I met Bryan Doty about five years ago when he was a focused dude deep in the monoculture/MCB game and I have been following his culture harvesting efforts through the years up through the opening of the Rancho Cucamonga tasting room. The Inland Empire is replete with raised Silverados and burgeoning Moto cross stars in flat brimmed Metal Mullisha hats: the best place to open a pLambic dispensary. This guy is hyper focused in a @funkfactorygeuzeria Levi Funk style way with regards to replicating the methods attendant to spontaneous ferms across the pond, and it shows. I fully expect people to sleep on these guys but it’s highly worth your time and consideration to check them out before their parking lot is brimming with PT cruisers with NotW and “Blue Lives Matter” stickers. The IE is a hell of a drug.

[fn1] I grew up in Fresno so I am allowed to rip on IE. One of my best friends is a Riverside.

@austinstreetbrewery has long been furtively turning out solid creamy Hop gems, and years ago I remember their burgeoning wild and farmhouse program teetering on unstable ankles, but now the full stride has been achieved. For a brewery that exists perhaps in the literal yet not figurative shadow of Allagash, these Maine ballers are putting more farm content in the streets than Stephen King. This is saffron with a whipped lemon meringue to it, a zested tangerine coupled with almost like basmati rice type of graininess to it. Mouthfeel is thinnnn akin to like St Bretta from @crookedstave which results in this need to really pump those brembos and drive slow to appreciate. Swallow is equally dry and reminds me of jarritos yellow soda but with a touch of Kambert cheese. Not intensely layered but also incredible crooosh, and most saisons just eat shit into an acidity sand trap so to compel either and not turning into a GERDfest is a marked accomplishment in the modern economy. The average new money dipshit will sip an ounce of Clover from a filthy taster glass and say it was forgettable, then laud high praise to some mandible dissolving lactic acid lab sample. Thankfully Austin Street brews for the bookends of the cicerone world: people who still like beer and those who stopped hating it long ago. All of the voluminous dipshits in between can get chondromalacia at a DMv style beer release standing in a pitiable line as a human Pr device.

This was very solid last year albeit a touch lacking in viscosity but maintaining a well integrated lipid Hawaiian tropic profile. This year is exactly the same with perhaps a touch more barrel presence. This won’t unseat the likes of Snowed In, but it’s a well balanced iteration of American excesses in the batterbomb realm. Chocolate flaked macaroons and Nestle chips close out the swallow. I suppose I should once again resing the Tired refrain praising their accessibility and price point and completely lack of meritless pageantry attendant to acquisition. Also toss in some saber rattling bullshit about @saintarcherbrew ownership status and that rounds out this paint by numbers review. You get the beer scene you deserve

If you recall, I was being a complaining baby about the other version of this @wolfsridgebrewing beer. Coffee cream ale made no god damn sense to me. This makes even less sense and I enjoyed it far more. I can’t wrap my head around the casual or correlative sensory dominoes that adding cinnamon improves this, but here we are. This beer tastes quite literally like the left over milk from Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and that’s it. It’s nimble 2% body doesn’t try to extend into nuance or subtle areas: it’s fucking holiday coffeemate. Again, for some reason it’s compelling and charming. A dash of nostalgia, and one part a longing for that cinnamon butter toast that contributed to my childhood obesity. The coffee is nonexistent and the vanilla is the milky underpinnings to this bizarrely lovable class clown of the cream ale world. It wasn’t my proudest fap but I brought the entire bomber to full completion. If you bring this to a party, you will become that craft beer caricature that all of your coworkers envision when someone presents a mean parody of adjunctive excesses, that ne’erdowell rattling off absurd adjectives and all the beer casuals raising their eyebrows in silent mockery of the altar at which you pray to a pitiable cinnamon beverage idol. People prolly will clown ur shit, but u stay sipping good milk.

The baby calf of the Funk Factory lineup doesn’t have those wobbly legs attendant to its small stature, Mr Meertseeks provides a robust acidic experience. One parts sucrets and another part Jura, this is the more casual side of Funk Factory, it is Funk-curious. The mouthfeel is very thin and the carbonation is crackly and wisps away but the drive of this beer seems to be compacting musky complexity into a 2lbs bag. You don’t need to ruminate and focus on meerts, it’s like Kriekerade made for unfocused enjoyment. As such, it will be a touch too sour for the entry level enthusiast but not complex enough for someone expecting come Cut/Frampaars/fruited Flora experience. So the palate segment is tailored for people who almost are done caring about beer but still like nice things. This will lovingly structure tastings full of stupid shit and provide cerise soaked guidance. It is kinda like the second use fruited wilds from @jesterkingbrewery, some might even find this more compelling that the more dough out brethren due to the refreshment offset. Cherry poppin daddy throw back a bottle of meerts.

OH I GET IT, is nice because, OHHH IS NOT TOO SOUR

I GET IT

This is a strange but enjoyable romp in the Wambles field of black licorice flowers. In a stoutgame leaning increasingly bakery aisle in execution, this takes a hard right and opts for that transcontinental roasty bitterness. It’s good and plenties mixed with djarum cloves, a touch of grape hookah on the swallow. You don’t see these Abyss-Esque beers that often anymore. Mikkeller flirts with these dark arts but many are reticent to open up that necronomicon. This won’t set the beer world ablaze but it represents that other segment of the Scandinavian palate where people eat salted black licorice and call it a treat. I give it a “mad deece” out of “hella sippable”

This is hitting the backwall on what my pastry cervix can handle. It’s a confectioners dream with nuts and chocolate caramel, 500 Grand bar in a glass but almost in this cloying “how many Mr Goodbars did I just eat?” sort of way. There’s pleasure attendant to the pain. It’s odd because this isn’t some unwieldy bruiser, the body coats in a medium viscosity but it just chews the scenery with the elements it chooses. I remember the regular chickow being awesome and a total stunner but this is like when car manufacturers remove the AC and the sound system for hardcore bakery enthusiasts. It’s unmanageable as a sweet treat daily driver, but a pleasure to hit that saccharine track with on the weekend. Sick ass rolo burnouts, socking vegan nerds.

Can u tick me now?

More beers in more places. Shout out to @homagebrewing for pumping dank wilds in the streets an rolling large format maggies. This is all part of my elaborate fiscal plan where DDB gives honest reviews of exceptional beers and spends the $0 in revenue capriciously AF. 

Dudes all labiabruised over fou, Kermit.tea 

Monkish releases a pale ale today and it’s as dro g13 as can be expected from that tiny size 36 suit jacket frame: toss a lil citra Theory suit over those Seacrest shoulders and sign it up for a rhizome Zumba class. It’s delicate but I actually prefer this noncommittal structure in these wispy cream of wheat ghoulies. All the flat brimmed dudes in fourth owner WRXs seem to prefer Supreme shirts and shiftless 11%abv tipas, and sure there’s a time and place for those, just not all the time. there is a spent milk sweetness to the body that’s watery and lemony with a splash of rosemary. It’s subtle in a way that few in the hazycraze will give a shit about, which is perfectly fine by me. I didn’t even see a single pit bull or absentee parent at the tasting room today, is it even a can release at that point? Happy Halloween I GUESS 👻 

Let’s talk about some @listermannbrewing offerings and weigh these sticky Ohio treats. The ninth anniversary beer takes every page from the Jackie O’s pastry canon and dips each sheet in sticky molten milk chocolate fondue. Cinn/coffee/walnut/vanilla merges with a tight clean body but ultimately tastes like soft serve made with a coffeemate creamer underpinning. It’s not too viscously sweet, nor is it one dimensional, it’s their weird melange of contrasted flavors like a puréed Ferrero Rocher, which is fine for limited applications but ain’t nobody bringing foil balls to the movie theater. 

Inb4 potato salad pics. 

Their IPA offerings are more compelling and in line with Hoof Hearted albeit with far more poise and restraint. 99 Problems didn’t eschew boil hops but also isn’t a one dimensional apricot dry hopped NES cart. The bitter overtakes with a pithy grapefruit zest and pushes down drinkability but a lightly pulpy mouthfeel offsets this. It’s very legit if not short of the regional champions in the IPA realm. Every region seems to have one these days, except like, Florida [inb4 bulldog gentleman or whatever.] 

Sidekick photo level reaching full tater status.

finally we have a blurry potato pic of their Kopi Luwak barleywine. This beer is intense and malty with a nice bitter roast and substantial mouthfeel akin to a component blended beer from the likes of alesmith [cf. Reforged or weird Tusk and Grain items.] it is good, but Life it is not as the lifelike aspects have been scoured away in the bean washing process. I understand when breweries mash fat stacks on expensive coffee they don’t want to drop the grinds, but if the base could be anything, then the nuance is lost. The precious 60g/400g pourover ratio. Everyone has their bean flicking spot. Ultimately this is another very diverse and solid Ohio brewery that snatches at the JO realm whole outshining countless other forgettable breweries in their realm. Push me to the edge, all my stouts are dead.