Got this in teh foreienger section of BINNYS!
It is not Small Animal Big Machine BUT ITS PRETTY OKAY!
DONT FORGOT TO COMMENT ON MY WEB VIDEO PLACE@!!!
Category Archives: kriek
Armand’4 Geuze Herfst (Fall), Dropping 32 euros on a bottle of beer Herfst so good.
How negligent can this website get? I reviewed Spring, Summer, and Winter of the Armand’4 series and straight up neglected to provide you with this banger: HERFST. Just so this is clear, here is how I would rank these Armand seasons: Zomer, Lente, Herfst, Winter. IN THAT ORDER. Well taking the bronze in such amazing company is nothing to be a sad panda about. Let’s get puckered in today’s review, for the geuze haters.
Love HERFST. Gueuze scars.
HERFST
Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen
Belgium
Gueuze | 6.00% ABV
A This has a huge generous billowing cloud of carbonation that is cummulus to the fullest. It is light orange at its center with light yellow and gold edges. It boasts a slightly unfiltered appearance. It’s like a 6 year old at CVS, you don’t want to touch him but you know he is a little sticky and filthy. The lacing is substantial as well, it leaves little party streamers on the edges of the glass with gracious aplomb.
With every season you expect a normal geuze, BUT THEN YOU GET AN AMAZING SUPER SOUR SOAKER. Dnt be fukn stpid Gooby.
S: Not surprisingly, it is stick and filthy. There are sour and sweet tart notes are blended with hints of granny smith apples underneath. I don’t want to go out on a limb but I am going to say a Skittle reduction is at play here. Compared to the other seasons, this has a funk and earthiness to it like the landscaping section of Home Depot. There is a great wet dog meets soggy alfalfa aspect that integrates with the acidity in a fantastic way.
T There is a pleasant sweetness for a split second with a latent backroundhouse to the bitter zones immediately thereafter. Its a sucker punch which leaves your mouth a bit dry but welcoming more if only for the strange assault. It’s like getting socked in the armpit, you aren’t mad youre just a little perplexed and glad it wasn’t worse. It provides a mild hop bite and this toes the line closer to an extremely funky saison but this provides an incredible acrimonious punch to the tart zones.
This is a huge beer, but small and restrained at the same time. It is a paradigm of delicate imbalance.
M: This is very light and dries in a refreshing fashion hitting that gumline deep and hard. It reminds you of an advanced cousin, the one who learned compound cussing earlier and gave you Too Short cassette tapes. Its like the tiny asian fighter who you underestimate who delivers fast swift blows that disorient and surprise your mouth. It is clean, crisp and damaging to your bitter zones. It is concurrently musty, funky, and also coats with a nice wheaty aspect to it.
D: This style is in my opinion fantastic for hot weather and, if you have some water on hand, a great companion outdoors on the beach or a boat. If you like very mild lagers then you will disagree but then you are also a raging pacifist and it is unclear how you ended up reading this review in the first place. The juiciness and earthiness of this perfectly captures the spirit of fall: straddling the heat and acidity of Zomer with the somber earthy tones of Winter.
32 euros PLUS shipping from Belgium? This is why we can’t have nice things.
Narrative: 47 years of service. Francine Manzana gave that caramel apple pop company the best years of her life and she was terminated “for cause” for reading a Patricia Cornwell novel when she wasn’t clocked out. Francine wasn’t going to take this lying down. She knew the secret behind the tartness in those pops, and she had full intention on taking this issue public. With her box of belongings from her desk she strode over to the quality control center only to find that Loretta was out. “I will make them feel the tart bitterness of abandonment, just like they showed me.” With a few calibrations she reset the dials and the mixture began running an entirely new batch of Caramel Apple pops through the line. Her acidic personality boiled inside with a deep complexity. She stared at her spiteful reflection in the bubbling pool of acidic green glucose. The wafts of the additional citric acid stung her eyes and nostrils. Francine smiled and tossed her mystery novel into the simmering goo, for she had an unemployment officer to speak to.
2008 Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek, Cherry Poppin Daddy
Oh loonz. Everyone wants them, and yet they seem to gravitate to the cellars of a chosen few that inexplicably never seem to drink them. If anyone is posting pics online of their 300+ collection of Loonz and 3F, pokemon hoarder extraordinaire to the fullest. Ask them to post a pic of a single open Fou Foune and watch their little hearts break. For example, for the lulz, I took some loonz to Cabo and drank them, because I drain lambic harder than a Brazzers account:
Drinking loonz on the Tropic of Cancer is money, having a basement full of things you never drink is a janky episode of Hoarders.
Loonz are meant to be dranken, so we are gonna smash some cherries in today’s review. Oh also, this is on some top 100 lists, for those who care about that SUPERFICIAL SHIT.
Step on that cherry, aws jeah, smash my preserves.
Alright let’s get this review underway, oh WAIT FUCKING PSYCHE-
CANTILLON PSYCHE OUT: MOAR SHARED LOONZ.
Brasserie Cantillon
Belgium
Lambic – Fruit | 5.00% ABV
A: Get the haz mat suits out, this beer looks like radioactive grenadine. The ruby foam billows up and just exudes a tannic berry character and when the light hits your eyes it is more radiant than an Aphex Twin concert. You just googled that shit. The whole affair is a beautiful garnet gemstone from old Gam Gam that you hold so precious but want to share with others.
If you have never had any Cantillon, it will make you flip your shit.
S: This has an initial tannic cherry skin quality with a musk similar to the OG Lou Pepe Gueuze, for obvious reasons. You get some wet yard clippings but with a healthy does of cherry juice and Cherry 7up sprayed over it. It has a crisp finish to the nose like a red champagne and the whole thing just feels refined, like if you got accused of being an alcoholic on Intervention and pulled this out people would be like, “well HOW OFTEN are we talking about? Does he beat his kids EVERY day?” Making friends and shit.
T: This is incredibly tart with raspberry, cherry, and essentially any candy that has Red5 in it. It reminds me of sour ropes and a juicy, authentic berry profile that blurs the line between beer and tastebud orgasms. Which is the opposite of an orgasm ON your tastebuds, so we are clear. I love the incredibly acrid borderline brackish finish that this imparts. The dryness is like a fine Pinot Noir meets the sweetness of well-done Cyser, balling Lisa Frank style, stuffing singles into some Hudson jeans, balling out so hard.
If you don’t drink your Loonz, that is bad and you should feel bad.
M: Hey, how is your short term memory holding up> This beer is fucking dry. It is also thin, and…cherries. There you go. Next section.
D: Did you recover from that huge blast of sass in the last section? Pshew, can you walk? This is exceptionally drinkable, you could power down a full bottle of this and still show up smelling like a Fruit by the Foot addict in time for your kid’s Parent-Teacher conference. If you got pulled over after binging on this beer, the cop wouldn’t think you were drinking, he would just assume you had no self control and fucking loved candy.
Actually opening a Cantillon feels good man, try it.
Narrative: Rainier Bing swirled the pink potation in front of him and wiped the sticky juice from his slick skin. His stem was chapped in this humid weather and this tavern felt like a prison, letting him know all that he had done wrong. “It all reduces down to MASTER and SLAVE roles, ultimately, that’s what the Story of Job, Psalms, pretty much all the Old Testa-” Rainier stopped his drunken rambling when he saw her walk through the threshold. Her skin was still flawless, perfectly unbruised, looking as though harvest season was just last month. “Is that…SKEENA SANTINA? God, she was the prize of the last harvest.” Her sweet ruby skin glimmered under the red lights, and the heat floated on top of her skin, like an ice cube in a glass of gin. She quipped to a couple of currants in the corner booth and sat, BY HERSELF NO LESS, and casually lit a cherry cigarillo. There was no smoking in the Cherry Pit but she flashed a coy wink to the bartender and he continued drying the glass and put on an asymmetrical grin. “HEY…er hey Skeena?” Rainier stammered to himself, suddenly aware of this pints of juice that he had just consumed. “Gosh you, I mean, look at us, same TREE! God, I remember you from budding season, you just-” Mr. Bing continued and noticed that she was staring with an apparent prescience at the white fuzz on his right quadrant. “Ha! I mean, look at me, a lil old in the tooth, did some time in the bottom of the plastic bin, a little moisture expos-” Rainier trailed off as Skeena Santina gave him an acrimonious glance and put her cigar out. He was right, in the end, all was reduced to master and slave relations. Reality was a tart endeavor.
Drie Fountenein Schaerksbaek Kriek, Just Try Pronouncing That Without Sounding Like a Beer DBag (BDB)
You’ve been to the bottle shop. You’ve seen this Belgian treat for $39.99 and you’ve always wondered if you’re worth it. Let’s pop your Sch. cherry in today’s review. You are worth it to me.
Get ready for some face melting, and I don’t mean from cat dander.
Drie Fountenein Schaerksbaek Kriek
6% abv, kriek, no shit.
A: It glows a transparent crimson hue with magenta notes at the edges. The middle carbonation is unparalleled. It looks like a red champagne, but more refined and people actually buy this. No lacing, no stickiness, just cherry sticky shurikens cast pell mell.
Poured a radioactive cherry beer, my face was like-
S: There is an intense drying of cherry skins and cabernet tannins. It feels a bit vaporous but fulfilling. It smells really dirty, like a cherry locker room, where they engage in all their tawdry cherry muskiness. You know the type, the movies are under your bed as we speak.
T: It just infiltrates and the cherry is clearly the hostage in this drying, hostile currant raid. It is incredibly crisp and it empties the vault of your palate and smashes the glass case within your bitter zones and imparts a mild hopiness that is almost imperceptible to the incredible acidity left behind. It hurts my tum tum, but it tastes like burning in a good way.
Feel that acidity light up your chest, embrace the GI problems.
M: It feels like I am being worked over by the cherry mafia, It is crisp and amazing for a moment, then I feel my gum line recede when the incredible acidic flavors impart their magic. It is worth it. Each swallow is crisp like champagne and beckons for more.
D: This is incredibly drinkable if you have a fortitude for incredibly tart hectoring. I could merk bomber after bomber, but I am not of the everyman opinion. Most will give this an offputting vinegar rating and complain about the tartness while I am shooting it all over my chest like a victorious Nascar entrant. That’s how I roll in the kriek.
Feed lambics to 95 lbs girls, observe results.
Narrative: “I love this Farmer’s Market, but I LOVE YOUR CHERRIES MOST OF ALL FARMER JOB!” he smiled wryly and handed the customer her 2 lbs of organic cherries. “I would KILL for these cherries on the east coast!” She turned on her heel and Farmer Job exhaled “she doesn’t know old boy, take a breather, relax.” He pushed past the back curtain into his back lab. The truth was that his entire cherry empire was fueled on the blood of felled cherry trees. He looked at their mangled forms, bleeding out, their saccharine juices imparting life to his super cherries. “Soon, soon my grafts will impart tartness beyond belief.” “BUT HOW MANY TREES MUST GIVE THEIR LIVES FOR YOU GOALS!” an apparition called from his potted apothecary. Farmer Job fell to his knees not unlike the character whom his name is unabashedly derived. “OH GARDENING TENANTS! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME SO!” At that moment, the most succulent cherry blossom opened in his face. It was at those times that Farmer Job was the weakest, that there was one set of footprints in the cherry soil that the super cherries carried him.
Lost Abbey Box Set Track 7 – The Devil Inside, Devil on the Inside, Clean on the Outside
Ok, let’s give some context to this box set series since most people have more productive things to do with their time than monitor rare ass beer releases. Lost Abbey is releasing one of these beers each month, available for consumption onsite only, in limited numbers. You cannot take bottles away, don’t ask or you’ll get socked. You can enter a lottery to win a box set of all 12 tracks, to be sold at the end of the year. So, basically massive whale box is what we are looking at here. Here is July’s track: The Devil Inside.
If you have ever drank too many lambic/sours, you have felt the devil inside.
The Lost Abbey
California, United States
American Wild Ale | 8.12% ABV
Here’s what the brewery has to say:
“We went back to the well for this one. It is a remix of our classic Veritas 006 aka sangria. We have raspberry and cherry providing the bulk of the fruit texture over a sour yellow base beer. To this we also added some orange peel and freshly zested mandarin orange zest as well. The beer finishes with a nice tannic finish and is truly a refreshing riff on a Lost Abbey classic. ”
A: This is a deep crimson meets magenta look that is inviting like a Lisa Frank binder but menacing like the velvet curtains of that touchy camp counselor you remember too well. The lacing is minimal and the bubbles are light but crackly with acidic rancor. The whole thing looks and feels like a Prince concert, and the elegance is maintained.
When the server dropped off the bottle and radiant glass, I was all like-
S: This has a huge acidic and berry profile with notes of blackberry, raspberry, cherry, currant, tart plum, and a nice citrus finish. It is evident that you will need to switch to PPO dental insurance for drinks like this, because the acidity is nothing to fuck with.
T: This crackles with a juicy acrimonious burn along the gumline that brings some awesome fruits to the bouquet. There’s cherry tannins, that raspberry dryness that you remember from Framboise de Amarosa, then slinking in sheepishly is that fruit profile from V007 that we previously visited. This doesn’t feel devilish, necessarily, but it has a deeeeep burn like those cross-fit box jumps you are so sick of hearing about.
Take fruits and make amazing beer with them: FUCK YOU SCIENCE.
M: This is incredibly dry and tannic like a red wine that has been juicing and using n0x for a sick deep pump. There’s a juiciness at the outset that brings a nice sweetness to accompany the acidic profile. You might get some ulcers from this, but it’s a way cooler story than the old “oh I worked at a failing car dealership” song and dance that burns most people out.
D: This is exceptionally drinkable if you are one of those kinds of people that can play Lifeforce or Rock Band on Expert for hours on end. It is relentlessly punishing but incredibly satisfying. I recommend winning the box set and then taking this one to Jamba Juice and then just sip on this while looking at the other suckers getting fruits in their boring, traditional way.
When you have enough hardcore sours, you start to understand the nature of the universe.
Narrative: Mikayla “Raven” Collier was not adjusting well to 8th grade. Her parents had moved 4 times in the past 5 years and it had taken a toll on her frail psychological profile. As a result, she turned to the all too common practice of adolescent necromancy. The PDF Necronomicon file that she downloaded was substantial and she printed it onto parchment paper from Staples, to give it a genuine luster. She assembled her other awkward friends, the girl with the inexplicable orthopedic back brace, the large girl with a massive lisp to match, and the Samoan girl from her P.E. class. The children had no materials from which to summon the dark fugues of the past. It was almost impossible to find solid alchemy materials in a track home in Charlotte, North Carolina so they made do with what was around the house. Raven found a box of produce from the monthly fruit colelctive that her “lame ass” parents subscribed to and produced the most evil fruit of them all: the unholy durian. After crushing copious amounts of blood pulp from raspberries and cherries, Samoan girl lit the incense. She brandished a Cutco knife, uttered the scrawling script in papyrus font, and cut the foul blackness open, releasing the odious soul of the durian, crusher of mankind. The eyes of the pubescent girls watered and they nodded, this was still much less shitty than Sadie Hawkins.
Johnathon Wakefield Fruit Berliner MASHUPS, For Beer Drinkers with Scurvy and Dental Insurance
Alright so let me see if I have my facts straight here, renegade brewer Johnathon Wakefield from Florida has been cooking up crazy new sours/Berliners/wilds for some time now. Cigar City had him come on as a hired gun to make Dragon Fruit Passion Fruit Berliner for Hunahpu Day and people’s jimmies were rustled so hard. Anyway, I have 4 of his fruited berliners for todays mega-mashup review, FOUR TIMES THE REVIEW FOR YOUR ZERO DOLLAR INVESTMENT.
Well let’s start this off with the titleholder for Ratebeer #1 Berlinerweiss, Dragon Fruit Passion Fruit Berliner
DFPF, hot sticky sour action, NSFW, 18+ only.
Just look at that beer, god damn. It looks like someone at the Juicy Juice factory decided that toddlers needed to sip on some purple drank. This wheat beer has some serious purple hues, majestic magenta, and radiant pink hues at the edges. The smell is like a bag of tropical jolly ranchers, all the obscure fruits kids know only in sucrose and high fructose corn syrup form: guava, mango, passion fruit, durian. The taste is sharp with a high and tight acidity that hits my bicuspids first and starts tearing shit up like a meth addict on Christmas morning in a tropical rehabilitation facility. There’s notes of tropical starburst, Welch’s grape/passion fruit blends, and things girls order when white sand beaches are within a 5 mile radius.
When I poured this out of the growler and saw girly purple drank, I was like-
Verdict: Probably the second best berliner that I have ever tasted, which bring me to MIAMI MADNESSSSSS
The original name for this was Cleveland Madness, but that beer was bitter, full of depressing riverwater, and unemployment.
This beer finally addresses that old conflict I always seem to be running into: drink juice or beer for breakfast? Well, now you get the best of both worlds, seriously, there is so much juice and fruit exploding from this beer I hesitate to state that it is technically “on style” but Funky Buddha’s berliners weren’t on style either but god damn are these beers delicious. The smell has a shipwrecked aspect to it of apricot, huge pineapple, and not in an alpha acid hop way, I mean like acidic juice in your eyes pineapple. The waft continues with some tangelo and a brackish aspect to it that somehow works in this beer. The taste reminds me of an ultra classy greyhound or top shelf jungle juice with huge citrus and tropical acidity like a mai tai. I can’t stress this enough, the fruit is overwhelming and casts a lunar eclipse over the wheat base beer toiling below like a Morlock. The finish has a thick coating of juicy pulpiness.
Juicey acidity, tropical fruits, and a german weissbier? I don’t even know what this site is about anymore.
I love this beer, despite the overload of nutrition presented, but then A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS-
In collaboration with Jamba Juice, the chunkiest wheat beer this side of Nordstrom Rack.
Holy chunkadunk. This beer has coating in a realm usually reserved for Abyss, but in an entirely different manner: STRAWBERRY RHUBARB. Part of rhubarb will kill you if you eat the wrong part. First we get juice, now straight up vegetables on this site? I know, this isn’t a Jillian Michaels crossfit nutrition guilt trip, just a chunky thick berliner to sip on while you shop for size 42 jeans online. The smell is straight up strawberry, tart jolly rancher, red skittles, and a light raspberry. The taste flips the shit switch and goes into a strawberry voltron that packs a light milky lactose aspect, yogurt, and jamba juice vitamin C boost. Again, the fruit just serves as overlord to the wheat aspect of this beer. SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS.
Four amazing Berliners in one night? Damn, I gotta prep for this one.
So we have seen the tropics, jamba juice, and the inside of an alcoholic crossfit studio, now we wander to latin america and taste some sticky watermelon sex-
Holy murky Prussian mouthgasms. Not sure if this is the dregs of a Cuban fruit cart or a tart treat from Florida: TRICK QUESTION THOSE ARE THE SAME THING.
MORAL IMPERATIVE WATERMELON BERLINER.
Well, this may not be the prettiest beer in the world, but I am sure saltwater aquarium enthusiasts will be on board for this one. The murky nature just lets me know what this berliner is hiding underneathe, like those M.A.S.K. toys where a boring ass gas station turns into a battle station, this beer mobilizes for war like El Salvador. The smell is water watermelon pulp, O BANG, Mexican restaurant refreshments, light vegetal aspect, white seeds, and a sharp acidity on the back end. The taste follows the nose like Toucan Sam and takes you to a seedy burrito spot in the Mission almost instantly. The pulp and murkiness just serves as a vessel to the D-Day fruit war that is your back palate, the heavy artillery shells with sour bombs on the bitter zones throughout and several fruity purple hearts are awarded to all. YOU MADE IT SOLDIER. The vegetal aspect is the only “authentic” aspect I have a real complain with, the white rind seems out of place but adds authenticity to the brew. “Tell…tell my mom I died honorably, not juicing watermelons for an esoteric ::COUGH::: weisssss-”
This was my least favorite of the four, but it was still pretty cool, Mr. Heisenberg.
So there you have it, all four done in one review, and NO ONE SAID IT COULDN’T NOT BE DONE! And let me allay your concerns, no narrative today you greedy cocks, I can’t assemble these four beers into a fruit Voltron to- wait…that’s a brilliant premise. Maybe with the next Wakefield series you can see the chilling conclusion of what happens to Fruitron: Protector of Dade County.
Founder’s Cerise, Would a Cherry by any other name pop juice like this?
Ok so let’s get one thing straight, Founders does stouts like no one’s business. Their IPA program is also very good. However, once the rough road of sours and wilds present acidic gravel, my limited slip palate differential just gets rocked so hard. So is this the best cherry beer I have ever tasted? Let me save the suspense, unless this is Cable Car Kriek, then fuck no, but my point is, this might not even come close to the mark…OR DOES IT?
If you walk into this expecting some majestic kriek experience, check your high hopes at the door and go meet the grenadine escort.
Founders, Cerise, Fruit Beer,
Michigan dropping elbows, 6.5% abv
A: This has a hue akin to a ruby red grapefruit juice, it is translucent with light reddish orange luminescence. The carbonation is swift and exits quickly, not unlike the time I went to see Pootie Tang, starring the inimitable Chris Rock.
This is a refreshing blast you might want to avoid.
S: This smells similar to a white zinfandel with cherry notes added to it. There are sweet sticky grenadine notes and a dryness that pangs of oakiness. I have my fingers crossed that this doesn’t go all ape shit and hit that fruit juice and cider tone. Often times, the fruit shoes are illfitting and they readily follow the Toucan Sam maxim of following one’s nose.
T: It begins with a sweet juicy note, cherries of course but with a lingering acidic sweetness similar to a grape juice. It is a bit too sweet for my tastes, not as oppressive as the New Glarus Belgian Red train wreck, but this is a currant fender bender. The dryness and wine notes offer a wine cooler reminiscence that reminds me a bit of red champagne. This is strange, but you enjoy it if only for the innovation, not unlike going to see a Ray Romano stand up comedy show.
The elements are all in place but the execution leaves something to be desired like a stupid fucking 15 year old with a $700 camera who posts shit on instagram.
M: The mouthfeel is dry but the overbearing sweetness just submarines the gains that the innovation and tartness makes. It is difficult to focus on the coating and mouthfeel when there’s this din of sticky madness going on. Sure I can try and write the next great American novel at Boomers! But it just seems wildly inefficient. This shit is just too wacky, cherries all up in my dome piece.
D: This is light and has pleasant carbonation but, the sweetness just pangs the conscience and I feel like I am drinking fruit roll ups and melted starburst. It doesn’t go so far as being as saccharine as the energy drink fold, but it is still cloying. As a result, this remains sticky icky ooh wee, the likes of which I do not wish to put into the air.
The moral that I learned is that you need to prepare for disappointment from your greatest hero.
Narrative: “I just can’t do this anymore, I’m…I’m so sorry.” Ted Langston hung his head in shame. “What do you mean you CAN’T DO IT? It’s the 1990’s, get with it TED! People are on board, SMALL WONDER IS A HUGE SUCCESS!” Ted spun small circles with the toe of his shoe and shook his head in a recalcitrant fashion. “No, V.I.C.I just doesn’t make any damn sense. You’ve taken my science fiction sit com and turned it into a sticky sweet mess. I mean, have you watch the intro? The father is sitting on the grass laughing, that’s not the face of a man who just developed a fully functioning android daughter.” The FOX board official wiped his face with the utmost solemnity. “We have so much riding on this, the love triangle, the adopted asian robot brother that we were going to integrate, you’re…you’re just gonna give up on Small Wonder, just like that?” Ted rubbed his palms together and stared at the plaque on the wall “Young Artist Award.” “I’ve vested too much in this, it began as something amazing, a great institution, but here we are, 4 seasons deep, things are just sticky sweet and messy, there’s a what, what are we doing now a CLONE robot who talks in non-monotone? This doesn’t make any damn sense, there’s too much goddamn nonsense in this show!” He banged his fist on the mahogany table and delivered the absolute shall to the executives. “Alright Ted, but how about in season five we don’t add the alternate dimension, the adopted kid, the prohibition timeline time machine, the love interest for every main character, or the very special episode where V.IC.I. learns about sexually transmitted diseases, will that make you stay?” Ted was not a tart berry to be picked and pressed, besides, he had a new project, Clarissa Explains it All, through which to expound his existential views.
Lost Abbey Framboise De Amarosa, Farmboise De Omarosa REEEMIXXXX 2012 CLUE CLUE DJ KAYSLAY THE DRAMA KING fee fee feenn feeennn.
Alright, so I don’t usually drop the beat and bring the track back unless there’s not enough snare in my headphones. In the case of last year’s Framboise De Amarosa, there was too much acidic tinny snare rankling my jimmies. I was straight rustled. So I figured I would give this a chopped and screwed 2012 flow for the masses.
Some people complain that there are too many sour reviews up in the cut like what these days. Don't worry, the days of shitty adjunct lagers and Solo cups is almost among us. The air is redolent with bluebell and azalea.
Lost Abbey Framboise de Amarosa
American Wild Ale 7.0% abv
Let me kick off this slow jam by noting that this is largely different from last year’s batch in that the acidity has been ratcheted in, they install some sick fruit forward headers, and catback raspberry exhaust. If you like a more subtle approach, you will enjoy it more, if you have dental insurance, you might like the old acidic approach, hey, whatever chases your Valtrex is cool with me homie.
Old craft beer enthusiasts are tough to impress.
A: There are deep ruby hues with some nice light carbonation and light red lacing. It’s like Hypnotiq’s baller ass raspberry flavor to be all sipping on while you’re cruising in your triple black Challenger. It looks a lil more murky than last year but on the Cuvee De Tomme tip, just a lil juicy juice.
This beer is confusing but strangely fulfilling. The mystery continues further this year. Uncel Doland appreves.
S: The smell presents an intense cranberry and acidic dryness with raspberry on the nose. The oak is present in the smell and it is has a juicy wine profile to it. It’s like Andre Rose Champagne but with leather seats and a cutty ass Gucci interior. The skins and crispness of the berries is more present and there’s less of a harshness on the low ph scale to this, and it is more approachable as a result.
T: The taste is still drying but doesn’t go balls out on the oak, it has more of a refined and balanced approach to the berry and interplay with the base beer. If last year was a caustic Fox news, this would be…The Raspberry Science Monitor? As it warms you get a jammy preserve sort of interplay that works well with the skins and wild ale base.
This is a sweet sassy gem with a sticky sense of shameful reproach when the glass is gone.
M: Again, there is an intense, huge crisp dryness. The mouthfeel seems like it’s an intense merlot with oak to round it out. It’s tough to determine exactly how thin or thick this beer is because the coating is so acrimonious. IT’S SUCH A DEEP BURN, OHHH DEEP SQUATS WITH SICK BOUNCING BETTIES, SICK DEAD LIFT FINISH BROMOROSA.
Raspberry deliciousness. TARGETS ACQUIRED.
D: This is an incredible experience with crazy highs and low to it. This is not a figure of balance, nor does it do anything in moderation. It is impossible not to recommend this exceptional beer to others. Clearly, it is not meant to be enjoyed as a sesssion beer and should be treated accordingly. The taste is so amazing that it is hard to knock it for adhering to a certain style so well. Overall it is incredibly bitter and juicy and I am left wanting more.
This amazing raspberry gem is a sign of cognition and awareness to come. FUCKING BREADCATS PEOPLE.
Narrative: The train of her ostentatious gown dragged upon the split staircase with wanton disregard for anyone walking near her. After all, there were plenty of tailors within her Parlor and weekly soirees that would readily repair any damage. Somehow Countess Brioche sought more than just the exploitation of the endearing faces of the working classes. She sought their unending love. Notwithstanding, her acerbic parents brought her up to speak her mind truthfully and freely at all times, no matter how scathing. “Oh-oh-oh!” The Duchess of Piedmont fell down two stairs to her knees upon the rich velvet of Countess Briochess’s train. “Your steps lack precision due to the mass pressed upon them.” Mme. Brioche commented and felt a slight pang at her ejaculation. It wasn’t fair to cut others so deeply with such a bitter acerbic purity. Somehow, in this acidic repartee, others saw themselves, and their own shortcomings, despite the caustic burns they received. Countess Brioche looked upon a bustling courtyard of servants who despised her, but respected her stinging candor.
Allagash Vagabond, A Beer for All Those Highbrow Jack Kerouac Ne’er-Do-Wells
Not unlike the Allagash Ghoulschip, I had been seeking this beer out for quite some time as well, what with its fancy packaging and paper and whozeits and whatsits galore. This beer is a complex hydra and I will attempt to cut off some heads in today’s review.
Vagabond Ale is right, details inside.
Allagash Vagabond Wild Ale, 10% abv,
A: This beer has really charming deep plum and mahogany, the radiant hue invokes melodies rhapsodical and fair. The carbonation is gentle and lackluster, the lacing phones it in and does not show up for work, even though you know it was partying the night before in the bottle. Figures.
At first I was all jazzed based on the appearance and smell, but then-
S: Holy complexity Batman. I get a caramel, plum, merlot, syrah grape, and a mild hint of wet hay funk on the backend. I have no idea how this will taste with an olfactory offering this complex. It’s like the Pontiac Aztek where you don’t know exactly what to do with it.
T: This really pains me to say this, but the taste is really intolerable. I traded big to land this and I want to power through this but I feel that I may have received an off bottle. The initial taste is a light plum crispness like a farmers market- wait, it is passing over my other zones and wow. It goes to a strange place of old halloween Rolos, then finishes with a huge strange salinity like soy sauce. I dont want it to be the case and I respect Allagash immensely but as I sit here waiting for the beer to warm I am left wondering if it is my fault, did I lead the beer on? Was it what I was wearing? You get a deep tartness initially and a red wine aspect that is incredibly pleasurable and then it just goes Thelma and Louise out of nowhere.
In this beer's defense, it is very intredasting.
M: The mouthfeel is light and crisp like biting into a juicy, albeit very salty fruit. The mouthfeel has a bit of acidity on the backend of the palate, but overridingly the taste of weird phenols or something. Again, if this bottle is off, disregard this review but man, this feels like the Aston Kutcher of the beer world punking the shit out of my palate. It reminds me of this one time when I went to Universal Studios and ate grape soda and chili and go too hyphy on the King Kong ride and ended up throwing up in the backseat of my dad’s Cutlass Supreme. The taste in my mouth after throwing up, that is what this reminds me of. Not even mad tho.
D: Well given the foregoing, take a quick guess as to how gung ho I was to knock off a 12.9 oz bottle of this. As it warmed the stakes became higher with more delicious fruit and currant aspects and even more hateful salty aspects. I came into this thinking it would be akin to Consecration or the ilk, but, this was quite different. Not my favorite beer of all time. “But you don’t have to take my word for it” – Reading Rainbow.
You don't fuck with the Wu, and you don't fuck with Vagabond ale.
Narrative: I do not want to cobble together an offensive narrative for this beer because Allagash deserves better than that. Instead, I will provide you with a Lil B’ video. Allagash Aint Got No Felonies, Brews Like Bill Bellamy.
dontdrinkbeer 