I feel like I am taking crazy pills. It’s like meeting a Communications major who reads Rilke: I don’t even know what to make of this shit.

Hopefully they can catch lightning in a bottle a second time like they did with their previous stout. Things look promising, we shall see.

I never thought I would live to see the day that I could drink the best Pilsner in the entire world in my own home. My reality has now been czeched

When you see the outward signs of anxiety, you want nothing more than to offer solace to the afflicted.  That orange jaundice of someone suffering through a deep psychological malady, the arthritic hands spiderwebbed with shaky sinews.  Sometimes just rubbing their thoracic spine while listening to their jarring night tremors is enough, let that shaking husk of a person let it all out. When you see the mandibular bulge of a jaw flexed in pure psychosomatic stress, let them present an ordinal list,

10.4.16, patient counseling transcript, DSM-IV and HPAA protected, not for dissemination

“vanilla…ginger…oh christ, cardamom, I see them all in my fever dreams, they are so real,”

“shhh hush, keep doing the breathing execises”

“and and and, clove and cinnamon is there and there’s nothing i can do,”

“no one expects you to do anything, sip your water slowly, no one is here to get you, careful, you are rattling it against your teeth”

“oh christ, it keeps replaying in my mind, they slide the nutmeg into the oven, and the orange peel, I’m just standing there and…and I can’t run fast enough, it always catches me.  I have these tremors, where all I can do is drink Rogue ale, it’s always the same pumpkin, and it’s like, my teeth fall out like irony piano keys”

“God you are so brave for confronting these terrors, just breathe, we will get through this”

“They say grief is like treading water in a storm and you have to to to wait for the wave of dread to pass over you but, sometimes I feel like the Rogue will never go away, and everything will just be just be ROGUE all ROGUE forever and ever (inaudible sobbing) kin”

Kuhnhenn is a Warren, Michigan brewery that exists north of the wall, and the North always remembers.  For those who have been in the game for an appreciable duration, Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock has existed as a mainstay, a thing of legend.  From the 2004 lightbulb bottles to the recent then-staggering $30 per 375ml, KRE has been a focal point in the strong lager/fruit beer game. Next, they dropped 250 bottles of the mind-blowing Blueberry Eisbock and reinvented the lager game from its foundation.

The polarizing nature of Kuhnhenn’s strong beer game is well known.  Some people simply cannot take that sea salt caramel shot to the vest that is Bb4d, others wince at BBBWs and continue to do 90 minutes of level 1 on the IPA elliptical.  The rest of us are here to embrace the heavy lifting and intensity that Kuhnhenn presents, nay, requires of its patron base.

This is what your glass will look like after wrangling these “15.5%” abv lagers.  I find it immensely interesting that despite a rest of 18 months in casks, the eisbocks each did not gain a single point of ABV saturation.  It’s almost like the Kuhnhenn labels are inaccurate to some degree.  After a single bottle your ears are stop sign red and you are on Amazon ordering blu ray copies of Pluto Nash, but it must just be your low tolerance.

When those Warren boys released these three at 1pp for $50 a bottle, the EBT poverty tier contingency blustered at their hypothetical purchase that they weren’t going to make in the first place.  I love this offense-by-proxy model of beer consumers, dudes who inhabit the Two Hearted orbit suddenly blustered by the isotopes in the outer spectrum who are drinking not only insane Eisbocks but barrel aged eisbocks.  To those armchair cicerones, I inquire as to what a barrel aged eisbock like this SHOULD cost? What are the market comps for such an item? Kindly rattle off a few comparable, readily available BA Eisbocks that makes the price of these shock the conscience.

Alright enough berated strawmen dipshits, let’s review these in order of preference:

First and foremost: being the “worst” BA eisbock is like being the “ugliest” Suicide Girl. This beer is still unique, amazing, noteworthy, compels pause and contemplation and you are markedly changed after the experience. The gradation of quality is like scaled aesthetic: Mount Shasta is still pretty fucking tall, just not as tall as Mt. Everest.

This beer, at is core is a massive, nimble Barrel Aged Barleywine/HGH Old Ale.  Allow me to allay the all too predictable “BUT THIS IS A LAGER AND CHARLIE PAPAZIAN SAID-” I know, I get it, you know the difference between fermentation cultures, participation trophies doled out with careless abandon.  This TASTES like a ramped up version of BB4d, with intense barrel, chocolate, caramel, vanilla scone, macaroon, coconut beignet: it is the bakery gentrifying your previously Hispanic neighborhood panaderia.

Now imagine an intense, syrupy, promethazine meets Bordeaux berry profile that lingers like an elegant blackberry reduction.  This is like a candy painted sidecar tacked onto a Hayabusa, it’s so much to wrap your palate around.  The berry is so thoroughly dominated by the barrel and booze that it is a loving, supportive stepdad that watches the tap routine even if he doesn’t understand it. You get that IHOP cunnilingus of berry maple, a torani pump into your bourbon frap, and somehow, you can finish this entire 17%+ beer to yourself. I believe in you. It is exceptional and quite literally nothing exists remotely close to this, and you can’t do some retrofit french press hack job for your mouthbreathing facebook group to approximate the experience: and this is the shittiest one.

To be honest, I don’t love the base KRE. I will usually share it with brewers and watch them furrow those alluvial fans of wincing crows feet in reverent apprehension of that glucose bomb.  This beer however, is an entirely different affair.  This is like when a car company so thoroughly overhauls a base model with an insane supercar version that the two share almost zero lineage beyond air conditioner knobs in the cabin.  Gone is the drippy crystalline structure of rock candy and reduced raspberry preserves.  In its place is Kuhnhenn BBBW that has just stood tall on a ten year bid.  You pick this up out the joint and it has a raspberry face tattoo and it is swole as fuck with a silent booze and oak power telling you to “say it with your chest.”

TFW you share god tier beer with a babypalate.

LIke the BAKBE, this has a fruit counterpart that works even better. The caramel lends itself to the tartness and lightly sweet robitussin like if you made an ice distilled Sucaba, those red fruit notes bursting from the seams like a carryon that is clearly outside the dimensions of what is acceptable in the overhead bin.  It exudes power and complexity, the eros on the palate deconstructs itself like layered corkboard, you peel apart the fusel layers like Grand’s biscuits.  Toasted rye, sweet pecan pie, bread pudding, creme brulee all adorned with a sticky Smucker’s acoustic guitar lending structure to the power of the chest syncopating rhythm of the barrel slamming: and this isn’t even the best one.

I had the prior two iterations and felt absolutely compelled to try the base beer.  The base is what I loved the most from these BA offerings and holy shit, this was a dizzying new plateau of barrel gymnastics and lager massaging.  Since they only made 90 of these, this was no fucking easy task to track down.  After several failed ISOs, Brian ROoney finally helped old Subbydoo out.  Needless to say, this was absolutely staggering and I would be shocked if this didn’t land squarely in the DDB top 10 for 2016. There is nothing like this.

Take the grace of 2013 Adam from the Wood, that lacquer and intense saturation, Eagle Rare meets George T Stagg in lager form.  It is the paradigm of innumerable mixed strains at the dispensary and you almost think weed is getting too strong, and then you tell your friends that this is a lager.  It evokes more power and grace than the most adjunct laden beers on the market, has such a svelte elegant structure, like the sinewy pilates shoulders with an underlying vascularity that connotes poise and coordination beyond grip strength and dexterity.

MAN YOUR OWN JACKHAMMER. MAN YOUR EISBOCK BATTLE STATION.

If Donald Trump is the posterchild of stamina and demeanor, then this is some Cam Newton educated on Thomas Pynchon shit. Nothing can stagger the lively oak and mild oxidation of the wood, the weak palates will wince and grab pedestrian pejoratives like “LOL is ths evn beer at this point” “is like a liqueur amirite” and you can nod at their fumbling weakness, inability to engage the core and embrace waves of breaking butterscotch and toffee, raisin and plum coffee cake soaked in Thomas Handy.

This is some post-storyline, final dungeon tick.  It is a culmination of the prior strong ale skills and apprehension you have cultivated to pick apart this multifaceted 9×9 sudoku puzzle that will mystify your senses. It is so god damn dialed in, the spoon of brown sugar is mixed into the thinnest of grits.

Since someone will ask for a global perspective, ordinal adjectives being king in modern parlance, here you go:

BAE > KBE > BAKRE > BAKBE > KRE

You get it, now I get to field complaints about how DDB is elitist for celebrating $50/12oz 90 bottle run offerings. As though those figures someone predetermined the sheer quality of the contents attendant thereto.  This is my life.

I can’t believe I have waited this long to finally hit fonta Flora from the backside, show em how DDB pull off this hooride

It is difficult not to focus on reproduction while sitting in a public park on a stifling Tuesday afternoon.  Kaitlynn watched each of her four children clamber across the decimated remains of recycled tires, a replacement for the construction sand of days past. The indigos and vibrant fuchsia tones coated each of the tiny eight hands, sherbert and red5 streaking the monkey bars. Katilynn gripped her own pop, which remained largely unpushed, the mien of a disappointed Flintstone patriarch casting a flat gaze upon the scene. It was difficult to not think of reproduction when the sticky glob of glucose syrup and buffered lactic acid plopped into the dirt, causing the ants below to spin in tight writhing circles.  Gunner called to his siblings, face smeared with the remains of tragancanth gum and polysorbate 80, while changing the rules of a protean game.  One  ant recoiled under a glob of oppressive sugar water. The others were probing, uncaring,  focusing on the delicate task of bringing this corn syrup to the Queen. Gunner simply will not lay down for his nap.

It is not illegal to loiter in hospital waiting rooms. Chase would satisfy a moribund itch by regularly waiting in the Saint Ambrose Emergency Room, albeit perfectly healthy. The effervescent character of those in immediate need numbed and scaled down his own insecurities.  The chairs always had the same busy, swirling patterns with inlaid pastel triangles.  One only encounters this upholstery on charter buses and mid-90s compact cars, the function serves to hide the low vagrant stains of constant use.  A Korean man with a makeshift headwrap and a wide jaunty stance pressed his finger demandingly into a nurse’s clipboard punctuating each word.  The lingering musk of impending tragedy, Chase loved it.  The fortuitous misfortune of every passing clinical moment, this was his therapy.

“Flowerbomb, that was the perfume, it was called Flowerbomb and it comes in this pink bottle,” Amy recounted tracing figures in the air with a finger wet from cold pressed juice, “it’s not strippery, but not SWEET, either.”  Trevor sat at the bistro table of the outdoor cafe silently suffering through a zero calorie soliloquy about corporate scents. “But, also, and this will sound weird but SANDALWOOD is, like a memory trigger for me, being from Tacoma, I-” This was not the right swipe that Trevor envisioned as he pulled apart the flesh of a fruit cup tangerine in a desultory fashion. “-or when, ok so I have this thing called an ‘elevator test’ and if you can tell I am WEARING IT, then it fails the ele-” The experience was clean yet squalid, a clean finish to a sweet-sour encounter.

The bungalow on 641 Canyon Drive had just cleared the estate allocation and was ready for a short sale, pending approval from probate court. Leading in from the entryway was a Rococo handrail with intricate, gaudy roses carved into the ornate balustrades. At the time of construction, every detail was regal, but the home had shown its age indelicately. The wall of mirrors was laced with gold veins, a modern punchline on the aesthete of Nixon-era home construction.  One didn’t so much look into the mirror as attempt to look through it, at the dated wood paneling and beryl shag carpet therein.  Well-tread carpet has an air of record stores and yearbooks, imparting that teleological waft that only time can impart. All of this would be gutted, this would be fixed, the rate of return would be incredible once an open floorplan was implemented, relative to comps in the area, scaled to squarefoot pro-rata values. It will be breathtaking in its transformation.

Terrence sat in the courtroom waiting area, dictating to Siri with a flat, vindictive affect, “you did this, period, this is what you wanted, period, I only hope that this brought you some type of closure period new paragraph, you never thought about Brandon during any of these proceedings period.”  His voice echoed across the carrera marble of the municipal hallway, enough to amplify the macabre tragedy of his personal life, but approaching him would still remain in poor taste. “I don’t have any outstanding cards, comma, your credit score is not my concern at this time, period new paragraph.”  There is a gastroenteric taste tied to regret.  During those moments when absolute dread sets in, the gall bladder secretes an acidic reflux cocktail for the afflicted to ruminate upon. “Your attorney’s fees will be paid by the community assets, hyphen, however, the remainder will be divided pursuant to the Court Order.” During those times where the present becomes an impassable barrier to what has occurred, the bile will tickle the gumline, underlining the discomfort of the moment. During those moments, a “CTRL-Z” for the physical world seems like the greatest indulgence.

Landscaping is a form of manual labor celebrated in the abstract, usually by those far enough removed such that they never need to engage in it.  Surveying the grounds of the Montecito Tea Garden, patrons admire lovingly the sculpted bonsai trees and raked stones imported from the neighboring quarry.  Fulgencio toils unseen, maintaining Edo period strolling gardens in the twilight, watering imported orchids during a torrid drought. “FULGENCIO! those cherry blossoms are everywhere, mixing in with the Coonara Pygmy leaves I told you to take care of last week, we have a wedding reception tomorrow and I wont have the Walmsley’s special day ruined because you are bitching about overtime, so let’s go,” boomed Chad Warner, groundskeeping supervisor, which is a titled way to remove Chad from groundskeeping entirely.  However, Fulgencio raked Japanese maple leaves with a calm repose, breathing an herbal citrus goodness from the environment.  No degree of surrounding problems could shake his unflappable character, for he lived and breathed in the spirit of the Tea Ceremony on a daily basis.

“Alright, children, again!” commanded Ms. Rosander to her group of supplicant students. “Endosperm, embryo, seed coat, endocarp, mesocarp, exocarp, vellus hair!” the students responded in rote programming. “PERICARP, it’s like you aren’t even listening the PERICARP CONTAINS THE OTHER CARPS BUT IT IS DISTINCT. AGAIN!” This revolutionary new method of child-education took standardized testing to a new granular level.  The focus would now be not on “facts” or “analysis” but instead, sentential lists of minutia.  By drilling the parts of stone fruits for weeks on end, every other piece of information would seem highly probative by contrast.  Walter Park knew almost nothing about non-euclidian geometry, but after drilling peach parts for what felt like a continued sentence, his tween brain was frothing at the aspect of learning binomials. “”Endosperm, embryo, seed coat, endocarp, mesocarp, exocarp, vellus hair…PERICARP!” “Alright, as a reward, we will now take a break and learn Stoichiometry.” [cheers, jubilance, presumably.]

These guys can do no wrong it seems. Finally a beer to rival blueberry flora. That minerality, the spritzer and tannic juicy notes that are so elusive with those tiny pithy berries: it is thirst quenching.

It is so hard to do blue BaLs well, and these are fully drained. The acidity usually fucks everything up and even Cantillon has bungled this (cf. 2013 blabby) and this is completely crushable like unprotected recycling center sex. There’s no tums sidecar attendant here and you can effortlessly kill the entire 750ml while you watch Battlefield 1 glitch its way into AAA gaming infamy, as usual.

Think Lil Sal meets Lady in blue, with smashed up flintstones vitamins in the mix, a light chalky tartness gives you a PPM chubber.

“Lol DDB would own all that shit, can’t even wash away all that self aware metanarrative off”

Stout releases are replete with completionist obsessors and the natural embrace of this behavior manifests itself in horizontals.  We have much to thank 50/50 Brewing for this now pandemic embrace of “Stout Sets.”  What was previously derided as a marketing mechanism at best, and consumer manipulation at worst, is now de riguer.  People want stouts, they want treatments and they will suffer mistreatments to get stouts. Like the waxing and waning of the moon, FULL SETs remain the resounding call of the khaki-teethed retinue.

Cycle has proven themselves capable in the deviant realm, but what about those purveyors of punny-labels entrenched in a Sub-Mason Dixon geography: Against the Grain Brewing?  We shall address each in turn in today’s review: Weekday Set vs. Bo and Luke Deviant showdown.

If I am not hearing granite comments, then it means that the grout experts are queueing up to appraise my tilework.  Let’s keep this thin and sweet, not unlike- ahfuckit.

Monday: Maple Bourbon BA Coffee Cinnamon. At a certain point these stout releases feel like confectioner/breakfast madlibs.  Just pull 4 of them out a ten gallon hat, who gives a shit.  I had high hopes for this and the exceedingly thin body coupled with a cinnamon blast of Big Red goodness tapered that arousal faster than a Glenn Close sex scene. The maple is about as viscous as you would expect from humid Floridian conifers. Coffee rounds out the cast with a performance of mild acidity that sends your deltoids skyward with indifference.

Tuesday. Garbage stout, no adjuncts, psh why am I even bothering. PSYCHE. This might be my favorite of the entire set and this beer slays.  Like a Baby DBR, this shows that you don’t need four tire burnouts and nipple clamps to push up the engagement.  I know I am in the minority on this one, and it feels one note after the ANTEAD review where I wouldn’t stomp pressing my face into the freshly shampooed hair of that base beer.  This beer is absolutely stellar and leads with tootsie roll, roast, and a depth that goes outside the pale of cascading Torani syrup pumps.  It is such sweet irony that the tobacco and pumpernickel has more depth than the addition of outside ingredients.  A composition fallacy derailed, in a bottle.  Seek this one out, if you care about your capacity for nice things at all.

Wednesday, Cinnamon BA Hazelnut Bourbon_randomize$ingredient.DLL

If you know about the infamous Nooner8 and the resultant Hazelnut, then your expectations were justifiably higher than some Samus Aran highjump boots.  Oddly, this seems to align with Monday in an offputtingly thin, “imperial porter” sort of execution.  I am the last one to advocate more residual sugars and heft in stouts.  The issue is when you book five adjuncts to play an open mic and give them all 3 minute slots, you barely even settle in with Hazelnut before some hack Bourbon from Van Nuys is doing airline bits. Give them some room for expression, for Cycle’s sake.  The end result is something that is unquestionably good, but pangs of Coffeemate meets Nutella smegma.

If your traps aren’t sore from the innumerable shrugs and head rolls, prepare yourself for maple bourbon Rare Dos. Again, this is a solid solid beer, and from any other brewery, it would be knocking in more stout RBIs than Hack Wilson. The problem is, I know what Cycle is capable of and I know when they seem to be holding back.  Tuesday is clear evidence of that pure barrel shoryuken to the chest, this is like a weak Liu Kang mapleball just to keep you at bay.  The sweetness balances nicely with the dialed in Rare Dos body, but you lose the beer, and not yourself, in the moment.  Drink a couple of these on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship and dream of Vermont while you are high as balls on generic prescription drugs.

Friday: (Stranahan?) with vanilla and cocoa nibs.  This beer, was shockingly awesome.  It was never too sweet but the oily character of the vanilla surpassed the previously ho-hum Nooner9.  That waffle cone dovetails awesomely with the cocoa nibs and gives this sort of Whoppers spooning with Snickers that ensures there is left nothing to be desired.  You can finish an entire bottle and the high temps add a touch of spiciness from the oak.  It’s odd that the two bottles with least fanfare, that look the most lackluster on paper, absolutely slayed.

The stout game don’t make no damn sense.  Speaking of making no sense, allow me to introduce you to a Faustian nightmare of dizzying depths:

Each one of these craven harbingers of depravity is more debased than the last.  This is Shinra, outsourcing demonic tests that Umbrella Corp. refused to administer. The additions to Bo and Luke sound like something I would do in a janky attention seeking vedeo, except they outdid old DDB and did them for real.  The balls were pressed nowhere but directly upon the wall for this release. Let’s get right to it:

Bo and Luke, sassafradish. Radish. Are you composting me up the community garden plot with this one?  This had a wince-inducing type of licorice, melted good and plenty, but mixed with a vegetal minerality of potting soil.  It’s like if you poured yourself a Dr. Pepper, and then extinguished a Parliament Menthol in it.  This has to be an experiment in IRL trolling consumers.  Woof.

Oh christ. This one is the absolute worst and intentionally hits those Chilean coal mine depths of sadness that Dark Lord variants accidentally stumble into. FENUGREEK, CUMIN AND BLACK PEPPER.  Have you ever been drinking Parabola and thought, “ah shit I wish someone would toss a Sonic Chili Dog up in here” well divinity upon high, your mustard prayers have been answered.  Processed meat water, spice, Olive Garden entree sadness coupled with this lingering steamed water that goes under catering trays.  A masterpiece in macabre malevolence, but at least the smoke isn’t distracting.

Elderflower and Lavender.  Nothing else, just Bath and Body works meets Glade plug ins while confused Nana gives you a deep open mouthed kiss.  Her flower broach is rubbing your collarbone raw.  Take a smoked stout and run it through fresh laundry on the line, that classic Downey dryer sheet film undulates along your gumline.  If you have ever tasted women’s deodorant, that chalky floral regret, coupled with this sense of profound shame that comes with armpit tonguing: it’s that but with a black and mild clenched in your teeth. Brick and Mortar pornography stores are redolent of glass cleaner and industrial grade floral disinfectant, this captures both in that Yankee Candle decadence.

PEPPER: Ancho, Pasilla, Mulato blend.  I didn’t even take a photo of this one because, if we are being honest: it was pretty tasty.  The heat from the chili folds like mitochondrial inner membranes with the smoky complexity and it screams Austin bbq.  It has dry sweetness, with roast and capsaicin qualities that, despite appearing horrible, was better than most Barrio stouts, toe to tip.  This is the one true redeemer, but I absolutely recommend you try to land the other ones because, they are a Fear Factor horizontal in themselves.  Invite Joe Rogan over, have your ex film the whole thing.  Stupider things have happened in the beer world.