Psyche, DDB is registered as a charity and couldn’t justify dropping $500 on some savage bean flicking bottle.

God this website is the EBT of the beer world. Might as well just be posting Xocoveza reviews at this point.

The winds of beer nerd favor are as capricious as the hormonal shifts in a prenatal spouse. Prior to Fundamental Observation (B.F.O. Era), this old chestnut Darkstar November was largely imperceptible to the sideways glances of rapacious hoarders. During the prior release I had myopically characterized Bottle Logic as “guys who put things in things” and viewed an adjunct free release from them as highly circumspect. 

  
The b1 came and went, and all was well in the Orange County beer scene. Then magic bean activity ruptured the vanilla plates this year, sending tectonic waves of macaroon reverberations to shatter the gentle repose previously enjoyed by those unaware of the oily threat rumbling beneath. Fundamental Observation shook the gentle community to its core, never to enjoy that saturnine calm of preimperialism.

So now we revisit this gem, not Kentucky Darkstar, not dark lord, not November Rain: Darkstar November. This is the Putative/alleged “base beer” of Fundamental. I view the allegation that this is within the same lineage with cautious appraisal. The sheeting and heft of the pour looks similar, viscous Penzoil body intact. Even the base stats seem congruent, but the experience of the DN in the nose and milieu that it presents seems like a wildly different endeavor.

  
Q4 is always nonstop stouts. Ffs.

The nose is a vast improvement over the b1 and seems to push the rye [character from the malts I realize that they did not put rye bread or add actual rye spirits to this beer, I am referring to the olfactory character and making no warranties about the actual ingredients attendant hereto], roast and depth to the bitter chocolate [id, ibid, cf n1. Supra] present in the beer. The nose angles more towards a European/Mikeller/burnt toast and Nutella sort of presentation that seems out of place and a welcome rejoinder to the current state of American stout affairs. Instead of the sweet tootsie roll and brownies attendant to landlocked swing states, this goes for a light smoke and leather that lingers like a Cohiba burner.

The taste brings some faintly decadent confectionary notes to temper the burned marshmallow present in the nose. The mouthfeel has a frothy whipped batter coating that seems to burn away in a wave of rye spices that makes this noteworthy, albeit not my favorite stout of the year.

  
I need a 500ml outline under my eye

It has the traps on full swole, biting that robusto, doing naked diamond push ups in the Willett rickhouse. This might drive some people to tumescence, but for me I am left with a feeling of “pretty good” but falling short of genre-defining apotheosis. I welcome anyone not prattling out the same benchmarked wares and you should probably try this if only to calibrate your palate toward a transatlantic adventure. This is Stormskatporter on Bane serum, black vascularity throbbing through that spicy circulatory system.

  
Feels so good to enjoy world class beer aged to perfection for half a decade. Might pop a 2010 rare soon after I repair my first compressor.

Ah Georgia, fine purveyors of Rich Homie Quan and Automatic for the People, for too long a barren desert of ale based inequity.  They are now enjoying a renaissance of sorts with several talented breweries turning out wares that make the previously acceptable Terrapin wares seem like a Hootie and the Blowfish album by contrast.

When a previous wasteland strikes oil, profiteers move in, wild speculation occurs, the local populations are exploited and those driving the collateral markets attempt to drive up demand accordingly.  Georgia is no different.  When the amiable Creature Comforts broke out with noteworthy wares, leave it to the teeming masses at the gates to spoil things for everyone with rapacious waves of experialism.  No sooner than this “KBBS KILLER” was released were the trade forums filled with shield and mace wielding Athens locals declaring unending fealty to these maple bals and firing flaming arrows at any passing caravan doubting the quality of their wares.

In the interim, Creature Comforts exhibited jaw dropping customer service, and not content to leave the shittiness on trade forums, people accused old DDB of being outright fearful of disparaging StS, amply plied with berliners and IPA cans.  Fear not.  The StS contingency continued to malign itself and writhe under the glaring lights of retrospect.

It was a shitty situation.

Granted it was a handful of clever dipshits posting fake trades, asking for Armand seasons, falsely reporting closed trades, working in collusion to dramatically outkick their coverage, grafting every ounce of value from this relatively unknown quantity.  Alas the beer world, like MS paint, uses wide strokes and fill buckets to color an entire region. The subsequent reviews of this beer took a steep hit and those snakeoil salesmen who recanted “IT WENT 1:1 WITH MD” like an unholy rosary, were burned with the scorn of false appropriation.

BUT HOW DOES THIS BEER TASTE, FUCK ALL THIS SHALLOW EXPOSITION

The presentation is showy like a Young Thug video, the trappings and underpinnings of both luxury and urbane accessibility. The sheeting in beautiful obsidian waves, oily black like wet ink with cumulus nimbus whips of beige foam crowning the darkness below like adobe homes resting upon a Southwest night landscape.

The nose puts forth two opposing intentions that remain at odds throughout the experience.  The malts give it a sort of coffee note that exhibits a roasty dryness like sub equatorial single origin beans flicked raw with elements of acidity like when you steep that sack too long.  Remember when BCBCS used tortuga in 2012 and everyone was like “hol up, dafuq” the coffee dryness dominates in the same fashion.  The Medusa to this Odalisque is the maple element that attempts to polarize and solidify the stout underpinning with a smoky IHOP type of experience.  Either one would be welcome on their own, but each competes in tandem and the beer seems unfocused as a result.  As warmer temps the maple dominates and it stabilizes into a very well done nose that few can approach.

The taste is admittedly exceptional in every way.  It never becomes too sweet, flabby, or packs in that false DME mouthfeel with residual sugars.  Creature Comforts hit all of the CBS benchmarks and put their own verve on an exceptionally challenging genre. It really becomes a conceptual battle while you drink it, there is a full tootsie roll meet espresso profile that staunchly opposes the breakfast bourbon elements of the swallow. This perhaps dials the iris in too fine a focus, denaturing the aperture.  If viewed as a whole, it is unquestionably one of the best releases from 2015, but shifts upon the balls of its feet in the threshold of stout legends.

It would be disingenuous of old DDB to state that you shouldn’t trade for this beer, but it is equally malignant to look upon the gross speculation and false idolatry of the Georgian fanbase with a blind eye. This becomes the timeworn paradigm of blaming a brewery for the conduct of a whale starved population, the indictment falls largely outside the scope of their control.  This stout is really fucking good. While perhaps not shattering the realm of world class molds, it carves syrupy rivets that clamor for your contemplation.
Edit: I realize that there is no coffee in this beer. I can’t believe that I actually have to address the fact that you can excise coffee flavor from malts, but there you go.

  
Those 75omls from jester king are criminally overlooked, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  
Hit me up if you want to talk about my possessions. I predicate my self worth on containers of sugar water so LMK

  
I don’t know how this works itself out but, three amazing elements have merged into one disappointing stout. Smooth ambler cask strength rye is a phenomenal poor mans version of THH, monsters park has shown a relentless affinity for barrel aging, and that rye spice just twists nipples and screams HOLIDAYS: so what the fuck happened.

I couldn’t tell you but for some reason this has a zippo lighter fuel meets crumbled nutmeg nose to it with zero chocolate or fun barrel, just duraflame logs and crawl space notes. The taste is dry, thin, gingerbread sex doll, with this endlessly long purina alpo dog food meatiness like beef jerky going hard on the spices. This is the beverage version of a no kill shelter and it is heart wrenching to endure.

I can’t pretend to know how this happened, but, let’s just look to the future and forget about this sordid entry in the actual monster catalog. 

  
A cognac barrel aged barleywine, I am totally in., even if Westbrook hasn’t had the most amazing barleywine and old ale track record. I went in with arms wide open not unlike the hit single from Creed.

And as expected it’s a touch thin, almost sauntering into the porter realm, walnut pecan with a tannic presence from the cognac like burnt toast and prunes. The finish has a solvent aspect to it like wood varnish that is more unpleasant as it warms. There’s a nice raisin and toasted fig jam when it’s cold but the odd fusel and phenolic character as the temp ramps up that prevented me from killing this solo. Maybe it was the rolled up maxipad shunted in my urethra.

It is the polar opposite of the under attenuated massive syrupy mess that was b1 a deal with the devil, so I don’t know who to root for, it’s like an anti vaccinater fighting a juggalo, I can’t really root for either.

  
Bazoopers all around 

  
Such a timeless beer trading joke, wow never loses its sheen and class luster 

DONT TRAED WITH HERB DERKELSON HE WILL DESTROY YOUR PORCH ONG SUCH REKT PORCH LOL BC BOXES

Some have heralded this as the rebirth of Kate the Great, pushing air into the lungs of a whimsical bygone era of partially oak aged stouts.

For context I may have to explain to my readers that five years ago people would drink non-BA stouts with careless abandon. The simplicity of a regular A cup stout was sometimes buttressed with a coffee addition and that was about it, a BA stout would be something you dust off for a tasting. In this framework Portsmouth’s Kate the Great was the proto forebearer of lotteries and anal fissures that are readily accepted in modern parlance, but then it was exceptional. People would Indian burn their cocks for a pretty good stout aged on port soaked spirals. That’s just how things were, and there were trolley cars and this was all orange groves and everyone had a photo of Franklin Delano, etc.

So fast forward to the spiritual successor to Kate, but in a spoiled, jaded, capitalistic beer society in dystopian ruins. Honestly this beer is probably much better than the 22oz KtG’s that we would whimsically sip under the first Obama administration. It has more body, fudgey goodness, whoppers and muddled kit Kat(e)s. The barrel presence, clocking in at 2 months, partially aged, is modest even by North Caolina standards. The result is a perfect model for the spoiled assholes of the current consoles beer generation and the stalwarts from stouts past. It exists in many ways as a regular ris with Barrel aged leanings, existing in neither realm like that nebulous Abyss occupied by…the Abyss.

This is a very good beer, certainly unique and worth your calm appraisal. Some will knock the roast and gentle execution, almost Scandinavian in aplomb, the middle class Kaggen, struggling for recognition in a period of blunt palates and impatient gratification.  The label is dumb, the marketing is not fanciful, you didn’t have to get a face tattoo to be able to buy it: it is a throwback to the best of the past and I wouldn’t alter this in any way.

“can you believe people used to drink this apricot shit?” – Ehammond [fn1]

I highly recommend that you cut a slice of your Regal Rye berry sea salt seeking attention to land this awesome beer.

[fn1] not an actual quote