Live oak has been around forever, turning out beers that seem anomalous in the current market: clean, delicious, traditional Germanic riffs, with no barrel program. NOT EVN A FUKN BAVARIAN KOELSCHIP. I reviewed the inimitable live oak hefe back in 2011, when it used to hover around in the Ba top 100, when that was a thing. WE USED TO RENT TAPES AT BLOCKBUSTER.

Now they have a canning line so I don’t need to plead for two liter Pepsi bottles full of wheaty cream. The good news is: the hefe hits buckets from deep outside like some banana and clove Steph Curry. Triple plate clutch, call it ACT.

The bad news, the Pilz has gone to shit:

  
That’s not to say that this beer was some mind blowing entry from the jump, it was traditionally and rightfully overshadowed by its orange slice laden brethren. Something in the canned version seems….off. Instead of that crisp bisquik and Anjou pear, this has a weird faintly metallic meets watery butterfinger thing that, while I want to pull the DMS alert, it isn’t quite that either.

The Skoal dipping Phish Phan literati that reside in Austin don’t read this site. So I won’t harm that 512 demographic, but the long and the short is that you NEED to land some hefe cans. At this point there is no reason you are depriving yourself, let the self flaggelating discourse cease already, the wheat awaits.

  
Hop nookie still continues to amaze, perspicacity is a trilliumesque creamy riff on the NEipa, which was pretty good but not my favorite due to huge residual arugula bitterness.

The espresso stout continues to have this vegetal unpleasant/oversteeped quality making it acidic and off putting. Moscow mine is like Shasta Stone IRS, it’s pretty okay, for an exceptionally standard non Ba RIS, no complaints in that regard.

  
Time to see if this civil society is all it is cracked up to be by the Floridian payday loan populace.

  
Wow, this came or of nowhere as a tasty albeit svelte little fudge gem cum de Czar Jack/Central Waters in execution. Very palatable with a Callista Flockhart thin body. I understand now why they are sold in four packs, these don’t weigh you down but deliver nougat and whoppers with a touch of barrel oak. 

While this won’t have you reeling in the heft and majesty of residual sugars, it is undeniably well crafted and a highly accessible Ba stout both economically and sensorily. Texas traders will probably just extra this to you, if you work their oil well shaft to spout.

  
Look like a panda

There’s levels to this shit.

I spent Saturday getting caught up on miscellaneous ticks that, when reflected upon separately, don’t deserve their own post. As an aggregate, it’s just enough to shovel turds into this poop furnace of a website, so let’s consider these wholly discrete and totally unrelated beers, FOR SCIECE

  
Jester Ling figlet, a saison with smoked figs, prepare that dusty balloon knot for this one. I thought this was going to be a rauchey tire fire nightmare but it was basically a faintly tart/smoky Biere de garde. No egrets.

It has a faint acidity underscored by a caramel Martinez that provides structure and body kinda like a toasted Flanders red in a way….a session oud bruin? Does any of this make your loins tingle? It was fine, none the worse for wear.

We all learned something on that fateful day.
  
Three Floyd’s hopped in half, ridiculously hopped session pilsner. This seems to sit so squarely in those grind core brewer’s wheelhouse that it was a near impossible feat to fuck this one up. And they surely brought something of note and quality to bear upon the market. It is intensely clean, crushable, a touch of ritz cracker with mint jam, herbal and bready sweetness slap boxing in syncopated rhythm. 

It’s no Humulus lager or Jacks Abbey offering, but if these bombers aren’t the usual $11.99, then the Midwest just scooped up a solid new hot weather go to, to break up the endless Spotted Cow/Moon Man ticks. 

  
Grand Blanc,typical degarde shit but with Riesling grapes. If aliens were trying to fit in with the most unremarkable de garde beer clone, they would make this. It has the limited crackle and sustain of the usual tillamook joints, an acidity that is bordering on mildly acetic, with some sweet white grape to add a bit of depth to what would feel like something procedurally generated by Trevor with whatever was laying around or source able on short notice.

It’s like some top chef shit where de garde had 4 months and Riesling grapes to work with and rolled this out. It’s not bad or inherently flawed, but after 6oz I was set, didn’t need the criterion collection analysis with barrel master commentary.

  
Brew Bus Hazelnut spread, porter with hazelnuts added. Guys stop the FUXKING presses, a brewery in Florida added some flavoring additives to a porter. I’ll allow you to ice down your hip as you no doubt just fell from your chair. This is dialed in, thin, a frothy traditional base beer with a sticky Nutella spoiler tacked on to reduce the drag co-efficient. 

The nose and swallow has a touch of a metallic torani syrup and pennies dropped into nestle quik. If funky Buddha wasn’t doing this shit so much better on the low end with Cycle killing the competition on the high abv end, this gets lost in the fray. 

  
Arctic Panzer wolf, same as it been doin. I like to circle back around to old favorites in light of turbid milk ipas being in vogue. This is still phenomenal and relentlessly aserose, dripping in conifer and sticky honey and cut lumber. All these years and this beer is still so fucking phenomenal, no treehouse or trillium pageantry necessary. I never hear anything about these old stand bys, and you should absolutely track down a mixed box of the “pedestrian ass shelfers” because three Floyds has suffered no dip in quality in this realm.

  
HUB noggin floggin, Ridiuclously hopped American barleywine. I hope you like flabby malty sweetness galvanized by arugula and scallion bitterness. This is like a beta mode version of old numbskull or the pawn star brother of  venture capitalist, gratitude. 

This is my second favorite style so I am wont to needlessly excoriate entries within this realm. Do you remember Avery hog heaven? Did you love those bitter, salted caramel dipped in vape oil tones? Well here you go.

  
 
Pirate life brewing dipa, Australia is one of those locations that historically has been a hotspot for beer and classic drinking culture, but the reality is akin to Ireland in the heavy taxation, ridiculous oversight, governmental regulation, and savage import duties laid across the board ruining shit for the consumer. So imagine what a stir it would be in that climate to roll out a local, solid as an 8th grade erection, dipa. This is not some historical throwback or a weak approximation of what is hot in the streets of the American northeast. It is refreshing in the crisp romaine with lemon drizzle body, some lingering scone grist on the swallow, that grapefruit oil in the mid body: it puts in work across the board.

Usually when someone sends me an “exotic” beer, it’s some decade delayed reverse engineering of pre existing stuff that is super exciting for the population of Iceland or wherever, but not relevant in a global scope. This is not the case here. Pirate Life is a new benchmark for Australian innovation and an awesome step in the right direction for a continent of gorgeous beaches and punishing arid desert grasslands. The excesses are attendant thereto in style and scope.

There you go. I did my due diligence, now back to frustratingly playing The Witness and remembering that I have a primate cranium.

Tired Hands is enjoying an Alamanac-esque  gentle repose of late.  They finally shed themselves of hoarding shitlords and hypemen and now have been silently slitting palates in half with their Hattori Hanzo bottles.  Those Ardmore boys used to exist in perpetual comparison with their Vermont brethren up north, but with a canning machine and altogether different drives, the paradigm has changed for JB4 and Co.

Let’s see if this new direction is something you should lube up the anal egg for in today’s rundown:

Para47.  Alright, I am no fucking math master but. Forty seven? This may be a riff on the non-linear nature of the timescape and relativity of ordinal experience, but it’s pretty fucking confusing from a consumer perspective.  It’s almost as bad as those ridiculous Beachwood Propagation bottles that are factorial and already on like #4350928 at this point.

So instead of the usual acid trip that the other Paras have embraced, this is off the AWA greens and into the danky trees. Para47 is a Mosaic IPA fermented in Vin Santo barrels with the Para culture. So immediately your mind will drift into the Dorothy/Noble King realm, or perhaps Sue even. This is amongst the hoppiest wild ales I have ever encountered and it somehow pulls it off.  It’s like when Honda released the Del Sol and you were happy that the homosexual community had a car to call their own, but, deep down you know it is amazing. The mosaic lays this pinewood with corkboard, sheets of lacquered mangos, elegant lemon pledge, and waves of landscaping majesty.  It is unerringly bright and radiates like some floral elixir.  Never quite acidic nor IPA, it is this odd cross section of a punnett square that I doubt you have ever encounter prior. The mouthfeel is that whiskey sour egginess that is whipped and frothy, absolutely crushable and the 500ml format is almost a tease.  I would def. recommend scooping this overlooked guy off the trade boards. It will likely get panned by expert palates in the BA/Untappd world, but I dig it.

Waiting for the Bloom. IPA brewed with oats and hopped in the kettle with Simcoe and the almighty Cascade. Heavily dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin. This is one of those beers that when you read the label you have practically already had the beer. You know exactly what you are getting and you can transpose vision for taste.  It’s like when a band is setting up and you see Schecter Guitars or a Warwick bass, chances are this band might be totally shitty, or the best prog rock ever.

This is turrrrrbiddddddd, not quite in the realm of those with Hoof Hearts, but god damn is this a milky way. The oats steal the show here and give this parapet for those sticky danky dabs to adhere to.  The finish is long and herbal, highly drinkable but nothing that will shake the orange julius cadre to their foundation.  This is that Treehouse vein that is perhaps 90% as well done without giving up organs to obtain.  If I were compelled to live in PA, that vast expanse of Nascar plainsland buttressed by two cities, this would be my calm solace.  Pour out a splash of this for the Latrobe homies lost in 2005. The struggle.

OURISON.  Mama said dont get a tattoo of Ourison, but what mama don’t know wont hurt her.

This is one of the best beers that Tired Hands has made in a long time, [tired] HANDS DOWN. I came into this expecting a lazy scaled melody of wheat saison, some mixolydian runs and relative minors, acidity and a watery body that closes like some Arthur cover song.  I was fucking wrong. The beauty of this is in its direct and stripped down simplicity.  No fruits, not fucking wheelies or spinning rims, no pageantry, just Chevy II tires on the pavement with a roll caged bretty interior.

Them Ardmore ballers say it best:

“Ourison represents the progression and evolution of our Saison fermentation program. Ourison is Our Saison, SaisonHands, left to condition in oak and then allowed to fully express itself via a lengthy bottle conditioning period. The end result is a highly refined snappy and pungent Saison that, I feel, is one of the most simplistic and exciting iterations of Saison that we have ever produced.”

Let’s admit that Tired Hands is no stranger to needless complexity, fucking escargot shells, labels named after Semiotic works, obscure fruits, and not all of it works.  THIS WORKS LIKE A KOREAN GROCER. I loved HandFarm and this is the logical extension of this canon.  You get a blast of creamy chobani yogurt, so much ripe apricot and creamy nectarine pith.  It feels so integrated and frothy, a touch of brett L+C to balance one another with gruyere and dusty twine.  It’s like that fruit packing warehouse that Richie worked at in La Bamba.  U KNO. The drag on the finish has this lightly acidic profile that is tart yet creamy like a tangy 50/50 orange and vanilla bar.  It is endlessly simple and complex at the same time, like the first Decemberists albums. I don’t think I have seen a single bottle of this traded and this is something that begs to be experienced outside the realm of cheesesteak grinders and liberty bell bangers.

It is easily one of the best beers that they have ever made.  Stop fucking around with endless ANTEAD offers and get back to the simple lines of this vintage saison Volvo. You won’t be disappointed.

  
Doin my Indiana dab.

  
Because I been in the lab with a tick in the glass tryna get this janky website off.

Nothin comes out when they run their lips, just cicerone shit, and All these tickers act like DDB forgot about Broillet.