Societe wilds usually err on the side of gentle coddling akin to the likes of Casey, but this takes an off beaten path contrary to their usual lineup. If you expected some Framboise pinky pink breast cancer awareness gem, then be prepared for this brassy golden hue. The taste aligns with their clean saison and faintly estery profile found in their innumerable Belgian strain riffs and is fine albeit underwhelming. The odd overarching problem is this light omelette aspect in the olfactory component that isn’t sulphuric but it borders on butyric. I don’t like dropping the B word without justification but that “detonated sparkler” aspect is present and the fruit doesn’t ratchet things back into the wholly enjoyable penumbra. I can only assume it is white raspberry that is gentle and failing to make a huge splash here but, the whole affair just feels uninspired at best or latent deficiencies at worst. With such intensely fierce competition in the fruited wild realm, it is equally difficult to offer a compelling endorsement to anything short of noteworthy. Pass the inimitable Bachelor pls.

Commonwealth has some solid offerings but this completely missed the mark with me. Whenever a brewery serves up an “oud bruin” my bullshit alarms instantly go off since that is often the stylistic default when something goes wrong with fermentation. Very few breweries actively set out to make that style I am convinced. Unintentional infection accusations aside, my bullshit detector goes defcom 4 when there’s a litany of fruits added after the fact. I’m not saying that is what happened here but, less scrupulous breweries have fingered my palate raw with these tactics, acetic fingernails scraping my cervix. 

Hippolyta is aged on figs and blackberries. That’s apeshit. The nose has an acetylaldehyde meets aqua net astringency to it that is coupled with fruit leather, muddled currant and ph correction chemicals for a swimming pool. The mouthfeel is extremely dry and tastes like if you mixed Still Nachte Riserva with Charles Shaw merlot. The dates are actually pretty enjoyable and present a cocoa dust and baklavah aspect in the midst of acidic gunfire. I don’t know if this will improve over time, but like an abusive therapist, I don’t need additional sessions.

This was an odd surprise for me, the structure of the beer didn’t have that irritating terroir cloying shit up with sharpies and black and mild waft. It lent an odd rauchy backdrop for the relatively thinner body to express itself. The dulche de leche functioned more akin to light lactose sweetness and the coffee worked in tandem for a gentle roast like baked rye bread. The overall experience sticks the landing more akin to an adjunct Baltic porter. I would prefer a brewery default to the cleaner drops present herein to the syrupy 1.050 “FG” that others are purveying.

Overall, Pretty solid offering from a canon replete with dark goodness, albeit short from the god tier Notorious realm. It’s a happy misfortune to need to compete with your own incomparable offerings that very few breweries are subject to.

These were all depressingly good and won’t be any fun to review because praise driven criticism is boring.

This is my struggle.

Jase Hicks keepin ddb in those lone star diamonds and ferms 

This brewery once sent me a bottle opener with a speaker in it that would scream WHY EN SCHTEPHANNNN!! When it make contact with metal. My wife hated it. We put it in the change drawer and any time someone would open the drawer it would invariably touch a penny and you’d get a startling muffled German scream from the drawer VIIEEEEEENSCHHTEPHHHHANNNNN!!!!!

Anyway.

People are barely dabbling in the weizenbock world let alone that Kristall swagger. So obscure this is but if you are like me you have a secret throbber for classic Vitus, then this goes even deeper with the clean filtering and fining for a look that is as gorgeous as polished brass. With the malty profile dialed back comes an awesome hat trick of sorts where they take a beer with body dysmorphia and it outperforms hulking giants. The esters pump banana and cornbread, tapioca, nutmeg and yellow runts. Hops are restrained and come across as a light bittering akin to Earl Grey and compliments this endlessly crushable beer. It’s like when car companies release a “track package” where they took Vitus and removed the back seat and air conditioning. It’s crazy nimble and has a staggering back palate drag relative to the watery body. I don’t often get to praise beers for their restraint and poise but, this is exceedingly approachable and concurrently complex. Brb gna mash my nanner right quick 

Tombstone sour wheat is one of those anomalous anti marketing gimmicks that is greater than the message it purveys. This isn’t sour and it isn’t especially wheat laden either but it’s a solid entirely crushable driller with a sort of cut melon and Riesling from the barrels. The nose is like challah and almond butter and what I initially felt was DMS but it gave way to a green table grape that was actually really subtle and well done, almost like those wax bottles with juice in them. It felt like a less forceful, muted version of HF shelf saisons, just absolutely crushable without active reflection. The swallow reminds me of that weird waxy birthday cake sprinkle that is sweet but drying concurrently. I can’t make heads or tails as to how this brewery does this but it’s god damn entertaining seeing what they are up to.

Down side: this beer looks way more boring next to my shitty toaster. Plus that wren cross marketing, I am tryna start this AZ brewery war that will never kindle. Those assholes are too nice to one another.

Smog City bourbon barrel aged coffee porter with coconut gives this svelte base beer some oily gains. The base beer is nice albeit simple in design and doesn’t really strike me as a valid barrel aging candidate due to its low body malt index. They beefed it up a bit and it gained 2% abv in the process giving the power band a bit more room to demonstrate this macaroon meets whoppers slalom. It still feels continentally European in execution but has that flair of American excess tacked on, like a Golf R. Roast and coffee slowly allow the supporting cast of rolo and samoa to deliver a nice ensemble performance. It’s hard to focus on this beer knowing that my boner will be shattered into limitless barleyfractals on 5/6 when BAOE drops. Pray for barleyboners, 1 like = 1 bonerprayer 🙏 
As a corollary, smog City is also secretly turning out some solid ipas on the low. I enjoyed the hybrid profile of steel craft IPA saddling between old and new world west coast IPA execution. The Yakima has a great olfactory but lies a touch I. The crystal clean resin world of the late 2000s, but that’s just me twisting my rhizomes. You prolly didn’t hear about them because they lack a mid 90s hip hop lyric, bisquik and obligatory pint can with TTB sticker. So basically why bother amirite

Those new charizard holofoil labels are pretty dope tho.