Doknt worry, I won’t pester you with misguided old bourbon reviews. I would rather drag my broken palate across misguided new beer reviews.

  
Brb freezing my Utopias to- wait Fuk 

  
No box leaves South Carolina without at least one COAST or Westbrook beer in it. Fact.

Man, these entitled DDB reviewers and their IV trickle of whale reviews sure do get chapped labias when a guy tries to review some accessible Almanac beers. Fine, these entitled kids can chew on this ultra-nano shit for today’s review. MAYBE A 50 BOTTLE RUN IS SMALL ENOUGH FOR THESE GUFFAWING BUTTHOLES.

Today we have the KBBS killer, the baron of low yields, the Homebrew miracle that made Florida nipples lactate pure vanilla extract: SUMMATION. No this isn’t the Russian River beer that could have been, it is a decidedly original adjunct monster capable of toppling goliaths with a single tiny release.  The Facebook page for Three Sons doesn’t evidence an actual location at the time of publishing so let’s just keep acting like condescending assholes and call them HOMEBREWERS and put on a pince nez with regal panache.

RED WHITE AND JET BLACK

THREE SONS BREWING, Somewhere in planning, hypothetically located in South Florida, ALLEGEDLY

10% abv (?)

Vanilla Coffee BA Stout

So what’s the deal with this shit? When I obtained this bottle it didn’t seem as though Three Sons had a per se brick and mortar brewery and tasting room. The batches are usually in the double digit bottle counts, so it is typical Florida business as usual.  If you suffered through the traumatizing 2011 Funky Buddha “30 BOTTLE RELEASES” you know exactly what I am talking about and the rifts never heal.  So essentially, you’re gonna need a bleached butthole to land one of these elusive loot drops as it seems to trade almost exclusively for KBBS in my experience.

The label isn’t the poverty tier experience you would expect from a grassroots brewery, but it feels stripped down and reductionist. The pour rolls out with a lava lamp viscosity, sheeting obsidian coats in igneous waves on the glass with frothy silty foam. The clear alcohol legs cut through the residual malt and it feels coherent beyond the scope of the “HOMEBREW” pejorative.

Avery labels got that sick lip smacker gloss

The nose is absurd and hammer strikes your face relentlessly with waves of vanilla bean, waffle cone, kit kats, whoppers, a dry earthy Ethiopian sort of coffee roast and a long lingering Rolo finish. While the majority of that rhetoric makes it sound as saccharine as Wonka taint, it isn’t a one dimensional Southern Tier disability jaunt: this shit got more layers than Trident gum.

The taste lends an outstretched hand as you jump from vanilla jeep into a chocolate helicopter. There’s an intensity to it that doesn’t come from the sweetness, it feels more like four stand up comedians shouting jokes at you concurrently. You get in tandem: cold stone creamery, starbucks, four roses and Sweetshop. WHO OPENED THIS INSANE EMPORIUM. It is admittedly very, very good. While vanilla seems to be the most dominant note the coffee and chocolate and barrel serve as a sort of support barbershop quartet back line to bring the elements into malty harmony.

OH NO WAY A STOUT HOLY SHIT TAKE MORE PICS OF IT WOW LOOKS SO INNOVATIVE

The depth and delciousness of this is inversely proportionate to its accessibility, and that is frustrating as fuck. I don’t want to condone these efforts or put a gold star on something that creates a self fulfilling shitlord prophecy but it is undeniably world class. This has placed a weapon in the least deserving class of ingrates: the Floridian NASCAR population.

I guess it could be worse.  If Three Sons opened their brewpub in Chicago it would be the equivalent of giving Iran enriched weapons-grade Uranium and bankrolling their nuclear program.

all these berries clappin, and they aint usin hands

With all the hype from these industrial park farmhouses fruiting their sour blondes ad infinitum, sometimes we forget the old standbys. Somewhere along the line fanboys decided that because 4% abv stainless fruited Berliners are $9, then every barrel aged sour of every type is overpriced if it cracks the double digits. I DONT CARE IF IT TOOK THREE YEARS TO MAKE IT BETTER BE FUCKING PURPLE.

Some of you may be old enough to remember back when seeing barrel aged Sours falling off the shelves wasn’t some common occurrence. Almanac straddled that valley amiably back when all those Farmers Reserve bottles were dropping and saving people with Upland inclinations. They are still grinding and putting up Calvin Broadus numbers, somehow ekeing out a modicum of success without doing 300 bottle, 1 per person, lottery only, society-exclusive runs.

TRIGGERED

The same new money assholes who want ultra acidic $8 Lacto bombs are the ones who leave solid mainstays on the shelf. If you told them Bruery Beret is basically Bottleworks XII, they would respond “Beret is barely even fucking sour…what is a Bottleworks?” This is the current market Almanac is unfortunate enough to service at this point.

The pour admittedly looks like shit. If you enjoyed the trubtastic offerings from Pizza Boy, you’ll be right at home here. The carb dissipates and dries up like a Ford model at a Yu Gi Oh tournament. If looks could kill, this would be Casey Anthony: of dubious lethality.

The nose is worlds better and your face gets rocked like those Amiga commercials from back in the day. You gotta have grey pubes to get that reference. At the outset I am sure produce masters will demand a deep purple hue and straight up jammy explosion, nothing less. This is more of a subdued approach, oikos yogurt, farmers market berries, muddled blackberries, and spent captain crunch milk. The acidity doesn’t melt my face off and seems to dance in the balance showing one fruit breast and one monoculture…breast.

don’t touch the monoculture breast.

toaster getting dat bokeh

The taste gives more of a tannic blast over and above strict juicy j exposee. You get a touch of acetic aspects however they seem to exhibit it as a type of oaky dryness rather than vinegar detonation. The fruit served as Smuckers mortar to seal these bricks together lovingly. It never drills the bicuspids, cankersores are left in check. I think a 750ml format would be too apeshit for my baby gums, but this is ideal. At higher temps you get a touch of a diacetyl sack tap right in your grease pouch. I don’t know who is intentionally drinking these at room temp but I like to do my due diligence to find maximum shit to complain about.

“This sour isn’t even that good after being microwaved, this brewer sucks shit.”

Those kinda groundless complaints run rampant around here.

backlit photo game on swole

Oh shit, let’s not forget about this offering either. I opened this with a group of “normal” non-cicerones at a Fourth of July party and it was their favorite beer of the day. They loved the belgian esters working in tandem with the stone fruit profile and expressed it as “this shit isn’t like all your other fancy shit.” A mark of true praise.

It is just bitter enough and refreshingly belgian pale at once then sublimating into a blithe fruit beer later. This will get drilled in summer temps with careless abandon.

While not a game changer, this reminds me of Hangar 24 Polycot or those “almost wilds” that bleach beer buttholes to prep them for deeper AWA presentation.

In summary: Almanac is still on the grind in the way that Boyz II Men still sells out arenas with solid performances. You could easily quit beer trading bullshit, buy these offshelf instead, and spend more time with your weird ass kids. He is only seven, how does he even know the word “cooter?”

  
Seven different strains of Brett at the same damn time. The Coovie writes itself. Brb about to be in a Saisonlion fantasy.

Gonna shave my bhole for this epic experience.

  
My prior pour was on draft and I think I like the tannic dry closer of the bottle version even better. I don’t know if it was a produce sourcing issue, cost, or just intentionally low yields but only making 240 bottles of this is a criminally unfair move.

Thankfully people appear to be actually drinking these and the chum is not in the water yet so if there is another release the scoops will not be insubstantial. There’s a certain DeGardey imperial fruited bu undercurrant to this beer but unlike those Tillamook BALLERS the acidity presents itself in skins and pith not the actual fruit itself, resulting in an almost brackish MALBEC swallow. 

Smog City is doing a flanders red with cherries next month called Spittin and Cussin and part of me hopes it is acetic or puts forth a red wine vinegar aspect so I can regain some credibility and stop praising these Torrance minxes.

  
I wish the bruery email just said “it’s Bottleworks XII: except even better” so I didn’t fuck up and not buy enough. This might be their best beer this year, God damn. This seems to continue their model of making the most readily available beers the best in their catalog and saving hot messes like Flanders Giant exclusively for the Hoarders.

Beret takes all the frothy raspberry goodness of BWXII and makes it more nimble drier and dries out the gristy mouthfeel a bit and the result is an endlessly crushabe beer. Right when I popped it I was like “wait a fucking second-” looked at the label and realized what had happened. At 9% this is endlessly drinkable and I only wish that I knew before sales closed on this as I will be scooping up as many bottles as possible.

Oh also:

  
Filmishmish is banging this year. No purée or off flavor issues, just intense apricot and acidity with a touch of acetic aspects that never go over the line. Given the low cost of entry you would be remiss for skipping this awesome beer this summer.

   
 
I love that this beer is as good as BVDL but trades on par with Vanilla Rye. 

Always poppin hot shit like Xzibit, except I ain’t tryna put no fuxkin fish tanks up in your Civic