Category Archives: black ale

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Oh Great, Another Fucking Ancient Recipe Beer.

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Hey guize, guess what, they found another ancient example of a beer, and sure enough, they are going to recreate this shit found at the bottom of some Finnish ocean.

More stupid fucking rebrews of ancient ales

It seems like every 3 or 4 months the beer world gets another stupid ass release from an established brewery predicated on an ANCIENT RECIPE. These stories always get picked up by dumbass mainstream news outlets like Huffington post and the rest of the hardcore beer nerds have to suffer through questions about these shitty beers. I am all for innovation, but innovation and recreation for sheer marketing’s sake are usually done at the expense of taste. Have you ever read some of the recipes for these beers? It is always like “cardamom, jasmine, muddled figs, muscat grapes, saffron, annatto and pottery fragments.”

The worst part of these bottled gimmicks isn’t that they taste like complete afterbirth, it is the pull that it enacts on the “normal” beer drinking world. They will stumble into a Whole Foods and “TRY SOEMTHING NEW FOR A CHANEG!” and invariably hate it. Then the beer nerds are left to reap the spoils of their shitty releases. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at NAMBLA fundraisers and someone will always chime in with “OH I HAD THAT REMAKE OF THE EGYPTIAN BEER, IT TASTED LIKE I TONGUE FUCKED A WASP’S NEST” and suddenly I have to defend Dogfish Head Midas Touch for its innovation or whatever else.

God.

God.

Fucking.

Fucking.

Damnit.

Damnit.

You know why people brewed these bizarre beers in the first place? It wasn’t because they tasted so fucking amazing, they brewed them because:

1) Their water was fucking poisonous
2) Their local ingredients were the only fermentable sugars available
3) Their lives under slavery/serfdom/fealty/feudalism were completely shitty and
4) Drinking anything to get drunk in those days was probably pretty legit.

Just because something DID EXIST doesn’t mean it needs to continue to exist. Furthermore, most of these recipes are bastardized versions of the ancient beers anyway. If you want to go hard fucking core, brew that in Phoenician pottery casks in Damascus and leave that shit in the sun to contact ferment. None of this pussy Whitelabs or House cultures, go balls deep in the ancient world.

They don’t do this with any other artisanal products, no one except people at Lilith Fair are weaving clothing with rough hemp, no one is trying to nail that delicious Hard Tack recipe from the French Enlightenment. This garbage is unnecessary.

You want people to know how it felt to get feided during the Third Crusade under Richard I straight plundering Acre? Then brew the beer exactly as shitty as it was back then. Don’t drop these esoteric ingredients into weak base beers and expect people to have their shafts pumping at your innovation. You are the fucking Pontiac Aztek of the beer world. No one asked for you, and it is the stretchmarked mantitted beer nerds that suffer the effects.

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GUEST REVIEW: Three Floyds Topless Wytch, Pagan worshippers straight stacked

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HOW CAN I BE ANY FUCKING LAZIER? This site is already the post-bike ride taint of the beer world, but now I am farming out my own shitty beer reviews to legitimately talented writers? You get what you pay for on this site OKAY. Today’s guest review is the same contributor from the Lawsons Kiwi Double IPA Review aka Hevvymetalhippie. Thank you for your work, now I can chase down diabetes in peace. I will give him the floor:

How apropos to be reviewing this beer during one of the last snowfalls of the winter, it doesn’t get more metal than this beer. Not only are there a pentagram, an inverted cross, and an axe on the “death metal band font” label, but…titties! Besides, what is best in life? Answer: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. I’ve been waiting to drink this beer for months; this Wytch isn’t topless, say the titties is out.

Tatties straight blasting harder than the Four Play label. NSFW beer.

Tatties straight blasting harder than the Four Play label. NSFW beer.

Three Floyds Brewing
Munster, IN
Baltic Porter || 9.00%

Appearance: Even a hard pour couldn’t get a head to form on this godless harlot. If anything there’s a thin and tight ring of bubbles, that quickly vanish to a scant ring around a mysterious coffee black body. Why you gotta be so triflin’! When I set a burning bible behind the glass, looking through the darkness to the other side, deep shades of burgundy and garnet reflect from the glass…robey tones braj…robey tones. And for the record, no lacing, this wytch is topless remember
guise!? CWUTIDIDTHAR?

I looked closer at that label and wuz all lyke-

I looked closer at that label and wuz all lyke-

Smell: On the initial pour bakers chocolate, bitter coffee and sweet malt are as
obvious, but much like the letter art on the label, not all is what it seems. To qualify
as a Baltic Porter, a higher ABV must be created to withstand travel to the “Baltic”
regions, as well as being bottom fermented at lower temperatures. A slight vinous
character emerges from the briny deep as well, perhaps an unholy note of satanic
raisns.

Taste: If it smells like a wytch, looks like a wytch, then its PROBABLY A FUCKING
WITCH! This beer is awesome, straight up. A lot translates over from the nose,
but richer and sweeter as it warms. It’s probably sucking my soul out Dementor
style like a golf ball through a garden hose…yeah think about that. If 3 Floyds ever
decided to barrel age these, or better yet do barrel aged variants of this, they’d have
a line down the street of beer geeks willing to sell their souls for this potential insta-
Whale. I see bourbon barrel, port, or even cognac going over very well.

This beer might be deemed sexually offensive and offputting to women, but ladies be loving dem imperial porters tho.

This beer might be deemed sexually offensive and offputting to women, but ladies be loving dem imperial porters tho.

Mouthfeel: While thinking of how to make a joke about doing body shots of Topless
Wytch off a topless witch and how hedonistically aristocratic I felt sitting amongst
a pile of recently traded beers, I couldn’t help but notice how badly I wanted this
to be a thick witch. If only it had gone further down the road into stoutsville; well
I guess it’d just be a barrel aged imperial stout; fuck me right? Some people like
their women like they like their stouts: thick and fudgy. AMIRITE? Hey where’s
everybody going?

Drinkability/Overall: I accidently a whole Topless Wytch…is this bad? Over a
prolonged and more civilized drinking session; like a respectable adult would have,
not some college frat bro drink-a-thon shit show, where I’m sucking down beer like
a man-titted bridge troll whose life depended on it; I realize that my beer nerd rage
wants, and rash judgments might be a tad hasty. This is an excellent beer, another
world-class offering from 3 Floyds. I have come to the realization that drinking
amazing beer regularly has clouded my judgment on what is actually a good beer
and what is a phenomenal beer. It’s tough isn’t it? #firstworldproblems. It could
be enhanced if they bumped the ABV up, tossed that topless bitch in a barrel like
she deserves and let her out some months later, but it’s also excellent all on its
own. Satanic imagery, evil letter art, tits, a Norwegian Black Metal album, and one
amazing beer later, I’m ready to sign my name into the black book of death, if this is
any predicator of things to come.

Ultimately it is a porter, it is a non-imperial stout, black ale, fuck if I can explain what this is.

Ultimately it is a porter, it is a non-imperial stout, black ale, fuck if I can explain what this is.

Narrative: It had been three weeks since Lydia had seen the sun. Her skin, pallid and
milky had been untouched by the light of day, her purple blue veins read like a map,
roads down her arms and into her hands. Inside the cemetery catacombs, the need
for clothes had become moot; the temperature often soared leaving the mausoleum
sweltering in the mid-day Louisiana sun, causing her to venture deeper into the
dark vaults, bereft of clothes. Further she walked, blindly and topless into the earth,
hand upon the wall, beyond the oldest portions of the grave until she reached the
terminus of the pit. There upon the roughly hewn ledge lay her prize, the Black
Book! It had taken her years to find its final resting place, but here it was and here
she was. Warm to the touch, the book was waiting for her, to inscribe her name into
it, and cast it from the book of life. Perhaps now she would feel the satisfaction, the
comeuppance in unlife that she so desperately desired in life. Lydia was becoming a
witch.

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Three Floyd’s Murda’D Out Stout, For When Being Baller Just Isn’t Enough and Your Beer Needs that Persian Appeal

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Three Floyd’s pushes the limits in two things: 1) hoppiness and 2) the elasticity of my anus for these extremely expensive releases. This beer was a ~800 bottle release priced at a whopping $50 a bottle. Some people might be cracking a Rare and shrugging their shoulders, but for the rest of us not living off of capital gains, $50 for a beer is a serious perineum pounder. Anyway, by way of history, almost 2 years ago, Baller Stout came out and it was $30, and beer nerds were acting like the 4 horsemen of the stoutpacalypse had arrived: a blend of Darkness, Dark Lord, Beer Geek Brunch, and Black Albert. So when they announced this, I knew shit was gonna get real. They did not mention that they aged each component beer in barrels prior to blending for 14 months then CPK “two in a bowled” that stout for this masterpiece. Enough fluffing, let’s get to full on stout ejaculation.

Some people be like "$50 rare bottle and you rock pours like that" yeah welcome to DDB, where we arent poor acorn dicks. Make yourself at home.

Some people be like “$50 rare bottle and you rock pours like that” yeah welcome to DDB, where we arent poor acorn dicks. Make yourself at home.

Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
Indiana, United States
Style | ABV
Russian Imperial Stout | ABV ?

A: This has the slick oiliness like Parabola with a nice beige roast still hiding in the bubbles letting you know there is some unresolved shit going on in there. The pour is deep black but sadly I was expecting it to have a “flat black” sheen to it like those stupid assholes in West Hollywood who want people to know this is THEIR RANGE ROVER AND JUST BECAUSE THEIR DAD PAID FOR IT DOESNT MAKE IT HIS PARENT’S CAR. It is shiny black instead.

What's that you say? $50 1 per person brewery release? IN THE MIDWEST? Well I never.

What’s that you say? $50 1 per person brewery release? IN THE MIDWEST? Well I never.

S: Holy hell this is a complex beer and you have to pull it apart like an onion, or the psoriasis on your testicles. I feel like that Dark Lord leads with its robed black foot first and supplies a deep black blast of sugar, turbinado sweetness, bakers chocolate and Hershey’s syrup all wrapped in a warm bourbon blankie straight from the dryer. You get this coffee pat on the back from Mikkeller, but fuck Mikkeller, the only reason you are hanging out with Beer Geek anything is because it is surrounded by a ton of hot stout chicks. Darkness finishes things out with a deep roasty dryness and this mallowfoam smell that just lingers like when you wonder how many Taco Bell items that you bought the night before.

T: This taste has the complexity of the above and is like Hungry Hungry Hippos just raping your tastes buds with cascading elbows of roast, then bourbon sweetness, then coffee acidity, and chocolate Stone Cold stunning the fuck out of every taste zone. It reminds me if you took the amazingness of Barrel Aged Dark Lord (any really) and they started tossing on body kits, rims, spoilers, and all kinds of extraneous shit. It is a bit sloppier in execution as a result, but it is genuinely every bit as good. I am so glad that this beer has flown so deeply under people’s respective radars. I guess that $50 price tag and the 1 per person was enough to pucker more than a few buttholes, BUT MY BUTTHOLE REMAINS UNPUCKERABLE.

Drink this stout, then go try a normal ass off shelf offering and be all like-

Drink this stout, then go try a normal ass off shelf offering and be all like-

M: This is sticky on the teeth with residual sugars and stick malts but also slightly wafty from the bourbon and the bitter zones get this deep char, Slippy is just doing barrel rolls all day and doesn’t even need to be saved. I can’t accurately restate the mouthfeel without just putting the aforementioned adjectives in a tumble dryer, so fuck it, if you dont get it this might not be the right place for you.

D: This likely has an ABV above 13% abv and I would drink this shit all day long. No qualifier like “I meant during winter” or some bullshit, I will drink this before my job as a bus driver because everyone knows 1) bus drivers cant get DUIs and 2) no one can get a DUI while the sun is up. It is widely known. The cruelest jokes are always the best beers being the least accessible (INB4 Parabola assholes, I know, I know.) Now forget everything I just said, I dont want you ungrateful assholes ruining my chances at landing another one of these. If you have one, it was not even that good, I will send you some Knee Deep stuff for one. Get at me.

Sure it was $50 and super rare, but try to enjoy yourself at least.

Sure it was $50 and super rare, but try to enjoy yourself at least.

NarratiVe: The life of a Chimera only seemed like a blast from the outside. Sure, you are fierce and amazing, aweinspiring at worst. But what about those other times? Try sharing the duality of identity with a series of united beasts. I was born a lion head attached to the body of a dragon, sharing an L1-L2 spinal segment with a goat head, and an unruly snake as a tail. You think I ever got to finish my memoirs with all those assholes constantly wanting to fly around, raid villages, slay King Cnut’s people, submerge scandinavian sea vessels, and fuck all else? Yeah, no rest to be had at all. The snake is diabetic and constantly complaining about our iron and glucose intake, I swear that fucking goat head just eats anything, peasant huts, cabbage farms; anything. Last week the dragon tried to use our penis to have sex with a Manticore. A FUCKING MANTICORE. Can you imagine the bush on that thing? Having a shared penis is bad enough but, you gotta draw the line somewhere. Sure, I am one piece of a fierce beast, but I have so much more complexity than outsiders ever imagine.

1

GUEST REVIEW: Lawson’s Kiwi Double IPA, How Can I Do Less Work on this Shitty Site? GUEST REVIEWS.

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I have got a few requests from people who actually want to throw materials onto this burning trash heap of a website, and I am glad to oblige. Anything that allows me to black out harder and not have to write 900 words for you ungrateful assholes is a good day for me. Mama fixed the breakfast with no hop. Anyway, today’s guest review is from BA Hevvymetalhippie, if you see him, throw a peace sign and say slow down player. If you too would like to live in infamy on the best beer site on the entire fucking internet, let me know. You should be able to write at least at a Dan Brown level, dixpix optional. dontdrinkbeers@gmail.com

also email that fallopian tube who took the nonplural version of that shit, tell him to stop causing periods.

Oh shit, inb4 robey tones/NZ hatespeech

Oh shit, inb4 robey tones/NZ hatespeech

Lawson’s Finest Liquids
Vermont, United States

Style | ABV
American Double / Imperial IPA | 8.10% ABV

Appearance: For the few seconds I’m able to pull my eyes off Harlem Shake videos
on YouTube, Kiwi Double is a beautiful brassy orange amber with a frothy white
head of hair…err foam. Just ‘cause there’s a little snow on the roof…how does the
rest of that go? Head goes limp fairly quickly, so get your lacing kicks before it goes
flaccid.

This beer is mirthful yet powerful, and it might molest you

This beer is mirthful yet powerful, and it might molest you

Smell: So the hop note may have faded a bit, but its still right up there, better than
most IPA’s available even in its Golden years…Gritty New Zealand hops, vegetal
and raw. Big, resinous pine and wood notes, grapefruit rind like woah. Malt comes
through more with some time on it, but caramel notes don’t pull out dentures
dentures. Will have you tweaked like J Howard Marshall key bumping blue steel.

Taste: Chewy, woodsy and hoppy. May have faded slightly, but we’re still in the
presence of greatness, so show your elders some respect and get in the closet! Citrus
and pine notes dominate, but soft malt notes support so hops can shine. Although a
little dull like grandpa, you can still tell hops were present, sort of like an old man
who just got off the bus and the seat you just got in is still warm…mmm.

when some people see guest reviews, they be like

when some people see guest reviews, they be like

Mouthfeel: Straightforward carbonation helps to wrestle bitterness off your palate,
but signs of a struggle and forced entry remain. Raw and uncut, like Clint Eastwood
making racist jokes in Grand Torino but goes down smooth like Clint Eastwood on
Donna Mills in Play Misty For Me. Old people boning. There I said it.

Drinkability/Overall: This is an awesome IPA, nothing but the best from Lawson’s.
It’s fully torqued hop profile, married with a subtle and complimentary malt bill
make Kiwi a must have, and only gets better when its fresh. The ABV hides well; you
barely notice it peaking at you through the blinds, hiding in the buses. Don’t share
this; be a greedy old bastard, those damn kids don’t appreciate anything nowadays.

I had this beer, but was too lazy to review it myself. When I tried it, my face be all like

I had this beer, but was too lazy to review it myself. When I tried it, my face be all like

Narrative: Sure, Red Dubois was the biggest bastard in the county, but he was also
the areas most eligible bachelor on Bingo Night at the Senior Center. He had money
once, from his formative years in modeling, but now his dance card was empty and
the years weighed heavily on his tired and pallid body. But tonight, things were
different. Debbie Sanderson was back from her trip to California looking radiant,
and Red felt the unbridled turgid strain of desire. Things hadn’t gone his way for
quite some time, but he knew tonight he’d the two of them would be yelling Bingo
long after game night was over…

1

Rogue White Whale Ale, A Beer Brewed with a Copy of Moby Dick in the Brewkettle

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I am not shitting you:

A reading from the book of Hyperonomy.

Rogue White Whale Ale, brewed with Moby Dick, just released in bottles

As though their last foray into Maple Bacon Burned Down Planned Parenthoods was not enough, now they are putting printed paper into the brew kettle to drum up hype. I get it, whales are a trope of the trading and ticking culture. There are tan whales, taupe walez, white wales, and even midwestshelfwalez. At the heart of all wales is usually 1) rarity 2) taste 3) bottle counts or 4) inaccessability. This beer takes a regular beer, adds recycled paper with ink on it and therefore destroys #2.

It is made by Rogue so we know that item #1 is out by default. If you are shipping to BevMo, you can expect n00bsexual traders to offer this up looking for BA Batch 9000 and shit. What about bottle counts? Well this is available online, so let’s just guess upwards of 30,000 bottles. So item #3 is out. On that same point, if you can sit back and order it ONLINE and have it delivered to your house, unless that box says “Etre Gourmet” or “Cascade” on it, it likely won’t be a white wale. This parade of dumb ass adjuncts seems to be the new rage either in this form, or by fruiting base beers that taste like shit to pass them on to an unsuspecting beer nerd populace.

THIS IS NOT A WALE. Giving it pieces of paper will not make it a WHALE

Look forward to your uninitiated normal friends to buy you this garbage and then you have to nod thoughtfully and thank them for their pointed gift. Call me Bitchmale.

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Struise Double Black Stout, 26% abv for those times when Single Blacking Out Isn’t Enough

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As my loyal readers may be aware, this site started with a compulsive desire to talk mad shit on every beer in every top 100 list, I think we are still on course. Aside from that, this beer would pop up at like 99 ever so often and I would have to whack a mole that shit constantly. Ever had Bligh’s Barleywine? I have, because it was in the top 100 for like 43 minutes. It is an amazing barleywine, I just want you to see the fucking troubles I encounter for your amusement. Anyway, this bottle was 70-100 euros and is a direct/less expensive analog to FIVE SQUARED albeit the stout version. So we ice distill the amazing Black Albert down to 26% and then drink it at Alesmith strictly for the lulz. Let’s get it.

Double Blacking out so hard on that 26% monster.

De Struise Brouwers
Belgium
American Double / Imperial Stout | 26.00% ABV

A: For a beer with a staggeringly high abv, this actually was nicely carbed, but the crazy heat and inky thick vicosity strangle the bubbles out of this potation. The sheen is just that, double black. If Huna is an 8 on the darkness scale, this is an absolute black hole, absorbing all photons without mercy. The sheeting is the only thing keeping the staining malts at bay. You bust a sick swirl and watch the khaki darkness coat and then the huge alcohol sheeting comes down wet and clear, putting that pussy in a sarcophagus.

New beer users always obsess over ABV over actual taste, it is the fucking 9GAG of the beer world. Go drink 120 Min and eat my ass, this is big boy beer shit.

S: This goes HAM on all aspects, it goes apeshit with chocolate, deep hot bourbon, cocoa, intense roasted malts, light char, and a nice vanilla and coconut to the backend. I don’t know how they did this. Seriously. After suffering through Tactical Nuclear Penguin, I expected a nightmare from this, but it is incredibly drinkable and reminds me of an…imperial…Black Tuesday. Think about that shit for a moment. I am talking about a “single” format that is 19% abv. This is a full 7% above that. Game recognize game.

T: This will light up your chest like E.T. There is a deep bourbon at the outset with smoky malts to balance it and a deep chocolate finish. After the swallow the real fun begins, since most of this beer is in the residual power that you are going 12 rounds with. While it is in your mouth, it is too viscous and complex to discern elements, but after the swallow you get the emotions in waves, like being dumped on prom. You get a deep caramel and oak from the barrel, the roast lingers for a bit, there’s coconut and vanilla, finally a full 10 seconds later, you lick your teefers and get a butterscotch aspect. Then you look at your glass and realize you have another fucking 13 ounces to deal with.

I roll hard on 240 bottle releases, drop 100 euros on bottles, have them shipped from Belgium; thugging so hard.

M: I shouldn’t have to tell you what this coats like. This has a deeper coating than Trojan Twisted Sensations. You get this deep viscosity in the mouthfeel and upon swallowing you think that the experience is over since the heat from the bourbon and abv seems to burn off the residual sugars in your mouth, then the mendicant vagrants climb out from the cracks, sweet and chocolatey in the dystopian future that is your gumline.

D: I would be remiss to say that this is drinkable, per se. Sure, unless you are Shogokawada, you probably can’t merk a bottle to yourself. No hating on Shogo, I PROBABLY COULD, but then again look at my site, I have some demons going on beyond the ambit of most people lining up Netflix queues. So it would break down like this: you could drink half of this and enjoy it, I could drink a full bottle of this and then write a review like this, Shogokawda could drink a full bottle and then decide that it is time to get to work. And the hierarchy is maintained. Unless you are on a straight Brett Favre level, or on my Aaron Rodgers tip, pool your money like poor bastards and brag about this shit on the Matt Leinart scene, smiley as fuck.

At a certain point you just flex your beer lats, and go bat wing on all the haters. If you read this site, you already powerlevelled so hard.

Narrative: The cabinet of the Killer Instinct creaked with his intense power, sweating at the brow while ironically using Glacius. Sure he was 43 years old. Yes, he had a culdesac. Hell, Janus Milkerson even reeked of 4 Roses bourbon on the regular but no one would deny his ability to chain sick combos. To face him was to cast 2 quarters into the river of Styx, a hopeless endeavor. He was the darkest most hate filled individual in the entire arcade. Most children patronizing the location were doing just that, patronizing the location. To come to a place and spend hard currency on physical machines to imbibe the slow leak of outdated graphics was a strange foreign enterprise. “AH, and from when THINE CAME, thou shalt be returned!” Janus echoed, spitting upon the joystick, scaring the 5th grade opponent. He was the darkest, most hateful participant in the building, but he was strangely calm and poised in his madness. After playing a game with him, children would stand in cool reverence and wonder whether excellence was possible and whether the fleeting reality of shortsighted hedonism was a valid outlet, before exchanging their tickets for spider rings and jolly ranchers.

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Firestone Walker Parabola Imperial Stout, This Beer is Turning My Directrix into a Conic Section

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Well what better beer to close out Imperial Stout week than none other than good old Parabola, the top 100 Wunderkind that makes trading for almost every other barrel aged stout completely pointless. Trust me, I love Rare and I am obsessed with Rare DOS and Bourbon Barrel Plead the 5th, but when it comes to taste, price point, and accessibility, this is the best Imperial Stout out there. I know, it comes in a gauche cardboard box that touts all its merits and accolades, but even hot girls sometimes listen to the Murder City Devils. Stop being so judgmental. Let’s open this box and bust open some vertexes in today’s review:

I have had this beer once on dr-

Another time I had this beer out of the bot-

Another time I enjoyed this in front of my toaste-

ALRIGHT ENOUGH I HAVE HAD PARABOLA SEVERAL TIMES. We get it.

Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
California, United States
Russian Imperial Stout | 12.50% ABV

A: This is such a beautiful beer and, despite 5 straight days of describing imperial stouts, I think I can must up some original content for this one. This has a nice slick inky aspect to it but it is overridingly dark mahogany. It isn’t strictly a flat black like those lame primered out whips that Persian trustees love to embrace. This is a dark mocha that has ample but light lacing. There’s plenty of decadent cake but the cocoa fondant is not insubstantial.

I just wanna get me mouth on this and nurse it gently every single night.

S: The bouquet makes me want to go into my cellar and and open another right now. Just double fist them to overdose on amazingness. TWO TWO PARA BOLAS AT THE SAME DAMN TIME. You get a nice bourbon aspect but a completely inviting chocolate truffle aspect and a clean lingering candied fig dark fruit aspect. You don’t like going to stupid farmers markets? Well they sell chocolate at those at an outrageous markup. This is the farmer’s market without the children and without the markup.

T: This is exception and wraps you with one of those hugs after a long hard chocolate cry, binging bourbon and vanilla beans. He wasn’t the right one for you anyway, Parabola will always be there for you, Parabola will wipe away those tears and carve pumpkins with you when no one else will. It is the everyday stout that is as incredible as the best of the best, but gives killer licorice back massages.

Whenever people tell me that Parabola isn’t that good, my jimmies remain in adamantium unrustle.

M: This is thick but not overpowering like Abyss, it is not overly thin either. The malt profile stays in your room just long enough to lovingly watch you fall into a bourbon nap and then turns the night light off. What a sweet and gentle stout that sweetly tucks 12.5% abv alcohol directly into your brain. You aren’t walking around smelling negligent, it is more of a light finish with a huge robust initial coating. This is the imperial stout that has admirable torque, but incredible cornering: the Carrera of the barrel aged world.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable, especially all up in your Porsche doing sick burnouts, socking nerds, asking girls to show their hooters. Except, it is more refined, with great power comes an incredible chocolate poise. They don’t just toss bombers into special cardboard boxes for no reason except Barrel Aged Double Barrel. This is an amazing beer and can serve as a gateway drug for your friends to absolutely ruin their lives with heavier exploits later on. I wouldn’t have my friends live their lives any other way.

This beer is fulfilling and exciting as the same time. Straight up decadence on a roller coaster.

Narrative: I drank imperial barrel aged stouts non-stop. I cannot write a narrative today. hit the archives or enjoy one of the other 397 beer reviews from last year you ingrates.

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Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Stout, Time to Confront RARity Itself

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Well look at what we have finally come to, the grand dragon of most beer nerds’ collections and/or nocturnal alemissions: GI RARE. You see forums flooded with requests for this damn bottle and it sits proudly on a litany of top 100 lists. There were about 13,xxx (?) of these made, but ask any kid from the midwest and they will act like it was a 1 day, brewery only release, 25 bottles made. They were pricey back in 2010, around $50, so in modern day currency, your anus is gonna get some fissures. This is the regular old amazing BCBS aged in Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old barrels for a whopping 2 years. It doesn’t get much more ridiculous than that. Oh and as a trivia point, the barrels later house King Henry that stupid beer nerds love to obsess over. AND THEY WILL NEVAR BE MAED AGAIN.

On other beer blogs, pours of this are usually 1 molar unit in a baby asprin eye dropper just to say they had it. Fuck that, I slay whales alone and cry myself to sleep at night while gripping a banana clip: the way proper beer reviews are done.

Goose Island Beer Co.
Illinois, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 13.00% ABV

A: This looks literally identical to regular old Bourbon County Stout, did you seriously expect it to have some magic Pappy Properties (Paperties) to make it glow radiant black? It looks like a sheet of hateful obsidian, like lava that had freshly cooled into dark sheets of igneous glass. The lacing is minimal at first and then erupts from below like gastritis in the lower colon. The mocha foam dances like a whirling dervish and makes a proud obeslisk to stout craftsmanship. This beer is really nice looking, but smells even better. OH SHIT I JUST SEGUED SO HARD RIGHT NOW-

If you want to land Rare, you have to pull something huge. Try using “harden” on it.

S: This is a complex but incredibly balanced beast. This is a melange of toffee, caramel, toasted marshmellow, bourbon, oak, chocolate, light char, some bakers chocolate and a cookie batter that just blends together seamlessly. The whole thing just makes you feel sad about most all other stouts, pricetag notwithstanding. It’s like in the late 90’s when everyone had tongue rings, we had it so good, now it is just a series of crestfallen resignations. There are certainly cheaper beers within this ambit, Parabola comes to mind, but this has a certain incredible joie de vivre that keeps midwest traders up at night, unable to enter REM.

T: This just soars in every aspect of the stout world. It is the platonic paradigm of malt and bourbon integration. The heat is there, but it is restrained, like a patient mage with plenty of mana. You get chocolate, sweet bourbon, a nice roastiness like a s’more, It was incredible to just sit on this beer and wait for it to warm, at almost room temperature, it hits its zenith and ranks among the top 5 stouts that I have ever tasted. I cant belabor this point any further, it is absolutely incredible.

Every stupid jackass on the beer trade forums wants this beer, disregard donkeys, acquire currency.

M: Despite the other PERFECT aspects of this beer, this is hands down my favorite element of this beer. There is this intense fudge and bourbon crackle that sizzles with microbubbles along the gumline that have this bubbly heft to them that is both energetic and sticky like a drunk Delta Gamma. If they made bourbon Pop Rocks, this is what it would taste like, and everyone would be twisted like a bag of ropes.

D: It is strange to say that a $50(+) bottle of 13% stout is drinkable…but it is. It is incredibly drinkable. It is like how those Star Ocean games are 100+ hours and ruin your life, but you would still call them “playable.” I just want more of this but, let’s be honest, the asking price simply isn’t worth it at this point and by my calculations, it should be on the downhill slope any time now. These are the realities of the beer world, but like those ball busters gripping their Depurations so tightly, reason and actual quality is often not a factor in the beer trading world. Also, I still need a 2007 Kaggen and I will give my left kidney for it. ISO.

If you want more Rare, build more Supply Depots.

Narrative: The users on the CraftWorld forums could not take it anymore. Raven Darkriven had consumed their arts and crafts website and entirely denatured their entire endeavor. “Raven, your bezzled grimoir viewing portal is lovely, but you are taking all of the server space, none of the other crafters can offer their items.” Raven spun a handcrafted garnet ring on his index finger and rubbed his slender fingers together. “You see JANET, when I began crafting in the dark arts of beading and bedazzling, I invoked liche spirits of the highest order to ensure that MY CRAFT WAS SUPREME AND DEVOID OF ALL IMPURITIES. Your server space is host to the macaroni art that is evil incarnate, and the masses clamor for it.” Janet adjusted the waistband of her Lane Bryant elastic sweatpants. “Right, I mean, that pasta mosaic you made was nice, but all this evil stuff is making some of the other ladies uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, it is amazing, but everyone pretty much wants to quit at this point. Felisha hasn’t made a single dream catcher since your products started being listed on the CraftWorld website.” Raven drew small triangles on his alabaster skin and replied coldly “If other inferior manufacturers quit, then so be it. That is the will of the obfuscated embroiderer. I will make this product but once, to fade into the blue flame of obscurity to leave my dark legacy on this niche industry. I will ruin it all with my greatness. I will leave them all wanting and hating their own glueguns in my wake. This is the will of the skeletrix, carved into the throne of bon-” Tracy had heard enough of this and she had to check on her dried roses.