I would be hard pressed to name a brewery that has a more consistently amazing barrel program than Voodoo. No exaggeration, the K/D ratio is sky high, camping in the weeds with the straight pull letting solitary .50cal rounds decimate unsuspecting BCBS hunters.

Two shots to the head: Griselda Blanco.

  
That elusive mini BGC from 2006 next to the lightly foxed 2005, no love for those still muskbombs. All day ticker.

  
I have been waiting half a decade to finally try these Melvin gems, since back when they were Thai Me Up in Wyoming. An old Ba top 100 banger finally hits the DDB backsplash

  
Finally no more trapesing all around town on 4/20 tryna find this danky gem. Stoked this is bottled, hope it isn’t a bitch to find, no pun intended 

  
Chocolate and saison, sure I’ll give it a shot. It’s not the craziest thing I’ve put inside of my body.

  
Yes I realize there is no direct correlation between ticks and home sanitation. Make the link. Draw the conclusion, distribute the middle premise and work the prose of Future lovingly into your heart.

There is a pretty universal demand for the Casey Cuts, regardless of the fruit, but there are certainly degrees of quality between the various iterations.  While none of them are by any means bad, some are just LESS GOOD by comparison.  The Balaton Cherry is one just release that didn’t get me juicin.

First and foremost, the carb is very low, damn near still and with no residual prickly bubbles in the mouthfeel or lacing to speak of.  With heavily fruited beers, this is particularly hard to swallow because that delineating factor is what keeps the beer from tasting like, well, just juice.  There is plenty of juice to go around, that certainly is not at issue, but the languid body and residual mouthfeel means this bottle is going to fight an uphill battle from the getgo.

Thankfully, it delivers in a huge way on the cherry profile.  Unfortunately, balaton is almost TOO fucking sour for my baby palate.  The skins are nearing that atomic warhead, Upland type of pejorative.  Montmorency was a much more pleasant cherry to smash the pits with, but this goes down with sickles and acidic shards of shattered glass.  I couldn’t finish the entire bottle, which is so odd for this brewery since their entire milieu is restraint, gentle coddling, soft pillowy mouthfeel, and subtlety.  This Cut lies well outside the canon of Casey beers that I have grown accustomed to.  The flat body seeps below the gumline and hits the molar interstices with dryness and recoiling tartness that will furrow your crows feet.  This isn’t an easy jaunt in the fruit orchard, you gotta earn this one.

Thankfully, the Merlot cut was such a fucking stunner that my disappointment with this beer didn’t resonate long.  I wouldn’t say outright avoid it, but the other cuts are so so good that it’s hard to wholeheartedly recommend seeking this one out.

Yet another hilarious crowler from the state that is steeped in dank everglades and Monte Carlos.  This time it is a FLORIDAweiss made with blood oranges.  As if every dumbfuck brewery making a portmanteau of “lambic” and their region, the Berliner ones aren’t even sidestepping a protected term.  It’s just straight hubris. But with everyone kettle souring shit not even on the hot side, it really isn’t going to matter soon.  Let’s juice this aluminum dong to see if the juice was worth the squeeze.

It’s tough not to keep that Lagunitas Aunt Sally in frame when reviewing this beer.  While Aunt Sally is perhaps less complex or “remarkable” in the strictest sense, they both are well done.  This leans more towards a simple citrus pith.  This isn’t like the JUICE, it’s more like the mesocarp of a blood orange.  This strays from the orange lifesaver sweetness and instead embraces that bitter pericarp that actually makes this incredibly refreshing.  I kinda wish that I mixed this with some Champagne or liquid codeine to really get shit popping off at brunch.

Ultimately, that is what this feels like, a baller ass brunch drink.  A clean greyhound spritzer that is drillable but doesnt tug your nips and demand your full attention.  The carb is awesome and reminds me of that eggy whip when a bartender makes a whiskey sour with real egg white and buried within the briney aspects of this beer is some of the ground bloomer/sparkler firework smoke as well.  The whole thing is an entirely pleasant experience and they would be foolish to not bottle this one, especially when people in Florida are bound to be hot and parched from strictly enforcing voter ID laws this summer and disenfranchising minority voters.  Get home from a long day of defending local Orlando business’ rights to discriminate against same sex couples and pop one of these bad boys.

Pour some citrus whales out for the Rubios lost along the way and bump the new Flo Rida single.

These are the jokes my friends, here they are.

In the realm of post-acquisition giants in “craft” beer, it is tough to beat Lagunitas.  You can find their tasty wares in random scary gas stations in the bando, they serve them at ballparks and movie theaters, and their pricing is absolutely ridiculous.  I don’t need to give a recap of greats like Hairy eyeball, Sucks, or even regular ass cappuccino stout, they hold a special place in my heart for entry level tickers.

Now they are all up in the kettle sour, or I am sorry, SOUR MASH craze.  So let’s see how that shit pans out for them:

Alright so at the outset I need to tip my hat to Lagunitas for not doing some predictable Wyeast 5335 Lacto addition to the wort. This has none of the stupid trappings so endemic to that craze: low carb, no sheeting, overly acidic, weird phenolic finish.  You can go ahead and point the finger at your favorite brewery doing that in the game right now.  This is more subtle and restrained.

With their sour mashing process, Lagunitas has basically taken an APA, hopped it less, then sour mashed it to give it a light acidity in the realm of Westbrook Gose or Anderson Valley gose.  It has the lemon and zesty lime notes, but still the bready underpinnings of plain old 2 row malt.  It is a touch salty and there is a sulphuric egginess on the nose at higher temps.  The minerality works with the faint tartness and works to make this as drillable as a 750ml of Perrier.  The slow and careful execution seems deliberate to serve that tart-curious market.  Janelle from your office will probably tell you about this shit she had at a murder mystery dinner party over the weekend and you will have to listen to uninitiated dumbfucks stumble and marvel at things you have been punishing your body with for years.  Finally, a beer you can bring to a party that is delicious but wont make you look like a pretentious prick.

It remains clean and tasty, highly sessionable, the price will probably be laughably cheap, and you can get it next to every Payday loan/Pawnshop in the hood.  What is not to love? If you were a fan of simple table beer offerings like Classique, you will like this shit.  You already knew what this was going to be: a solid, crushable, tasty tart banger from the old standby that always has your back.

It is not April 1st so you know I am being serious: this is within the top 3 best pumpkin beers I have ever had in my life. I had never even heard of this brewery and they shoot this wild gambit across the janky backsplash, a gourdy stunner that popped its seeds in and around my mouth.

Ok, to be fair my favorite “pumpkin” beers are usually just a barleywine or an old ale vehicle with a pumpkin strapped to the hood as an afterthought, but still this shit delivers on so many levels.  This lil upstart from Oklahoma out of nowhere just started peppering your baby momma’s crib with a 12.4% BARREL AGED pumpkin beer and they put it in a god damn can.  This is some next level unheard of shit.

The beer has a prominent pumpkin character like the flesh of the gourd baked with caramelized brown sugar, a fantastic retrained use of nutmeg/allspice that compliments the oak gently, caressing the BALs. The carb is frothy but coats like creamy risotto leaving this cream of wheat sort of lingering webbing that allows the boozy pumpkin pie to close with a slight fusel burn akin to Kuhnhenn offerings. The barrel presence has a dry oaky finish that makes Elysian and Southern Tier offerings look like total shit by way of contrast.  And yes, I realize I drank this like 6 months after it was released. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly stoked at the prospect of drinking a high abv canned pumpkin beer, but god damn, this pureed my yams.

Where did this come from? Who thought to do this? Are people in OK drinking fucking 13% pumpkin beers by the lake? For a state with absurdly oppressive beer laws, this seems awesomely irresponsible.  I will keep my eye on these Elk Valley madmen as it is clear that they give zero fucks and just want to watch the world burn.