Let’s see if Oso can maintain that power and sustain when Levi Funk isn’t doing flip turns in the brite tank.

Saint Archer is a difficult beast to roust.  Based on the ownership status, I have all these hilarious punchlines and PRO NANO CRAFT ONLY denigrations lined up, and then they go and turn out legitimately decadent treats.  What am I supposed to do then? Just put Marciano clothes on this effigy and put it outside my house as a neckbeard scarecrow?

Further staggering is the fact that these bottles are probably sold in regular ass bottle shops and grocery stores, the most “readily available to taste” ratio this side of Vanilla Eclipse.  So if I can’t grist out some yukyuks at the brewery’s distro, quality, or rarity, THEN WHAT AM I LEFT TO DO BUT SIT HERE AND PRAISE A BEER.  No one is trying to listen to that shit.  Then further compounding matters, you still have a cadre of pussyhurt ABVMZ holders who have these tinfoil hat conspiracies about how DDB legitimately gives a shit about kickbacks and pay2play.  So I have to deal with these khaki teeth adults who actually believe shit like that. It’s dicey territory giving a nod to basically anything, let along something on the western seaboard because even if I praise something from fucking Vancouver it will be declaimed as blatant HOMERISM

Alright fine, sit down, the accolade trolley is pulling away from the platform.

At the outset, I had pretty meh expectations for these two.  An imperial coffee porter, yeah sure, but then what?  The Tusk and Grain Series has approximately a 50% K/D ratio, which is enough to keep you in professional gaming if they noscope noobs that hard.  The coconut stout was legit AF, but then there are pretty whatevs offerings like the wine barrel Gose which compelled upward raised deltoids.

So first and foremost, adding Mostra coffee in anno domini 2016 is almost unfair. Brewers who leverage this roastery into their brews already have used the Konami code for 30 toasty delicious lives. It was like in 2010 when every brewer started leaning on Citra hops hard and making even mediocre beers look apeshit compared to dudes still stuck in the C-Hop era.  Same thing with mosaic and galaxy the years after that.  The coffee is so fucking phenomenal that with that alone you will clear an oppressive 3.8 Untappd hurdle from those expert NASCAR Stepdad palates.

MEMBER PORTERS? MEMBER?

This doubles down on those ridiculous espresso and mocha frap notes with a decadent caramel underpinning like that toffee ribbon that you excavate out of a Ben and Jerry’s pint you fat fuck. It remains on the balls of its feet, never flabby, a full malty kenpo routine of barrel aged plyometrics.  This shit aint on the Tony Horton diet.  The swallow is long and clean and reminds me of the even more phenomenal BA Victory at Sea.  It leads with a coffee food but brings a sacharrine chaperone unless things get out of pocket.

The whole experience is so lovingly tailored and presented with that almost continental restraint of old world stouts, Omnipollo notwithstanding.  The fact that this hits distro makes the FEDEX empire seem to be enduring relentless sacks from hometown Goths and Vandals.  Import trade must fall when domestic quality rises to these levels.

I am never one to embrace this position, but the adjunct laden hispanic barrio version is even better.  Think of how deft and poised those ingredients must have been done to get old DDB to admit that.  First and foremost, minus one thousand fucking points for this wax job:

There’s no reason for this.  This can only amount to IRL trolling of the consumer.  I can imagine the two keg washers tasked with this, high on shatter pieces and ROOR hits, quad dipping each bottle and laughing to themselves.  Let me try to explain how difficult this bottle was to open.  I first tried a YOPENER and the blade didn’t work, so I got a Cutco knife and it made some progress but the wax makes a ridge that is so fucking deep you can’t even locate the cap let alone get an opener in it.  The .50 cal lip was way too small on that opener so I got flame out and had to sit there like some prometheus cicerone, mastering the elements.

Let me be the first to tell you, this type of shit is embarrassing to do in front of your wife.

Alright, enough exposition, I got it open and then had to put it back into the fridge because it took 90 minutes.

It was worth the struggle because god damn was this thing a treat.  I am talking on par with BA Mexican cakes, but prolly available at an AMPM.  Aged in both  Tequila barrels and Brandy barrels (component blended I assume since it doesn’t flaunt its DOUBLE BALS in a notably visible scrotum) they used that Mostra cheat code, and then added Mexican chocolate.

If you had PNC then you know the power that delicately massaged agave tones can bring to what amounts to a whirling dervish of dark malts.  The chocolate is more like baker’s chocolate and serves to provide a dryness and powdered cocoa structure to the backhandsprings that the barrel profile is performing.  All of the pieces just seem to fit and instead of being something you want to open with others to offload, pawn off, dilute the experience; you will want to merk this yourself like a classic revenge plotline.

HARD AF BUT GENTLE AF

The body remains distinctively porter to the bone and has that watery swallow without a massive cling and that actually makes the barrel and chocolate more fleeting and you want to dive back in.  It’s like those arcades that would suck your quarters in, you want to pump another five right into this cocoa-Turtles in Time.

The greatest takeaway is that this beer performs as an awesome BA porter first and then lets the other aspects round out the experience, whereas many other breweries seem to try to sand down the edges or imperfections with additions.

Buy them, don’t but them, I don’t give a fuck.  I am just trying to drive up my trade values for all these non-existent Saint Archer bottles in my non-existent homeristic CA cellar.

In case you missed it, there was a fellow on r/beertrade who set up a pretty opaque auction, allegedly trading away Fremont Ancient One sets. A few days later I received this response

And I was mystified as to why Fremont would intentionally mislead consumers, or intentionally submarine their Ancient One set as essentially a regular bottle of KdS that had been aged in a cellar.

So I went back to this thread and saw similar bot type responses:

https://m.reddit.com/r/beertrade/comments/577izy/ft_fremont_brewings_ancient_one_set_bbomb_bbads/?utm_source=mweb_redirect&compact=true

The author subsequently deleted all of the content and backpedalled away but not before Twitter grabbed the old ape pitchforks and stout torches:

Fremont remained a class act and was transparent throughout, exceptional interaction with all parties involved.

Then this apology followed:

https://m.reddit.com/r/beertrade/comments/5arlgv/apology_ancient_one_beer_trade/?utm_source=mweb_redirect&compact=true

And Fremont once again was extremely professional in addressing the matter:

So that’s it. Let’s leave it at that. There’s nothing else to be said about the matter.

In 2010 I once tried to trade four Kern Citras for a Kaggen. I have done far worse to the beer community. Let’s press on and focus on the real enemy: the price of El dorado hops is too damn high.

Parents might be mad but do you want that kinda parent around your house anyway?

Imma put this in my front yard to let people know the spot is super chill and not creepy at all:

Neophytes in the beer game love adjectives to justify their cravings.  A well made saison by itself is pretty uninteresting since where’s the talking points for your tabletop gaming friends, no adjuncts what even is the point.  Not unlike the bourbon segment, with equally blunted/rarity-driven palates, beer experts love anything with concrete aging descriptors.  These same people may not know dog dick about what profiles they actually ENJOY, but TWNEY THREE YEAR PAPPIES has to be the best, bc most years amirite.

As a parallel, if you put a stout in an ZOMG 35 YEAR HEAVEN HILL BARREL, it immediately sets off a dirty bomb of ISOs flocculating the trade boards.  What does a 35 year old barrel impart? I HAVE NO IDEA BUT THE MOST YEARS I NEED IT.  The other component to the barrel age is the time spent in the barrel, and saturation concerns are thrown to the wind because longer aging = most best result.

Here’s what always happens, you look at the Untappd reviews for these beers that everyone sought out and then are unable to extricate the palm from face when you read the reactions. “So much wood, why” “its like pickels” “wow so hot, needs more time to cool down” “super boozy, dang, crazy to be drinking.” It inevitably becomes this hilarious recursive situation where the same dip shits who want something, don’t know they they want it, and then neg the same thing they wanted without understanding why they are dissatisfied.  The aphasia across the board is staggering. If you require further laughs at this situation go check out reviews for Pugachev 25, Rare15, Omega Point, or any of the other hilarious examples of ultra-aging/ultra-casking.  C.f. anyone who bought Old Blowhard from Diageo and was super proud of their 26 year old conquest.

Alright, now that I have denigrated the entirety of the readerbase, let’s get down to why Fremont has made arguably two of the absolute best beers of 2016.  These beers are both complete stunners toe to tip.

Even the casual DDB reader will know that barleywine is life.  Regular ass BBOMB started out phenomenal and has gotten better in every passing vintage and the Coffee Cinnamon BBOMB remains unparalleled in scope and execution.  So where can you even go to improve upon that model? You gotta get geriatric as fuck:

time for some C&P for that benthic Saison Man:

“Ancient One B-Bomb is a blend of 18 and 30-month B-Bomb aged in 12 and 35-year old bourbon barrels. When we happened upon these rare, 35-year old bourbon barrels, we knew they would add an extra layer of intensity and complexity to B-bomb’s bourbon, oak, cacao, leather, and dark coffee notes. Each barrel contributes a different note and combining each barrel to create a coherent tone is a distinct art and true pleasure.”

They married the lively “young” 18 month casks with the AARP 30 month cask and the blend is a composite masterpiece.  It has smatterings of the old, that leather, lacquer, shop class, varnish, caramel lumber, toffee barn framing, and industrial brown sugar power sanders are put to expert use.  However, it still retains those extremely nimble old ale roots akin to Adam from the Wood, another cask champion, without feeling too depleted or thin.

The swallow is cream of wheat with heft doses of bananas fosters and a blonde coffee roast bitterness to the extremely long closer.  It just resonates for days like arguing w ur GF in your marble foyer. Holy fuck the cost of entry though. Retail a 12oz bottle is $35, and secondary is, well start doing anal kegel drills right now.  Does it justify this insane asking price? The two hearted, six pack contingency will pull out a dusty Powerpoint presentation on $ per ounce value rules and burn this in effigy as some testament to “beer culture is changing for the worse.”  The cadre of beer dipshits with limitless pockets, tweed jackets and threadbare leather patches on the elbow from intently leaning forward, will examine their protests in that eyebrow-raised condescending manner that you would expect from two equally lamentable positions.

This is a genuine pinnacle of this style and genre.  If trying something that constitutes the logical pinnacle is of little importance to you, then go obtain a comparable 30 month component barrel aged old ale off the shelf for cheaper.  However, it bears noting, unless you have a trashfire wordpress site, you can drink regular/world class BBOMB and you likely won’t regret your circumstances.  This beer is like scientists who invested all their R&D into “CAN” they didn’t examine the “SHOULD” knowing that this would set the bar for new imitations and pushing the barleywine game into borderline weaponized territory.

It is absolutely a crowning achievement and, get this, Ancient one Kentucky Dark Star IS EVEN BETTER.

No adjuncts, no additives, no bullshit horizontal marketing, just balls to the staves intensity. I will say at the outset that this beer will likely fall in the DDB top 10 for 2016 because it leaves almost nothing to be desired.  The anise and black and mild tobacco profile adds depth to the insane tootsie roll and nougat swallow.  The nose presents waves of cola, vanilla, a depth of roast and age like a well worn baseball mitt, with a residual sweetness like Kit Kats draped like a sticky tarp to preserve the experience.

With that much age, my main concern is always about the heft of the body.  This is absolutely massive and chewy to the point of being a fermentative masterpiece.  For this beer to exceed BCBS/Huna tiers of viscosity just gives a massive canvas for the all barrel treatment to do it’s athletic woody floor routine.  It performs with a frothy wisp of popsicle stick crafts and woodiness but an underlying black licorice, the swallow is unyielding and remains present and reconstructs itself for reflection, like a Grand’s biscuit, each layer is pulled back and it recedes from sweetness into the cask experience that you are actually paying for.

One thing that needs to be understated with both of these beers is the mind blowing integration that is present.  At 14.5%, the chewiness and complexity fully wraps the fusel notes in bubble wrap and lays them down for nighnight.  You never feel that heat because there’s a prog rock 15 piece band completely overshadowing those muted tones.  The trappings of other “ultracaskers” are not at all present here, in my estimation.  No salinity, no wood overdose, no heat lighting up your chest like ET.

Unlike the KDS, or even the incredible Coffee KDS, this is in a whole different realm.  It would be like comparing Rare Dos to the staggering Cycle DBR.  It just performs on every level. There are not any analogues to something this expertly done and you know you are in some Mariana trench depths when you say that Goose Island Rare would be the “less good, more accessible, less expensive” version of the masterpiece that they have set forth here.

As a rider, let’s just assume that we already had that timeworn discussion of “BCBS is much cheaper and is world class” and we can toss in Parabola or whatever succor gets you through the day.  That’s fine, but it also doesn’t make this magnum opus any less jaw dropping.

Bottle Logic went and made an 11% abv coconut infused stout, I suppose DDB is tasked with reviewing it.  Therein lies the cringe and reticent nature of compelling myself to comment on really anything at this point.  With so many people reading this site and anomalously relying upon it for “value appraisal” the snake hilariously eats its own tail.  The function of the reviews was to impart a degree of detached sober [sic] commentary, not to dive headlong into flames fanning like some solipsistic “Beer-Black-Book-by-any-other-name-raffles-as-sweet” type of hype machine.

At the outset, I will say that nothing DDB can say will make Space Trace trade higher than say, Black Agnes, and honestly, who gives a fuck? The gnashing of teeth over coconut oil and this latent fear of sugar water stock dropping is in equal measure hilarious and wince-inducing from an adult community dabbling in luxury consumables.  The end result is akin to Skynet creating more John Connors, destabilizing the singularity with chaotic self interest.  Suffice it to say, all that shit makes me not even want to review this beer. The toxic lactic acid-dripping fan base of beer speculators is more corrosive than an Upland pellicle and a single independent clause of praise will pump clouds of conspiratorial caustic fumes my way like the battle of Marne.  Oh well, here goes.

This beer is pretty good. Granted it isn’t the absolute best beer of 2016, but it is very tasty and hits the benchmarks that I feel it sets out to achieve.  I enjoyed it a touch more than Snowed In, a touch less than Coconut Eclipse, and it exists in covalent parity with say, Prop13, baconators notwithstanding.

Here’s the obligatory negs to establish “journalistic integrity” that everyone will dismiss in their detached debridement of the review: the body is a touch thin. This is within the framework of an 11% beer, so cavconut emptor.  The viscosity is akin to Snowed In and the entire beer orbits that buoy as a counterweight of comparison.  It is heftier than the svelte Central Waters crowd, but presents like a cardio-forward Parabola.  This never entirely detracts, but the “DME before bottling pls” crowd will no doubt complain that a person is able to frustratingly dispatch a 500ml to themselves.  That should never be the function of an imperial stout.  If you can take down any more than 3 ounces with your sweaty maladjusted comrades-through-excess, then that brewery has intrinsically failed.

More negs, no legs. The retention of this beer leaves something to be desired since, I assume the head and sheeting is all but destroyed from the lipid dance of suntan oil below.  The same people who give Kuhnhenn and AftW a constant pass will no doubt prepare the finest effigy with regards to the relatively tame body and mouthfeel to this beer.

Here’s the point I expect to read captured in every Cicerone’s 150 character Untappd ivory tower clinical study of this beer: there’s more than just coconut on the nose.  Please read that as a crucial flaw if you have been into beer for less than 18 months.  The beer has the audacity to both be barrel aged and then somehow manifest an intent to show the depth of that casking.  2/10 would not drink, not enough coconut.  If I don’t get to full throttle some tired ALMOND JOYS IN A GLASS ZOMG epithets, then the brewery has failed me.  I don’t have time to talk about the refined oak profile at low 60s, or talk about how the fleshy oily coconut integrates with cacao nibs to create a separate experience, the safe weed hewn tramping lies in “NOT A COCONUT BOMB THO NEEDS MORE TBH ALL SIXTEEN OF US AGREED.”

Now, to wholly discredit the burgeoning narrative with qualified praise. Let’s make it clear my goal here is to drive up the “value” of this beer, because trade values and, I simply need to land more beer. As long as we understand that while Spinoza grinds out the warped lenses for us, we will be fine.

The flawless integration of chocolate and coconut is exceedingly well done.  This is a Kid Chameleon who changes from a fairly coconut forward experience at low temps to a See’s Candy type of amalgamate at higher temps.  You never get palate fatigue and it is a rare instance where I would tolerate a 22oz or, god forbid, a 750ml of an adjunct stout.  There is a degree of intentionality to this because the saccharine notes, which I predicted would be front and center, actually don’t chew the scenery.  The beer allows an ensemble approach and the macaroon and caramel of the bourbon barrels get a few pithy monologues in.

I didn’t receive a free bottle, but let’s pretend that I did to explain away genuine impressions while trudging through this next section of lauded statements.  If this model isnt SPONSORED then it simply doesn’t make sense to absolutely praise the manner in which the cocoa nibs don’t impart an insane amount of sweetness and almost serve to counter-balance the pina colada oiliness of the coconut.  The drag is long and sweet and it comes across like some 85% cacao expert confectioner product, dipped in Willet.  I loved the Nestle Cocoa aspect of this beer and the way that a touch of roast tempers this chocolate armor forged by Hephaestus.  The oak interplay is flawless and doesn’t hit an oversaturation, nor is it entirely vestigial like the old “North Carolina, 6 weeks aged, for-the-label-only” type of approach.  This bakery case delight opens up at higher temps and shows the underpinning of delicious malt/nougat/kit kat/snickersy notes without emptying your entire plastic orange trick or treat pumpkin.

There you have it! The value has now been set, the returns shall be immeasurable.  The pulpit of a shitty wordpress site has spoken.  DDB cant show his tax returns because of all the collusion, how do we even know what ties he has, every other beer blog has released their tax returns, this is clearly a pay to play system.

This was a delicious, refined, romp on the coconut beach.

Holy shit those block letters letting you know THIS IS BREWERY ONLY. It’s like when you see a girl in Vegas with a shirt that says I HAVE THE BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD. It’s like damn, no one was asking about your availability, chill.  Thankfully, the beer inside is weird, and inspired, and in many ways, pretty awesome.

On the surface this looks like some Tired Hands meets Funk Buddha type of shit: cucumber and hibiscus barrel-aged sour.  This is nothing like what I was anticipating and if this is a sign of what Avery has up their sleeve then sign me up because this beer is bizarre and oddly nuanced.  The nose is a Bath and Body Works neck kissing, fancy floral soaps, herbal peels, and rose hip tea.  It seriously reminds me of the water they serve you at a spa with the intense cucumber frappe notes. When you combine those two the result is this really pleasant watermelon cum de agua fresca.  I want you to understand how hard it is to characterize a beer with absolute no clear analogue, it’s gonna be a pure adjectival slough with no tethering points so rappel down with me into this salty REI.

Whole Squad on Deck.

The beer is intensely clean and swerves alternatingly to the shoulders of Crystal Light and Blood Orangina.  The acidity is so so soft that it almost mirrors a mineral water in the swallow and you can drink gallons upon gallons of this.  If this beer has a high price tag, then that simply is not fair to the consumer given how fast you will skull this thirst quencher.  Also, releasing this right before winter, I mean. Wat.

One thing I need to underscore is how the cucumber is all up in this like, no…that euphemism would be too easy.  That distilled cucumber essence can be smelled in barrio fruit carts, usually with some kind of cayenne rub, but this is all pithy refreshment and toes into a sort of herbal/vegetal aspect that works for some reason.  If you have ever been to a fancy restaurant like a $$ on Yelp, there will be those tanks with cucumber and strawberries, that’s this beer.  That stepmom gear with a core in the middle to steep things in the water pitcher, that’s this beer’s spirit animal.

There’s literally nothing on the market like this and, my wife, who hates beer through and through, asked why all the “other shitty beer” that I drink couldn’t taste more like this beer. THANKS A LOT AVERY FOR CAUSING DOMESTIC DISPUTES GOSH.

I love that the same dipshits who won’t blink at dropping four figures on an Ann have largely no basis of knowledge for other incredible barrel aged saisons.  In the aether there are mercurial wisps like this Sacramento Beer Week gem, a saison aged in odonata wine barrels. At the intersection of HF Anna and Casey East Bank is this intensely crisp, clean and lithely jubilant farmhouse ale. It bleeds melon and cut kumquat, cantaloupe and white grape seeping from its pores, the ph is so pleasant and obsequious that the bottle is merked at an almost disappointing rate.

There is a touch of grist to the swallow and if you have had Empty Sea or Nonna’s Blend [x] then you are already strapped in for this Six Flags rustic rollercoaster.  You can drill this entire bottle without reflection because it underscored what ELSE is going on, in that effortless way that the naturally beautiful can pull their hair into a messy ponytail and still look arresting in the casual grace. 

Journalistically, there isn’t much marrow to suck out of this bone. Everyone knows Sara is arguably the hardest in the saison game at the moment so underscoring it amounts to base taunting at a certain point. “Seek out this 700 bottle saison!” Works double duty as an imperative and pulls upon the greasy neck hair of the disenfranchised. I am well aware at this point.

Low residual sugars, sick gains.

Ever since De Garde dropped that apricot gose i have had to field nonstop comparisons any time you even utter the first styllable of Apri-

Since I am negligent and largely disinterested in dropping ~ $120 on a 4% bottle of fruited gose which I can only imagine is a bottle of acidic scorpions at this point, we look to greener pastures. 

Thankfully, Wren House is turning out zero hype bangers for a populace as orange as the srm on this beer. The lightly brackish aspect works well with the fresh puréed aspect of the fruit and it drinks more akin to some Kerns juice than an alcoholic beverage. I can see myself in Phoenix drilling these with sun stroke onset after four holes of golf, my concealed carry clunking against the bar lovingly. Very refreshing and exudes a sort of Emergen-C and airborne type of snappy crackle to the body. Snap crackle pits.

Lady banks, toeing dangerous territory making a hibiscus pink gose and using lady in the title. Someone with more mileage in their humanities degree might find the gender alignment upsetting with the name, I am more concerned with beer taste than poor taste. This is better than the apricot berliner and the floral aspect is done so well that it almost reminds me of a fruit blossom of sorts like the Sakura lambic from OWA. It has a juiciness and the salt is administered with a soft touch, resulting in an almost blackberry spritzer type of execution. If you have had Izze sodas, that’s a fair approximation. I killed this entire Crowler in the green room and there was much revelry. Shit was trill and off book.

Gary Soto ticks on deck, a pumpkin thief waiting in the wings. Ok stay with me, I know a pumpkin wheat wine on paper sounds like shit, but remember Voodoo CAUTION! Great things are possible. This is far less sweet than your average wheat wine and if you have PTSD White Oak sap nightmares, this falls far closer to an old ale pin. There is a degree of bitterness and minerality that works well with the barrel character, the whole thing is integrated like a Vegas dealer shuffling multiple decks. The pumpkin exists in the background not unlike a Hans Zimmer score, supporting the events instead of dominating them.

I can see baby palates complaining for any number of reasons the second you put anything in front of them that isn’t a vanilla stout, and that’s fine. DDB caters to a more deviant audience, this simply isn’t the pumpkin beer being discussed by categorically incomparable Will Gordon or the protoRones on Beer Advocate.

 I’m doing naked diamond push ups in the punkin patch and the hayrides are free.

Ah I miss the trackball on that old blackberry. I actually used one of those janky phones to take the first DDB pics, so perhaps these berries hold a special place in my heart. The blackberry triple crown cut was already so damn good and part of me is inclined to think that this is even better. The acidity is more refined, there’s more of a residual body and creamy oikos yogurt swallow to it. Hurhurhur euphemisms abound.

It’s an unquestionably beautiful beer and doesn’t fall into the trappings of that Tillamook sucrose crackle wherein the retention wisps away like capricious pop rocks. These CFP and Cut offerings almost suffer from a branding problem in that they are all so exceptional that the similar labels creates a type of consumer fatigue. If only these had some elegant rococo sobriquet for every different fruit, they could harness the power of StL hype more effectively. Suffice it to say, Casey continues to make other fruited wilds seem less and less relevant and Colorado, in typical fashion, continues to drink them surreptitiously and not let word of same cross those rocky borders. It’s like in Atlas Shrugged where they make the secret mountain haven for the productive, except John Galt is blending barrels and everyone isn’t a selfish asshole.

The apricot is more focused but far less delicate. For those of you who have a palate like a Lotus Exige, this is balls to the wall tannins acidity and radiant pithy fruit. It never oversteps the boundaries and maintains a type of feisty e-brake J turns in the tart meets sweet slalom. Think of this as a Shasta Foune, bootleg Chinatown Dvd fou with apricot subtitles and shaky cam. It’s damn near as good, but lacking the Brett c interplay of the cheesiness.

Photo not relevant to the discussion at hand