Category Archives: Uncategorized

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@westbrookbeer Fisticuffs, pushing into that coveted Barrel-aged rye ale territory

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Westbrook Fisticuffs, South Carolina, land of unending tolerance

Barrel aged rye ale
Westbrook unquestionably has an accomplished barrel program, but what about those obscure offerings off the beaten path? I cant recall many breweries just crushing a barrel aged roggenbier out of the park, so the intent at the outset is noble. 
The beer pours with ample carb that clings spotting the glass with streamers of sticky webs. The khaki cap maintains a frothy stickiness atop the mahogany srm. 
The nose is moderately sweet at the outset and reminds me of the waft of Dr Pepper syrup, prunes, plums, Carmelized raisins, and bruised peaches. It doesn’t have a cleanliness to the closer nor does it feel exceedingly “spicy” from the rye profile like you get in beers like Rugbrod or boulevard rye on rye, a far better beer.
The taste follows the sticky nose with a sweet melted molasses and sugar daddies, the foregoing dark fruits and figs are present and this beer improved as it warms but never becomes amazing. It is by no means a bad beer, and represents an ambitious attempt at hazarding something different from the well worn ba old ale/ba barleywine frontier. For that alone I can tip my trilby m’lady but just doing something different itself alone doesn’t make it novel. Go watch Enter the Void if you want a three hour example of that kinda shit.

Should you try it? Sure. Should you ISO this hard and pull your nips for it? I am not here to tell you how to live your life. Maybe this will fill that crushing emptiness in life, rye sugar water that serves to bolster the confidence needed to ask to be promoted to assistant manager of Arby’s. Who knows. Get your grind on, if you got that gold tank then you clearly know No Limit.

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@caseybrewing Oak Theory, psh not even advanced oak theory, I didn’t even get any AP credits for this review 

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Casey, oak theory, colorado

Not even advanced oak, regular ass theories, 5% abv, ba saison turned wild ale

Right out of the gates I was intruiging by this beer after having tried the phenomenal and undersung casey Saison, and the tasty fruit stands, this developed into a natural ISO. Once the reviews started coming in, I began to scratch my chin with worried contemplation.

The beer started as a saison but had since been referred to as an American wild ale. That’s fine, that happened with west Ashley and no one complained about that. When I poured this and saw that hateful magic,  its crackle of acidic foam, screaming for relief like burning alkaseltzer.

  

TFW when sour saison.

The cling is excoriated from the edges of the glass, that acidic clear sheen laying as flat as paper mario. Beatification looks down into the battle room at the furious prodigy, nodding at the tart prospects therein.

The nose is sharp as aged cheddar, lemon and kiwi, apricot, citric acid, with freshly cut limes. Other people lauded the alleged funk in this, something that must have either been overridden or metabolized since bottling in January, because this isn’t a layered delicate beer with complexity or depth, it is a pack of throwing knives that never miss their mark. Longshot straight out of the mojoverse cutting your palate.

The taste is drier than a vagina at a magic: the gathering tournament, it had lemon rind, limeade, nectarine and lingering oak on the backend that has a woodiness like Popsicle stick Saturated with tart juice.

 

Spill this beer on your skin like 

I had a tough time taking this entire 750ml down alone so that means it will be “OMG TOTALLY MEMERABLE AT MY 46 bottle SHARE ALL 16 of us agreed!!!!”

It is by no means a bad beer but it seems suited to the novice palate feeling their way in the dark cavern of tastebud limits, learning their bodies and mouth limitations. If you are the type who has already felt the pillbox fire of Upland Persimmon and Cascade apricot, you won’t need to prove yourself in the melee of this tart battleground.

I prefer the regular ass casey saison and east bank to these jarring acid rounds. The vault is a lie and your tastebuds will never escape pandora.

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Kuhnhenn big Tony’s ba stout, the hnnnng is real. Draining my BALs

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Kuhnhenn, Michigan

Murder mitten, ba stout 12.9% abv

The typical carb issues are present but holy shit is this just bursting with flavor. Caramel and roast, toasted brioche and Nutella, a sticky glaze and toasted hazelnut finish.

Those eagle rare 17 barrels remind me of ba solar elipse except much improved, I don’t know how one even lands this because it was donated but this was absolutely out of the park, something Tigers fans know a lot about around the 4th inning.

I don’t even baseball. Detroit could have won the World Series last year and I have no idea.

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@shortsbrewing superfluid, a tasty clean dipa without the usual adjunct japery from Shorts

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This is a pretty tasty dipa and perhaps the best beer I have ever had from shorts. They didn’t put any sage or nautical oak in it or anything.

It is intensly sappy and resinous but the body is so light and dry it somehow all comes together and never feels like a malty midwest dipa with fistfulls of Crystal and sucrose. This isn’t my particular favorite iteration in the dipa vein but that’s personal preference, it is unquestionably well made and I don’t often get to say that about shorts and their food beers replete with the entire pantry dumped into them.

I wish this brewery would strip down their core offerings to these “reductionist” beers because it shows that at the core of things they have a talented brewing team with some kinda ape shit gourmand marketing department. Next fall the canteloupe and kafir mint leaf version of this beer will come out and turd things up.

  

Shorts knows what my diet be about.

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@Weyerbacher Sunday Morning Stout, the obtainable SHASTA version of innumerable other Whaley coffee stouts

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all the offshelf pundits were extolling the virtues of this beer top to bottom. Releasing it in the heart of KBS season seems to have been a tactical Semtex tossed on the undercarriage of the Founders tank.

So it is a barrel aged coffee stout, business as usual, but how LEGIT is it really? The coffee profile is a touch sweet and almost has a milk stout aspect that works well with the barrel aging, sweetness is present but not dominant. Cama rep and vanilla have this macaroon that has a tasty interplay with the forgettable roast of the coffee.

The mouthfeel is thin and leans toward the Peruvian Morning spectrum of things, making this approachable and undaunting to the uninitiated.

  

When every offshelf ba coffee stout is compared to ba speedway.

It isn’t as good as KBS let alone the ba speedways, but I think that’s an unfair standard to lay at their feet from the outset. This is a tasty, readily available beer that has a flavor profile all the sweeter when fedex and truck chasing are omitted from the equation.