Alright, I took a week off to go hit up Cabo to learn about the beer culture down there and I am back on my grizzy with something as far away from Cabo as it gets in the Western Hemisphere, some down home enlightenment in today’s post. What is the nature of enlightenment? Isn’t that the age where the oppression from a liturgical society was cast off? Didn’t it promote science and intellectual interchange and oppose superstition, intolerance and abuses in church and state. Other haters say “oh that shit went down about 1650 to 1700, it was sparked by philosophers Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), physicist Isaac Newton (1643–1727), and philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778).” But fuck all that, today we figure out what enlightenment REALLY IS, for the haters.

Schopenhauer straight creepin on my Enlightenment. He just wants to Will that mouth up on this Representation.

Hill Farmstead Brewery
Vermont, United States
American Pale Ale (APA) | 5.40% ABV

A: Alright, let’s try to be impartial here, every one knows about my past love affair with this rural gemstone quarry turning out hop bombs and barrel blasters on the reg. But the beer appears directly to style and comfortably shoulders next to Zombie Dust and Hoppy Birthday with that beautiful clarity and foamy radiance that you have come to expect from infant bath time and amazing APAs. The lacing is substantial, it just gets everywhere like when slimer gets blasted on by a proton pack. The legs look nice but I think the time in the growler may have tamed it a bit so you can put that on my set, I GUESS.

At first I thought this beer was too complicated, but as I continued on, the nuances showed themselves and entirely new concerns arose.

S: There’s an amazing sweet citrus without a huge bitterness to the backend that just screams grapefruit, lemon rind, apricot, and pineapple jams. The pine and other harrowing aspects that nudge their way into APA’s is gone, thank god, so no mountainous shit ruins this experience, just you and a lovely fruit hoptail to enjoy at your leisure. Where was this beer when I was draining Modelos hardcore during the entire last week? Thousands of miles away? Oh ok, cool, just peeping out the scene.

T: The taste doesn’t go aggro on the hops or the fruit aspect. You open the door and see a nice compact edible arrangement of hops and fruit assiduously arranged on your doorstep with a nice bottle of water to refresh your palate. Enough equivocating and circumlocution: This beer is refreshing. It isn’t the depths of free press or a direct challenge to the sans culottes, but it washes away clean with a nice tinge of fruits of the Tropical Skittles variety, except not derived from sucrose, just pure pineapple, mango, guava goodness from hop oils. The whole finish washes away clean in more of a shallow pantheism than the full spectrum of intellectual depths of say, Heidegger, but who has ever found Being and Nothingness refreshing? Fucking no one.

When a brewery half asses something, you can tell immediately, such is not the case here.

M: The mouthfeel is crisp and clean, imparts a nice watery tone that transfers into a mild hoppy stickiness and before you know it, the pleasure is over and it is time for the tip. Again, this cannot be construed as a diss when it is brewed exactly to style and shows such extreme balance and punishing hoppiness like the first three Ninja Gaiden games. This is a real good beer and, for the style, def in my top 5 APAs, hell make it top 3, but I am trying to be fair and balanced here.

D: Does anyone remember when Ford released the Taurus SHO and shit got nuts real quick? You take a balanced base and then push it to the limits with amazing (Yamaha/Vermont) craftsmanship and here we are. I am trying to go half throttle not to drain this old chestnut instantly but that’s how these forays into Vermont always seem to go. As I type this, my growler is gone, and I still feel like i can go kayaking or play handball, and that’s how I know the APA is working, maximum flavor without the beastly DIPA withdrawals. If Ephraim is a 911 Turbo, this is Hill Farmstead’s Lotus Elise.

It’s the smooth comfort of a well-done pale ale that comforts in a softly aggressive manner.

Narrative: The local islanders did not want to cause alarm to N’thraiku’s parents, but it was clear that something was a bit off with the archipelago youth but at a certain point you just have to call it out. N’thra stood a stately 1.5m tall at his tenth birthday, however, his triceps bulged with cuts almost .5m around. He assiduously scampered up trees and claimed even the highest hanging fruit, beyond the dietary needs of the tribe. “N’thra! COME!” the village elder, K’traikai called. “N’th, you have shown great discipline, but, seriously, you look like a bent tuning fork, let’s calm the aggressive climbing down a bit, ok?” N’thra kicked some of the obsidian black sand in front of him and looked far in the distance to the dormant fire God for solace. “I mean, sure we all enjoy local treats but, you need to ratchet it back some, we have way more almendra than anyone can eat-” suddenly N’th reached and crushed a balata in his palm and swung like a child’s swing in between his massive arms. The message was delivered loud and clear, N’th was going to keep reaping fruit, getting jacked, and juicing; dietary habits be damned.