You’re used to whales but I hope you guys are ready to clean rice hulls out of your Kirkland jeans because today we have the EIGHTH highest rated Happoshu IN THE WORLD.

You’re probably wondering “Why would DDB go to the trouble of seeking out an obscure style and importing this adjunct lager all the way from Japan?” I am all about covering these sorghum and sugar ratios k.

So what even is a Happoshu? This is a reduced malt beverage that breweries make to skirt tax regulations. Weirdly, frozen alcoholic drinks could also be Happoshus. Basically, in Japan if you have 67% malt or higher, that’s a real beer and you pay more.

In a weird twist, this beer is characterized as a “beer flavored beverage” which is less than we can say for some American craft cake beverages. Toasted rice flakes usually make up that last third of the malt bill.

This green label Kirin is the low carb like Rolling Rock Green Light of Japan, except it still has 4.5% alcohol so you can drill these like water. This is Michelob Ultra from the land of the rising sun and you can crush these harder than Super Shredder under a dock/in a garbage truck. This one is made from like 70% simple sugars so imagine how clean this ferments. It feels like a rumor of La Croix sweetcorn flavor, fleeting and barely existent.

The nose is tortilla chip, some Tostitos Rounds, light salinity and hotel pool. The taste is ethereal and imparts like the Polar Seltzer idea of Bud Light. The tv static version of Stella with extremely mild skunky and lemon chapstick swallow.

It’s like if you drew a bottle of Pine Sol from memory with a grey crayon. Nothing is permanent and the massive crackles subside and disappear like tuxedo mask, your palate a forever-wanting Sailor Malt. The aftertaste needs to be measured with an F1 clock.

Normal people will love this beer because it avoids a beer experience. It demands nothing and just works endlessly like the batteries in your tv remote for some reason.

This beer and style gets a bad rap. It won’t shatter your idea of Japanese beer, but with enough sheer volume, you too, will be singing Evanescence with a maid hostess in a cat café

Whenever I get a media kit, there’s this recalcitrant streak to judge the beer under extreme scrutiny like some strident official. CASTING WARES UPON MY DOORSTEP, WHO SEEKS THE PALATE TRIBUNAL.

With Goose Island much hay was made a decade ago about the InBev sale, some dudes with creaky joints and Stone Temple Pilots cassettes probably still care. In the modern era of insane financial mergers and Amoretti puree, that buyout seems quaint especially in light of the trajectory that Goose Island has taken with their seemingly limitless checkbook.

Their barrel sourcing and quality has been apeshit. While it would be amazing to dunk on a press bottle with my arm in the pot on some Vince Carter action, I simply cannot. This barleywine is a masterpiece.

The packaging is gorgeous and patently unfair. But the contents itself could be in a waxed double-knotted Trojan and still be immaculate. This beer delivers on the legacy of the previously recalled Barleywine reserve and improves it to dizzying degrees. This is not only the best of the BCBS lineup for 2022, it might be the best beer that Goose Island has ever made, including the 2010 fresh Rare, 2014 VR, and whatever god tier old currency you can think of. The siren song of Mike Smith before his departure is spicy boulevardier phoenix rising from Old Fitz ashes.

The heat is there and lights up your chest like E.T. It provides so many layers from graham cracker, to Boston Baked beans, settling into this warm halvah aspect. It remains vibrant and never sucrose driven. It is like a more unruly VSOJ, or a shredded ADWTD with fig newton vascularity.

The gray goo scenario is when nano machines replicate and consume all biomass on earth. Giving a warm endorsement to a ubiquitous high quality barrel program with limitless corporate resources feels irresponsible. But this beer is incredible and no amount of Aw shucksing or block corporate proxy voting can change that.

This bottle will shatter your NNN, pls don’t try this beer, it’s masterful and now I need to lay down I’m very sleepy.

It’s time for another installment of “Where did all the double digit age statement bourbons go?” Today’s answer is: they just cost way more.

With Willet painting their bottles black and ripping people off on mediocre 8 year distillate for $250 a pop, even humble Knob says “why not me?” Eighteen years. Corn juice that can provide consent, but not old enough to drink itself.

Eighteen year Knob Creek feels weird. Hyper luxury everymany products. Like seeing Hyundai release baller Genesis cars and you’re still thinking of Tiburons. Sure, the 9 year Knob is still at the gas station for now. The 12 is at the fancy grocery store. The horrible 15 is not worth anyone’s time but, yowzers, this $180 retail 18 year. Beam is bending our staves with this one.

I can already hear some 2015 apologist like “back in MYYYY day we got 16 year knob store picks for $55 and there was this frog on a unicycle called DAT BOI” We get it. Bourbon has changed. Even the halcyon days of $125 15^th anniversary knob sounds like drinking from a sweet creek compared to these prices.

But is this good? Check your dreams of Eagle Rare 17 at the door, this isn’t some elegant affair. This seeks to compete with the likes of Elijah Craig 18 and does so competently. If KC15 is a completely underwhelming waste, this is just moderate decadence. It’s wasteful, but not like “Balenciaga Potato Chip Bag Purse” levels. KC18 is semi-indulgent. Just be grateful this isn’t $800 like that Marni Old Fitz 17.

It’s thin and doesn’t exude that syrupy body you would want, but provides enough viscosity to kick up some roadhouse peanut shells on the sawdust floor. There’s flickers of Sugar Daddy and Sun Tea, a pop of Lemon Snapple, with a restrained warmth that feels luxurious. A caramel dipped mohair cardigan dried on the line. Allspice, rum cake, and Cinnabon OTPHJ close things out tersely.

It never goes Diageo levels of laughable overoak, just as much wood as you desire, babe the big proofs hurt. I paid $230 for this with no box and, its yeah, def not that. Just buy the KC12, that is the quality sweet spot for 40% the cost. Or hell, buy the KCSB9 and ride the Shasta Bookers pony. This is a novel tick, but needless

I try to actively keep my finger on the pulse of new breweries that are worthy of your attention and not just repetitive hype reinforcement of one off Cantillions or whatever St Louis juice is making the rounds. Imagine my surprise when I got messages about a lager powerhouse in…Virginia.

I usually engage my core and put on my blast suit when I see a VA hurt locker arrive. To see Vibrissa carve out a name with cans of pilsner, festbier and hefeweizen felt like a betrayal to the commonwealth. No fruit puree, cereal, or IP theft in sight.

This is Front Royal laundered in a new location, but unless you’re some hardcore Winchester, Culpeper, Fairfax cartographer, its just Virginia.

There is this civil engineering concept of “third places” spots in a city that aren’t home or work that you can exist. We are losing them rapidly as home congeals into work and every third space is now a place you pay to inhabit. Vibrissa feels like a genuine third space. The taplist is riddled with ESBs, low abv porters and baby IPAs: you can just exist.

This helles is as third place as it gets. I crushed several of these while last place in Overwatch 2 and it softened the experience. Eurostyle hopping without the stupid vegetal IPL reaching that many breweries strive for, jasmine not juniper. The soft accomplishment of lowering your screen time with actual living.

Park Pass feels out of doors in that you aren’t supposed to focus on it. If a foley artist draws attention, they are bad at their job. This makes the snap of a neck sound as crisp as an Anjou pear, with the light water cracker and bibb lettuce swallow, melty and riparian. It is less bready than some heftier hellies, and glides on cucumber handroll heelies. It won’t fill you up but it is something you order to pad out the experience.

The clean swallow gives you a space to collect yourself, the alcohol doesn’t create the experience, it is an a frame structuring it. This is a can that you give a friend and they don’t say a single word about, and sometimes that is the most effective beer of all.

Vibrissa offers that rare slice of Virginia beer that we can just silently enjoy without being compelled to scrutinize “oh what now?”

Michigan has many hidden gems, cherry varietals, juggalo deviants, a weird upper peninsula that’s basically shasta canada that even Wisconsin won’t claim. Lots to love in that old mitten.

@waxwingsbrewing have been causing a buzz with their strong ales and this foray into double barrel stouts feels like the recent change in dunkin points: everyone about to be mad for some reason. They are just tryna do something nice.

It has a sky high untappd score and exists as this inconspicuous counterpoint to the ultra hype stouts in the resale game. The body is managed beautifully and provides a Stavey heat in your clavicle. It warms like flourless lava cake and she’s impressed by Bucca du Beppo. The crackle goes this boulevardier route hipsters love and rye has a pop of spice and resin knife hits.

It seems irresponsible but courteous. The beverage equivalent of shaking out a comforter to find underwear for someone you just met. The depth never gets too sweet but maintains poise. If you’ve ever met someone who nonironically says “ITS GIVING-“ and then lists a series of horribly watered down DSM terms, this is the opposite of that. It’s warm and enjoyable and never starts a sentence with “NOT ME-“

The issue is that people who care will be mad you have this, and people who don’t will overlook it. Reconciling the fervid locals and the hype battermouths is a tough road to hoe. Just enjoy this in silence. They will see you drunk from such great Heights.

Is there a way to smash elegancy into simplicity? The new Mazda MX5 is amazing but ask any one of your friends and they would just shrug like it wasn’t worth even contemplating. The humble helles, the bright cousin to the popular pils. Always the lagersmaid, never cutting that bottom fermented cake. Hill Farmstead found a way to make a soft spoken liquid feel assertive.

Autumna has a problem at the outset: the experience is context specific. It is almost never allowed offsite so it remains an amuse bouche for those who make it to the verdant fields. You can predict what happens next. The growlers are 1pp and Munichbeasts resell growlers of helles for over $100. What even

Please ice your tailbone after you no doubt just fell out of your chair. I offered up a Side Project Tete de Cuvee and a guy asked me to add, for this helles. The inherent issue becomes: how can Autumna ever live up to the dilemma that flippers have created? What helles can ever live up to triple digit prices?

The simple answer is, it cant. The complex answer is, it doesn’t matter. It can’t live up to the resale figure because the crisp, deceivingly full bodied challah character can be found for $7 in Andechs. That similarly-hopped creamy mouthfeel you might be able to approximate with Weihenstephaner. It wont be quite the same. The Louisiana Fried Chicken biscuit, touch of perle bergamot. You can grab a weathered 500ml German offering with the white ring on the neck of the recycled bottle, but it wont be oak cask conditioned. Paulaner wont hug you like high crumb sourdough with light minerality. It wont have this bizarre sense of place that terrible editorial writers constantly leverage.

It’s a strange situation where now HF exists as its own competitor. Years ago I would be step mash sabre rattling about how Augustiner can be had for less but, now we have Suarez and Fox Farm and Goldfinger and Bierstadt and pFriem really undermining the idea of perpetual European supremacy. Just enjoy it.

Comparison ultimately can be the thief of joy. Sometimes we have to look beyond secondary and focus on what is in the glass, at a certain point, people are just gonna argue about Chris pratt doing Mario’s voice

WHAT IS THIS, “DONT REVIEW FRIDGES?”

I know what you are thinking, “wow old DDB so hard up for appliances he’s out here peddling tangential electronics reviews. You hate to see it.”

That is not what this is. Yes the fridge is a collab with Stone and branded with gargoyle, and trust me, we will get to that. This is first and foremost a BEER FRIDGE.

I have very specific and intense beer needs and I wanted to put this device through the paces to see if this has what it takes or if this is some janky glorified dorm icebox.

First things first, let’s articulate this outright: this is just a baller albeit huge minifridge. It has Stone gargoyles on it but doesn’t like audibly yell “YOURE NOT WORTHY” or have a speaker that says “NOW YOU ARE SUED” or any Sapporo logos on the bottom. It is a fridge ok.

It is a bad ass minifridge that has several cool features if you are maladjusted like me and need even more space for beer to be cold at all times, and other niche needs.

WHAT IS IT?

This is the NewAir x Stone Brewing Beer Froster SBF125AB00.

Let’s get this housekeeping done, you can check it out here:

Arrogant Bastard 125 Can Beer Froster Beverage Refrigerator with Fast Frosting Modes, Chilly 23 Degree Temperature Frosts Ales, Lagers, IPAs, and More.

If you buy the fridge and use the code DONTDRINKBEER you get 10% which is a COMPELLING DEAL.

Enough schilling RuinationBoxes let’s see if this is worth your hard earned Cam Girls credits.

First thing I find hilarious is in the press materials it specifically notes that this will “FROST ALES LAGERS IPAS AND MORE” like imagine if they just listed every beer style that it will indeed frost. Pages and pages like “Yes, dortmunders too, Eisbocks? You got it. Pumpkin Porters? NO. IT WILL NOT.”

The first thing you will notice is this thing is huge. It says it holds 125 cans but that is like to the brim of trash macro (aka an amazing evening) or several cases of cage and corked green glass bottles (impress your Tinder/Grindr dates.)

The ad copy specifically notes the beer door gives you a “frost-free view into your collection of Arrogant Bastard ale.” I mean this earnestly: no one has a collection of Arrogant Bastard. If you walked into someone’s house and saw like a curated vertical of bombers of AB, you’re about to end up on a Netflix true crime documentary.

The door is bad ass though. It is heated so it doesn’t get fogged up or ever introduce moisture so your labels on your American wild ales stay pristine so you can prove the provenance of your Bullfrog Grrzzzz. Wet fridges are poverty tier and this is Stone IRS level.

THE BRANDING

When I opened this my wife said “that has to go in the basement.” Admittedly, the Stone wrapped graphics are the worst part of this fridge UNLESS you absolutely love Stone in which case that will be the best thing ever. It has a campy overtness to it like maximalist GenZ fashion that weirdly almost becomes rad again for how over the top it is. Give it a few years for early 20s kids to drink Levitation ale ironically.

Thankfully, the fridge itself is dope enough that the fridge is easily redeemed.

PARTY MODE

This had me laughing at the idea of pressing a button and like some FROST BREWED marketing from the 90’s an icy party would break out. Then I tried it and it legitimately goes off. I used a thermostim to check the temp and I took at 75 degree 750ml glass bottle from 75 degrees to 54 degrees in 60 minutes. The can dropped even more.

You press party mode and it holds it at 24 degrees for an hour instantly making a beer ready to drink. This sounds inconsequential but I legitimately use this a lot now. No more bottles blowing up in the freezer because you forgot about them. This used to happen to me nonstop and cause domestic strife. Not with party mode.

If you are unlike me and have friends, you can just hold it at 24 degrees for 6 hours assuming people will be constantly using it. This is awesome for Malt Couture because we are always grabbing stuff over periods of time and tossing things in. This sounds like im exaggerating but it alone makes the fridge worth your attention.

It is extremely helpful if you also have a beer podcast and/or friends.

THIS IS BIG AND HEAVY AS HELL

If you have been looking at wine fridges, the heft and compressor on this nukes those. It weighs 91 lbs and has a ton of customizable interior space. I constantly want to try different bottles and styles so I wont ever just have like 125 cans in there. It feels solid, the door slams hard with heft and a tight seal. The entire thing feels competently made.

At this price, yeah it better be. It hasn’t pounded my power bill a ton either.

I used to think when I was a kid that my friend who had a “drink fridge” in the garage was like end game opulence. This is basically that without the dumb freezer part you will never use.

CONCLUSION

This is an over the top, ridiculously branded, luxury beer fridge made specifically for beer that works extremely well. My friends roast me nonstop and even they begrudgingly noted that it was rad. Obviously you’re like “this is clearly paid content, why should I listen to this bullshit.” I totally understand that sentiment, but the fridge is legitimately nice and worthy of your consideration, even at this ultra luxury price point.

Could you go get some Dahmer-tier sad break room fridge on craigslist? Absolutely. This is absolutely a luxury splurge and a tall ask given the price, but it is extremely useful and bad ass.

So drop a G and start icing down that Arrogant Bastard collection that you absolutely own.

We shell see if I get a Cease and Desist for using the word “Stone” in this review.

@newairusa, @stonebrewing, #newairusa, #stonebrewing, #shareyournewair, #newairexclusive , #mynewair, #newair

It’s conflicting when good people release a completely shitty bourbon. The dichotomy is present in the aesthetics of the bourbon itself. There’s a gorgeous etched bottle, hefty espresso tamp cap, and then extremely thin, pale straw “I have a drug test coming up” piss hue looking like a malnourished Basil Hayden.

But it’s made by a cool staff.

The eye rolling begins with a heft spoonful of CIRCUMSTANCES: this is made at the original Old Taylor Distillery. Legend has it that this tater holy land still has wreaths and myrrh laid in front of the warehouse by flipper missionaries. Then on the day of release, the distillery let those corn chuds come in and buy 12 per person. Over 1000 people showed up and they dropped it to 1-2pp. It was gone instantly and this not good $55 bottle suddenly finds itself in the $200 secondary realm.

If you’ve ever gone mountain biking and fly down the trail above your ability level, things go sideways quickly.

The nose is cradle robbing to the point where the 4 year feels closer to a 2 year Willett. It has that sickly sweet Frosted Flakes white lightning with soft pithy apple and a kind of foil bag stale Corn Pops thing happening.

The palate is where things get more phoned in than Spirit Halloween memes. If this were meat it would be chicken tartare. It’s not ready yet, put it back, the kernels aren’t even popped. There’s iodine and Martinellis, lemon sharpie, melon and nautical hull solvent. It finishes with Haribo peach ring and turpentine. It burns like hazmat despite being 98 proof. Yes she is single, extremely hot, and wildly unbalanced so you will end up paying for it one way or another, as is tradition.

Castle and Key shined as a contract distillery where you could lovingly admire the dust on the Pinhook bottles and go about your day. The grounds are great, the people are nice but drinking this is the bourbon equivalent of transferring gasoline with your mouth using a garden hose. I do respect that they didn’t just sell MGP to stay afloat. Master distiller Marianne Eaves is a complete bad ass.

In the end though, I’m not trying to drink marmalade and carpenter’s epoxy.

Carton Brewing sent me one of the best beers this year, and one of the most horrible beers of 2022. In the same box. Let’s talk about them both.

XI is a masterclass in fig jam, port, massaging sweetness and coupling it with a fantastic sherry dryness, and leaving a swallow that is concise with notes of almond and Ferrero Rocher. At first glance I looked at the “brown sugar rum barrel” and it gave me pause. I thought this was going to be some wacky melanoidin extravagance. Perhaps that alone would have been Sugar Babies forward, but the wheatwine provides structure in lightening things. It’s like when William H. Macy shows up and you know things are gonna be ok.

It feels lighter than 12% due to the body, but also the depth of the cognac gives big Fox Farm Copestone energy despite not having the port. You can drill this entire bottle and still show up to couples counseling and work on communication. Everyone wins.

That being said.

Southside is a lemon pledge trainwreck. Me and Augie Carton often don’t see eye to eye on wacky flavor profiles. The NJ locals love “Regular Coffee” and I thought an imperial cream ale didn’t need granulated coffeemate dumped in it. Agree to disagree.

When I opened Southside I had no idea that a metastasizing meyer lemon tumor was pulsing inside undiagnosed. I tried it and had to text Augie, why, in the times of Murphy’s Floor wax and grapefruit Air Wick, were there only one set of foot prints on the mint beach. It was then that Augie carried me.

Look at this on paper: gin barrel, lemon zest, mint and juniper. Seems fun right? Some whimsical PNW type of riff you would see from Upright. Oh no. This is pure zested nocturnal emissions from lemon penitentiary. It goes ammonia rag, hanging car tree air freshener, chewed FIVE gum, and this meringue meets Aquadent closer that ensures no one is open mouth kissing. Imagine a lemon tart meets Underberg burp.

How can one brewery make these two wildly divergent beers? Sheer ambition. That is why I respect Carton, they do what they want and even if I don’t get it, their fanbase will. Also please support them, dunking on a NJ brewery with this draconic legislation is the last thing anyone needs.

This beer is an absolute nightmare. I know it’s hardly fair to open up some teenage geriatric juice, but good god. “What beer from 2009 is even holding up?” Probably Gratitude, a billion lambics, and not this.

New Hampshire beer has changed a lot in the past 13 years and this beer is old enough to have pubes. I suspect this tiny offering wasn’t great when it came out, but it has evolved in the Bane pit into some hateful back breaking liquid. I was molded by it.

It pours out with carb, which may even be a dangerous sign. Lacto laying a dead bird at your doorstep letting you know it’s been busy in here. The waft at first is somewhere between Jack Links beef jerky and the LAPD Morgue. It’s offensive a pervasive way, like Anthony Jeselnick punchlines without the dryness.

The meaty elements give this platform for boullion cubes and warm turtle tank. Upon taking a sip my mandible bouncer immediately fills up the salivary glands. It is the same energy when a Starbucks employee sees that one unhoused patron they are very well acquainted with. It has no business here in my mouth. Constant chaos preparing for ejection.

I swallow and there’s a little smack of gardettos rye chips, hamster cage, and wet garage boxes. My throat kegels like a tower defense game. DOTA except it’s vomiting. This White Birch is unwelcome. It exists outside of God’s grace and consequently beyond Her mercy.

Going in for a second sip feels like coach putting you back in knowing you just tore your palate ACL. The second run highlights this dusty couch cookie crumbs that interplays with that Cesars wet dog food on the nose. Like a Neil Breen film, the layers of shittiness compound. This isn’t funny though.

It’s important to drink beers this bad. Like your asshole rich friend who points at some old object in his sumptuous home and says “THIS. This is what keeps me humble.” And then brags in a slightly different way. It makes you appreciate literally every other beer that isn’t this.

Some ghosts are best left in the past. Maybe I could work on myself instead of dunking on some obscure NH brewery who never intended this beer to be enjoyed a lifetime after release.

I blame Levi Funk, he gave me this.