cigar City way. We want the customer to know that we regard them with the utmost contempt.” To ensure this level of top-tier customer dissatisfaction, Cigar City decided to use an easily counterfeited ticketing system coupled with a paucity of bottles and a lack of space for attendees to attend their Hunahpu release event.

“We knew it would be a crowd of thousands, so we wanted to ensure that they moved through the line as slowly as possible. Not enough beer for patrons? On it. Not enough guaranteed bottles? Certainly. Having police oust people from the premises? If we did not ensure these standards were met, CCB would be doing a great disservice to its principles of making customers absolutely fucking hate us.” Jerkins proudly noted while he played the following video in gleaming pride, nodding in calm pride:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUIS4-58o4U

“You see, the way we closed the gate on the thronging, dissatisfied crowd, that was a touch we worked out early on in marketing discussions. Flawless execution on our part, if I may say so myself,” Jerkins succinctly stated while surveying the police cars outside his Tampa office. “It looks like people are still being dismissed, this really could not have gone any better.” The lamenting of Cigar City patrons had not resounded so loudly since CCB decided to sell Catador Club exclusive beers to the general public. “Well, I cannot take complete credit for angering Catador members nationwide, I will have to defer to Carl Wilkerson for that honor.”

Attendees lamented the lack of Untappd badges earned at the event, a true American tragedy.

At press time Carl Wilkerson was busy fielding angry emails from the contingency of their reserve society, each more disheartened than the last. “Yeah we really pissed em off good with this Catador thing. See, we made a $125.00 club, sold them a previously infected beer without enough units to fulfill even a third of the members, but today we really executed things in a magnificent way,” Wilkerson gleamed gushingly while poring over spreadsheets. “We decided it would be best to reward non-club members with exclusive beers for showing up early and standing in line, you know, contributing to more of the problems we were looking forward to. Some might say to me ‘Hey Carl, why not take those 72 cases of Double Barrel Huna and sell them to the biggest supporters who already paid $125 to be in your poorly organized club?’ to them I ask ‘Who will that piss off?’ There is your answer. We are trying to maximize people’s rage and doing things in an orderly, fair way just wont hit those benchmarks.” Wilkerson explained in great detail how Cigar City expected to maximize the beer nerd rage, “you see, just selling Double Barrel Huna to the peasant tier, non-Catador members would not be enough, we wanted to make a statement. To that end, we decided to set the limit at a case per person and then continue to sell other Catador beers to the mouthbreathing masses. Oh man, the results have been amazing.”

The local Tampa homebrew club showed up in full regalia for the highly anticipated release

Wilkerson strode through the Cigar City premises and looked on lovingly at the paper-thin Gildan Catador Club shirts. “See here, we could have used something above ‘undershirt quality’ for our merchandise, but again, who would that disappoint? Hell, I thought our customers would have seen this coming. We even made the affirmative decision to infect a dopplebock, pasteurize it, then sell it to reward our closest supporters. Make a domain for bottle sales? Not on my watch. We knew early on that bottle sales to Catador members needs to be at the pristine level of frustrating that Cigar City prides itself on,” Wilkerson declared as he blew his nose into one of the Catador Club shirts.

Pictured above, three dissatisfied attendees who found out about stouts nearly three months prior

“This is just the beginning though,” Jerkins announced over the boos from attendees outside his office, “we recently made a press announcement that we would be making this right. To double down on the anger, we asked people to present the item they were most likely to discard, their wristband, you know, really piss them off.” At press time, the complex and highly questionable CCB plan was netting intended results across Facebook:

“My particular favorite aspect of this outreach are the demands from these peasant-tier beer drinkers, as though we really give a shit if they buy White Oak Jai Alai,” Jerkins laughed scrolling through the comments from hundreds of dissatisfied customers. “This year was a huge success, and we are already in talks with the organizers of Dark Lord Day to brainstorm items that we may have missed to really piss people off. It’s like they don’t even realize that Prairie still brews Bomb on a regular basis. Hell, it is a work in progress, but I look forward to kicking our customers in the nutsack on a daily basis: the Cigar City way.”

More details will be made available as they develop.

DUAL WHALE SHOOTOUT: New Belgium Twisted Spoke and 2009 C&C La Folie, Lats Flexing Hard on that AWA Shred

March 2, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

If you are a bottleshop baller, that truck chasing pimp who knows every collaboration New Belgium has ever done, an adjunct loving asshole who can decry the subtle nuances of the Peach Porch Lounger relative to the vastly inferior Brett Beer, maybe you should get the fuck out of here. This clearly is not for you. This is the deep subrectum of the New Belgium catalogue that most tickers dare not tread. This is that NB C&C Game, swag to the fullest. If I wasn’t such a punk pussy, maybe I could have landed Falling Rock and actually presented you with a legitimate whale review as originally planned. I guess we have TacosNBeer to thank for that one, as he backed out of a trade due to the fact that old Subbydoo was banned from BA. I suppose that is another exclamatory tale for another day.

Let’s get deep in these wild ale guts and hit that oaky back cervix.

Back lit, oversaturated photos with sickening aperture. That’s how I treat bottles that I hold onto for years.

New Belgium Brewing
Twisted Spoke:
Colorado, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | 7.00% ABV

“65% Ale aged in a wood barrel, 14% ale with cherries added and ale, 21% ale brewed with Coriander and 100% Aged in apple flavored whiskey barrels.” The beer was hand-bottled August 26, 2010.”

La Folie, Caged and Corked 2009
New Belgium Brewing
Colorado, United States
Style | ABV
Flanders Oud Bruin | 6.00% ABV
“Flemish Sour Brown Ale fermented in stainless then transferred to barrels for 1-4 years of aging then blended to taste.”

Please note, I used the 2009 caged and corked version, not your Hi-V pasteurized start up kit shit. It was to my own detriment, as you will soon see.

A: The Twisted Spoke has held its carb beautifully and has a billowy frothy head that pops and snaps not unlike a baller ass rice cereal. The garnet underpinnings are beautiful and provide a Rodenbach nod of elegance and ruby meets jasper, the hem of regal oriental garments shimmering in crimson regalia. La Folie looks like shit. It lays there completely still like an unmotivated Craigslist encounter. It is darker than its pasteurized counterparts, a deep almost brownish purple that is uninviting and comes across like flat grape soda attempting to muster up a single fuck to give. It is a valuable portent of things to come.

“I reviewed La Folie on my beer blog and it got 95 hits” Pasteurized: beta as fuck. Step up your whalegame.

S: The smell of Twisted Spoke is phenomenal and doesnt approach a hint of oxy or age at this point. I was thinking right around 4 years, AWA hit their sexual peak and start to taper off to autoeroticism, NOT TWISTED SPOKE. I can see this holding up for another couple of years before reducing to vinegar strokes. There is a bright cherry, jazz apple, white grape, intense raspberry farmers market makeout sesh, brandy, port sherry oak like those mahogany rooms Nana used to work in. There is a touch of acetic red wine vinegar but it is in light of the foregoing and more a throwback to the flanders red style as a whole than an implicit flaw. Still bangable for sure. La Folie just can’t get its shit together. It is vinegar, just straight acetic flaws, the burn of salad dressing from Sizzler, tart acidity, some currants, the brown ale just waving its sloppy dark cock all on the sink. You get vintage nail polish remover and some Aquanet, which might give you a chub if you piped down hard in the 80s. Not me tho, this shit sucks.

T: The Twisted Spoke follows through with full completion of the olfactory elements. No ticktease here. It delivers a complex tartness, tannic cherry skin, a touch of brandy sweetness which is like caramelized apples in a Home Run pie, and closes with a drying kiss of that flanders smooch. Delicious. One again La Folie is zipping its nutsack up in its footie pajamas. It’s like for fucks sake La Folie, you have the grace of Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot and the collected poise of The Elephant Man, at least taste good. It cannot, if you thought that chemical acetone was gonna taste better, I guess it doesn’t taste WORSE than it smells, so: victory? This is worse than the offshelf version. Past its prime, dip a baguette in it or serve it over kale salad.

With Flanders reds and wilds in general, balance and reasonable execution beat speed and Robotnik banging

M: The Twisted Spoke is a touch too drying for my tastes and rips along the gumline like that coward Shaun White, afraid to hit those deep pockets for fear of injury. The fruit flavors balance it out and this aspect has probably gotten more aggressive over the past 4 years, but here we are. La Folie just sloppily hits the bitter and the sour zones, trying to bang anything it can like a drunk bisexual Peruivan. It is a confused mess that is not only more tart, less fulfilling, but just facepalm worthy in general. As long as Duchess exists, you can avoid 2009 C&C La Folie without losing any sleep.

D: Twisted Spoke is delicious and complex, however, it is not exceptionally drinkable in light of its intense acidity, highly layered presentation, and lingering dryness. You get that GERD pretty early in, but its a fulfilling pain, like paying a high end stripper to work you over with a pack of twizzlers. La Folie, oh man, I don’t really have much more to say about this borderline condiment. I hazarded a 5 ounce pour, welcoming the shit talking from the anonymous contingency that is my degenerate fan base. The joke was on me throughout because it sucked shit throughout all 5 ounces, like when you look at a Brendan Frazier DVD and you see that 81 minute run time and you are like “oh well, that cant be too bad.” It is fucking horrible. La Folie in this format is a huge disappointment. Did you even see Crash? Fucking Ludacris.

This will get up in your grill hard. Mayor McCheese will have the leather couch and the tripod.

Narrative: Just take all the foregoing La Folie sentences above and add a paper thin proper noun monicre and personify it in some blatant overstatement. DDB 101.

Americans DO NOT brew Lambic, Most Belgians Do Not Either. Almost No One Brews Lambic, Ever.

February 28, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

As a United States citizen, it sickens me to see these American breweries attempting to capitalize on Belgian traditions with their bastardized takes on Belgian beers. American beers cannot, and will never be, lambic. Lambics are brewed in Belgium, specifically only within the Senne Valley. Any American brewery attempting to denature hundreds of years of culture by perpetuating the brewing style is nothing but complete disrespect and contrary to the hypothetical interests of generations past.

Such disrespect.

It is equally disrespectful for these ignoble North Americans to use the word “lambic style” on their labels. As though noting that a certain influence could somehow wash their hands of the clear impurity, they continue these actions with impunity. At the very least someone might stumble across the infinitely flawed Resurgam or Duck Duck Gooze and then somehow be made aware that lambic and gueuze exists. The problem here is that they will be done a complete disservice if they taste a 100/100 rated wild ale and then think that AMERICA somehow had anything to do with the brewing of that beer. IT IS NOT LAMBIC. Furthermore, the use of the term “sour” on the labels is a complete slap in the face of Belgian brewers who had been crafting sour beers for generations. The employment of any adjectives that notes a tart flavor profile should be looked at as highly circumspect as it clearly sets the brewing culture back hundreds of years to have them appropriating English descriptors pell mell. It should be about tradition.

Lambic is about honoring timeworn nostalgia and mouthwatering practices.

Further, Belgian breweries need to focus not on only the Senne Valley, they need to remember the meteorological implications of that valley. The lambic tradition isn’t about the valley itself, but instead the lower cloud strata that distributes the wild microculture. A brewery merely cooling their wort in this valley doesn’t automatically guarantee it is authentic, let’s implement some standards here, for tradition sake. It seems in comport with the generations of lambic brewers that petri dish cultures be taken and analyzed under an electron microscope to ensure that the cell jackets and bacteria fall under a certified Belgian sheath. I can hardly imagine that the generations of Belgian brewers from the Reformation through the Gilded age would approve of calling a beer lambic without microbiobial verification. It is in comport with their wishes.

American breweries have been brewing “WILD ALES” for less than 50 years, who gives a shit about their flawed procedures?

Another point of contention is how American brewers are freely identifying the fermented malt beverages that they are crafting as “BEER” just in front of god and everyone. I can hardly imagine that Sumerian brew masters would condone the use of the term based upon the bastardizing conditions in modern brewing. It is a complete violation of Ninkasi, the brewing goddess, and the wishes of the fertile crescent to just go around fermenting any old grain and calling it beer. American brewers have some serious balls setting forth these items in the stream of commerce without honoring traditional cuneiform pressings in clay tablets or a single sacrifice to Innana or Utu, it’s like, who the fuck do you even think you are?

Knowing time-honored Belgian brewing traditions is half the battle.

I think I am qualified to speak for all generations past and historical cultures from a variety of regions when I say that American brewers need to stop their practices immediately. If I may continue to free-associate the desires of past generations: IT IS NOT WHAT THEY WOULD HAVE WANTED. I don’t care if you are crafting world class beverages according to the MODERN palate, it taints the commercial interests so coveted by past generations. I think we can all agree that American breweries have contributed next to nothing to furthering Beer Culture with their paltry facepalm worthy offerings. So the next time you sit down to enjoy a Timmerman’s Strawberry Lambic to taste that authentic sweet nectar, take a moment to think of all those North American ingrates subverting the proud heritage of lambic.

DOUBLE RUSSIAN RIVER WHALE REVIEW: Toronado 20 and Deviation, At the same damn time

February 25, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

In honor of everyone rubbing their yeastclits on their bedposts over Plineyyy the Yerngerrrr, I figured I would finally knock out reviews for two of the white whale Russian River bangers: T20 and Deviation. One was a one off brewed in 2007 for Toronado, another was a one off brewed in 2009 for Bottleworks. One is still delicious, another one tastes like if you left Consecration in a Toyota Corolla in Tucson for 3 months. WHICH IS WHICH? We find out in today’s whaley review.

Oh shit, if you feel like reading about other SUPER RUSSIEN RIVER RARIEITIES, check out this Russian River Depuration review or if you just joined the beer game in 2012, here is a review of Pliney the Younger for you to stroke it to, since you are probably still in your hophead phase

That is Depuration, I just left it in the cooler next to some silver bullets for a couple months.

Russian River Brewing Company
California, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | 6.83% ABV (dat hundredths place value hnnnggg)

In celebration of Bottleworks 9th Anniversary, we are proud to present Deviation – a beer unique in every sense. This remarkable blend combines the oak aged diversity of PHI, Orphan Ale, and Sonambic Ale with 100% Brettanomyces Ale (Sanctification) and is bottle conditioned with additional Brettanomyces. Thanks Vinnie. Your beer is a testament to the art of deviation. 6.83%

Your buddy probably opened a T25 at one of your tastings and thought he was hard as fuck, putting up 8 plates, flexing wild ale lats on offshelf zumba tickers.

Toronado 20th anniversary
abv 10.4%

The Toronado blend was 5 different beers blended together disproportionately:

1. Belgian style Quadruple aged in Firestone Walker (used) Double Barrel Ale barrels
2. Belgian style Strong Dark Ale – batch A in red wine barrels
3. Belgian style Strong Dark Ale – batch B in red wine barrels
4. Belgian style Pale Ale aged in wine barrels with Brett
5. Sonambic 100% spontaneously fermented ale – this was used to add acidity to the beer.

A: Let’s just get this out of the way right now, T20 is starting to get those oxy stretch marks on its thighs, looking a bit turbid and muddy in its old age, that wispy carb still holding up, albeit oldman strong. The robey tones are still intact over all these years, but it has seen better days. Deviation still looks fucking beautiful and has a certain grace and coquettish radiance that makes it more lustworthy than even fresh bottles of Temptation. The carb held up beatuifully and there was light lacing at the edges showing its virile life still pumping deep in those acidic veins. These pics suck shit because I didn’t feel like setting up a lightbox for some neckbeard enjoyment. I do this site as a favor to the boring ass beer world and tickers should be thankful I haven’t moved on to POV porn at this point.

Pictured above, the last 21 person tasting T20 was opened at

S: The t20 is still intensely acidic with cranberry, currant, red wine tannins, merlot, huge acidic blackberry cab and a oaky musk. The musk is delivered in equal parts with a touch of oxygenation that is mildly cloying, but its too fucking big to be held down, like trying to spot your buddy who presses more than you squat, them tannic shreds throb hard and move weight. Deviation is a fucking intensely bright acid flashbang to the face. Take Zomer and ramp up the acidity, that lemon rind, cantaloupe, pears, musky brett, intense Slush Puppy acidity like a lemon lime detonation to the senses. It smells phenomenal albeit completely overboard, not in an acetic fashion, just aggressive in every aspect, zero hint of oxy or age on this. S.S. Indefatigable just sailing them seas with a proud ph2 stern.

sometimes things from the past return only to fuck your world up

T: T20 is a fucking disappointment top to bottom. That is not to say that it isn’t worth drinking, I mean, it is still a competent and well blended beer. It’s more like seeing that late 30s bartender who is all salty and jaded and you can imagine what a Kelly Kapowski dime piece she used to be. This was probably a complex decadent treat, now the oxy sets in like crows feet making it seem like a dysfunctional Consecration. There is currant and tart cherry but again, it is like a coovie of some old ass bottles of Rodenbach. Deviation is a vast departure from this model and holds up like those 1960’s Ferraris that are still graceful and will land you knee deep in the vaj. The lemon and intense oak, chardonnay, anjou pear, hay, old storage locker, and amped up Goozie notes. One of the best American Wild Ales that I have ever tasted this side of DDG and Cable Car 09.

bragging about drinking rare bottles of sugar water? Alpha detected.

M: T20 is still a massive beast, drying with an intense dryness that gushes like that fourth week of Lilith Fair. It is both hefty in mouthfeel and closing, but has a sort of dry depth to it that makes it incredibly drinkable. The ABV slides up behind your palate with a prison shank and puts in work on the bitter zones. Deviation is intensely dry, no reparations are given, antebellum south destruction to your gumline and tart zones. Go watch a Ken Burns documentary and eat an entire bag of Shocktarts and you will know the depths of the cankersores this can cause. Despite the rampant abuse, I come back for more, it’s like when I got all into cock fingering that one summer, all stretched out in self effacing pleasure.

Thinking about landing one of these? Prepare to deal with some shit and shit accessories

D: T20 is incredibly drinkable, albeit slightly lackluster. I can’t really condone trading for this other than showing your thick meaty trader labias, dropping meat curtains on your tasting crew, those rare 2007 folds all weathered and undesirable. Tickers gonna tick. Deviation however, holy hell it is intensely delicious, amazing top to bottom, well worth the cost of entry and, most importantly, I cannot think of any readily available analog to this unique beast. Seek this out if you can, rally all those bottles of Backyard and Petit Mutant you can rally and cast them upon the funeral pyre with calm suttee to join your tastebuds in the afterlife. It is dro as fuck, red hairs, no stems no seeds, yayo weighed dry without being stepped on.

Narrative: read the foregoing 1000 words and finger your butthole in the shower with an Axe loofa.

reviewing them nostalgic old whale ticks, high off that juice

dontdrinkbeer

Drinking beer, so you don't have to.

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