Category Archives: wild ale

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Drie Fonteinen Hommage, Paying Hommage to all my broken bottles lost in shipment, RIP

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So this beast took quite the fucking effort to land. As far as I know, not many bottles of this made it stateside and the jump across the pond involved quite a few amazing bottles and, in classic form, this bottle came in a lamp box all the way from Ireland. It didn’t speak the language, just a drain on the system, but I married it, so it’s chill. Well let’s see if all the hype is worth this sour unicorn.

This beer should pay Hommage to my Fedex account, so many damn boxes and an international trade to land this ruby bastard.

Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen
Belgium
Lambic – Fruit | 6.00% ABV

I remember some nay sayer once told me “Don’t try for that beer, it’s too hard to lock down and it’s basically 3F Sch. Kriek but with raspberries.” Let me be the first to say, no fucking way. This beer is incredible in a waay even beyond the way that Sch. Kriek is amazing. I drank this side by side with Blabaer and I think this one carried the day. Just look at it, it has a radiant glow like fairy afterbirth. The lacing settles down and lets the berries and complex base beer shine like a telecaster sustained note. It doesn’t need lacing, no parlor tricks like a huge head, just balls out acid and musky complexity. You don’t like raspberries? Well too bad, this is like pink interior in a Murcielago, you fucking deal with it.

When this box arrived from Europe, I was all like this, shit was so cash.

Ok so, maybe there are some similarities to this and Sch. (cant spell it, too lazy, TL;DR) Kriek, but it is similar in the way that the way that a base v6 mustang is similar to a GT500 in that women can maybe tell the difference. Those of us who aren’t sexist generalizers will have something to say. There is a musky mossy cardboard finish to the nose of this beer. The raspberry notes do not fuck arond, even with age they are like sage old wise berries and smell delicious and almost too archetypical to be real, like this is a type of lambic bubble bath. The smell makes me think that this will melt my face like Christopher Lloyd in who Framed Roger Rabbit. Toontown up in this bitch.

This beer is mesmerizing and plays with your mind, in a sage wise old way.

There is an super drying tart raspberry taste to it that just tears the enamel off of your teeth. Your taste buds run for cover, but there will be no shelter provided under this oppressive regime. You get the tannins but then a sweetness comes in to stop the dental abuse, a halfway house. The drying nature combined with the raspberry gentleness makes this a bit more refined than Scharsbeer (I tried). It is delicious and caustic at the same time, like a well balanced Taylor Swift album. AND JUST AS BITTERING.

Despite the transatlantic voyage, violent yet classy mouthfeel, and incredible tartness, I love this lil pumpkin. My taste buds are like when Scarlett comes back to Antebellum south after Sherman’s march but, in death there is rebirth. Maybe my sour zones wont be such pussies next time. It is incredibly delicious and I am sure another vintage of this would be amazing. I just don’t know any average person that you could pop this open with at a ski lodge or, on a Grayhound bus to meet your baby’s momma. No pedestrian endeavors here, just raspberry violence and infidelity.

You taste a sip of this Belgium gem and want to embrace its European nature, kinda.

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Crooked Stave Blackberry Petite Sour, Like Jamba Juice, For Fitness Buffs with Alcohol Problems

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What else is there left to be said about this plucky upstart, Crooked Stave. It uses the fabled Rocky Mountain water that we have heard to much about in a different context. Every batch seems to hover around 1000ish bottles which is the sweet spot for breweries these days, as we all know, ask any kid holding onto a Black Note, he will tell you. So lotsa juicy treats popping up in the spring, let’s see if this one puts forward a good foot, or GETS TANGLED IN THE VINES.

In between all the malt calories, who has time for fresh fruit? Crooked Stave has a solution for you.

Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project
Colorado, United States
American Wild Ale | ABV ?

BOTTLE NUMBER 424 of 857, mad points for .RAR skillz

This of course, was aged in wine barrels with blackberries added. Blackberries are so damn expensive that using that as an adjunct alone is a feat in itself. I guess all those membership fees are going to good produce use. These brewers must mash out at Farmers Markets like Belle in the intro sequence of BntB (slang.) Anyway, as you can see, this beer almost comes across like something that could be good for you and the color is downright pretty. There are all kinds of deep fuschia, purple, maroon, and ruby hues that makes you feel like Lisa Frank brewed this one up with unicorn blood.

DAMN YOU ELUSIVE SOUR GEMS, your unavailability is megabusting my balls.

The lacing is minimal and I am glad, get that shit out of the way, this is sour territory and I don’t have time for you expansive nature and lacing, lambics don’t fuck around and this wild ale gets right down to business. The bubbles are super fine and put together some nice floorboards for the acidic tannins from the blackberries to gracefully pirouette upon. The taste is exactly what you’d expect, juicy, drying blackberries all up in your dome piece. The oak and tannins go hard in the paint not unlike Wacka Flocka Flame, leaving your mouth all satisfied and dry with residual tastes of jams and preserves. Mammy let you lick the pie tin because you are a good boy.

Gary Soto once wrote a story about how he ganked this pie and felt like a shithead for it, and I kinda feel bad as well, receiving a beer like this so far from its native Colorado home. Kevin P. is a solid bro for kicking this tart gem into my mix. The drinkability, despite the nice acidic finish is kept in check by the sweet aspects of the berries, so it’s like when two girls are jocking you at the same party, an efficient gradient of acrimonious intent levels shit out. Never happened to you? Drink more sours homie.

I will have to disagree with the label’s bossy tone, telling you to serve it around 45 degrees, yeah maybe if you are afraid of amazing delicious fruit notes, then go be a scaredy cat and enjoy the limited profile of this gem. It reminds me of a more brash version of St. Lamvinus, like St. Lam’s brother that is all into magic tricks or the Eagle Scouts. Ultimately this beer is like getting a sloppy smooch from the Smuckers’ curator, and you are edified as a result.

At first I was all like, I ain't drinking no sissy girl colored sour beer, but when it turned into a robot teradactyl and decimated a gigantic monster, it had my attention.

Narrative: What the post-Platonic school of thought never contemplated was that, for every being in the aether, for every corresponding form of each berry ever made, there is a berry heaven. While not sentient, each blackberry in 300 b.c. Macedonia exerted a Will and Representation and, upon consumption, filled a nothingness with each other berry. Michael Park was a total asshole in his life. He would take the last slice, borrow your boardshorts and never give them back, and constantly talk about how amazing the shitty ass Miami Dolphins were. But now he is dead. He awoke in a field with his blackberry Virgil and accompanied him through chamber after chamber of descending berry sins, each one more acerbic than the last. Finally he came to the acidic Lapapa Berry, crushed in three stills for all eternity for its endlessly sour nature, for crimes against palates. “What the fuck is this? Seriously, there’s juice everywhere and it stings my eyes, why have I been brought here?” Michael wiped the sticky pulp without the slightest sense of reverence to the clear parallel to Judas or clever analogs to Italian literature. “Blerghh slergghhh YOUUU AREE A SOURRR ASSHHHOOLLEEEE” Virgilberry gurgled out and pushed him into the press, the iron and oxygen from his mangled body adding a calcium boost to the hellberry slurry.

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Avery Brewing Company Muscat D’Amour, If You Love Chardonnay, You Will Love This Lil Muscat

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So Avery has had a few ups and downs on these barrel aged beers and some I would without hesitation tell you to buy them, like condoms at Warped Tour, others I have a tough time aligning myself to because I am just a slovenly low brow beer swiller with no capacity for fermented grapes. Let’s take a look at this beer and see if any Statutory Grape takes place here.

For those times when wine seems too classy but beer seems too delicious.

Avery Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
American Wild Ale | 10.78% ABV

Oh that .78%, you’ll feel it. Actually you won’t. This is an incredibly crisp and gentle wild ale that imparts its alcohol like a Yakuza strangler knocking you out. Hey, you could have just provided the access codes, alas, I digress. So this is not unfamiliar territory at first, a chardonnay aspect, light malts, a lazy apple juice meets Martinellis aspect with minimal lacing. I am not getting all fussy about the appearance because, truthfully, this is a genuinely beautiful beer. There isn’t that old qualifier where you go “but she has a great personality” or some shit, it is like a gentle old IPA that you trust with your secrets and practices making kisses with.

The smell is like a bachelorette party at a wedding doomed for failure. There’s some sassy spritzer resfreshing notes of lime and salinity like the vodka sodas from the bridesmaids, and a deep muscat grape, white grape, Chardonnay, and apple that beckons to the old folks with their time worn traditions and irrelevant opinions about vagina shaving. Ultimately, a luscious bouquet. The tannins give this INCREDIBLY dry aspect to it that is like eating too many atomic warheads that starts nailing my bicuspids on the reg.

I am not a huge white wine fan, but I love Avery's barrel aged stuff, I cannot deny that I love this beer, NO MA'AM.

The taste is incredibly juicy, dry, mildly tart, oaky, but incredibly tannic. Just start whipping up some Chilean Sea Bass if you pop this beast, the pairings will be a marital aid for the entire household. The label says this beer is “a lovely amalgamation, awash with the delicate expressions and subtle nuances of soft malt, ripe muscat blanc grapes and savory brett.” I would say that is the eHarmony dating profile of this beer that upplays some aspects and fails to underscore some obese drying aspects. This is unmistakeably beer, which I am stoked on, but it also has a huge vinuous aspect, which actually works well, as well.

This beer confused me at first, but once I understood the nuances it became incredibly fulfilling.

This reminds me of an “imperial Temptation” if that makes sense. The drying is bigger, the brett is bigger, the oak is more burly, and the kisses are more furious. If that is up your alley, consider my alley completely occupied.

There is a lot going on here but if you stick with it, you will see the mastery presented.

Narrative: Sofia took a deep sip of chardonnay and exhaled watching the Marlboro 100 smoke dance blue in the moonlight and contemplated the course of the next 35 minutes. Here she was, chapter 9 into Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook Dvd, but she was still entirely unable to contemplate the potential for intercourse with Chad, whose first name was unmistakably irritating. The deep pulls of Barefoot and Yellowtail brought no guidance and merely muddled her divided conscience. Finally, in a moment of clarity she exhaled and saw a verisimilitude of a Velasquez painting and realized the fleeting nature of life, the bacchanalian rebirth of grapes, and the pomegranate seeds or Persephone slipping through her fingers every day. “SKIP TO CHAPTER 21” she commanded to a supplicant Chad, his memory foam mattress left besmirched with alarm. “That’s…chill…” she spit Chardonnay kisses deep into his mouth and rose above the trite romantic exploits, for in this moment, the IKEA foam and shitty movie posters could not denature what was essentially an exercise of incongruence. It was Sofia’s duty to empirically sample enough Chads to black out those sections of the Punnett Squares for the time in life when it really mattered. It wasn’t the best grad school essay, but it was true.

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Funky Buddha Raspberry Berliner, For those days when actually eating fruit seems like too much of a hassle.

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First and foremost, map props to my buddy Diego for making this little Florida dream come true. He sent me one of these gems as an apology for something that really wasn’t even his fault, so WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THAT ONE. Funky Buddha knows how to whip up demand and turn out amazing beers, but today lets see if this juicy gem can take things to a Gushers level.

One of 23 bottles, people in Florida know the rules of supply and demand and cetacean farming.

The Funky Buddha Lounge & Brewery
Florida, United States
Berliner Weissbier | 5.00% ABV

First and foremost, look at that shit. It is damn near radioactive in its radiance. That is the look of something that you absolutely would never let you kids have and then they would go apeshit on at a sleepover, much to your chagrin. The thin body and light coating just lets those raspberry tannins ignite and light up the sky. Plus, I drank this in a bar so it looks like you are some lowbrow asshole who likes his Sprite easter pink (read: sizurp.) Anyway, the look is amazing but hands down, the most amazing part of this beer is the smell. Once it was opened it was like all those days spent in the everglade fields harvesting raspberries with Peruvian hired hands. Except, in my case I wasn’t being drastically underpaid and denied health care by- oh shit my soapbox broke. It is like taking DMSO and becoming one with a raspberry. The smell is so fresh and bright that you have a hard time discerning anything but fragrant tannins, mild bitterness from the fruit and a light juiciness.

This beer is unlike anything you are accustomed to, and you are likely never to see anything like it again. Drink it in.

I am talking about real raspberries, not like eating a Ring pop. This is one of the most fragrant beers ever and it’s like giving a hug to a 3rd grader but in a way THAT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE AT SOCCER GAMES OK. The taste is light and a bit heavy on the body and imparts the bitter fruit tannin with a tart juiciness that is fantastic through and through. It technically isn’t on style but, not a single fuck was given, I shared this beer with like 55 people and everyone received a single molar unit so that all could espouse from the hilltops the glory of Floridians at large. I think between the readers of this site, we could literally track down every single bottle released. CONSIDER THAT A CHALLENGE.

Oh so you drank your only bottle of this rare ass beer? Well that sucks, eel with it.

I look back on raspberries past and think of sweet Lenore and out special place in the cave. People came by to take pics with the empty bottle, if that gives you any idea of the type of canonization that this juicy beast imparted, and all were unified. Straight up Edict of Nantes in this bitch.

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Lost Abbey Red Poppy, Red Poppy be Throwing up B’s Reppin’ Flanders Red Sourblood Crew in the Trap

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Ah I remember last year’s Red Poppy, a reasonable $13.99 or something at the brewery, maybe even more. Well things haven’t changed much price and distribution wise, but let’s see if this old Redface has any new tricks up its sleeve this year, aside from a Tek 9 and a 64 impala.

Getting things red poppin off, man, the puns aren't working tonight.

Lost Abbey, Red Poppy, Flanders Red, 5.5% abv

A: This is darker than I remember from last year’s foray. There’s very little amber or ruby hues and almost a deep crimson that light cannot pass through. It’s like the black stuff from Pirates of Dark Water, if anyone remembers that shit. There’s a very subtle ruddiness to the center of it but it is largely almost a deep brown murkiness. The frothy carbonation is like lemon meringue all ready to take me to the candy shop.

I gladly paid $15.99 for this bottle with fond memories of last year, jokes, bonhomie, barrel kisses

S: There’s a fresh cut strawberry zest with a cherry note to it. This also has an air to it similar to red flavored candy, red candy anything, well except maybe Red Raspberry Dollars, but that candy sucks ass. A mild vinegar aspect gets up in the mix and starts dry humping the olfactory zone with an acerbic disposition.

T: The taste is much simpler and to the punch than I recall from previous outings. It winds up with a nice tart Skittles haymaker, transitions into a cherry tannin taste with some nice oakiness closing up shop and then, that’s it. It is over as fast as you can read this sentence. There is a lingering tartness similar to a currant but the whole affair is over far too quickly, like when you order a private dance and they use the cross fader when there’s still like 40 seconds left of Tony Rich Project. No one else? Ok cool.

I was expecting the tart comedic stylings of Fred Flintone, and then this guy showed up at my birthday party.

M: The mouthfeel has a sharp bite at the outset that subsides into a mellow juiciness that almost seems nutritional by way of contrast to most of the garbage I usually put in my body (beers specifically, not objects.) It washes away gently and I almost forget that I took a sip by the time I want to take another sip. It’s like Deep Blue Something – Breakfast at Tiffanys, it’s so benign that you can shop for slacks in the grocery store without even realizing you are draining $15.99 almost instantly.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable but for all the wrong reasons. I don’t think it is on style for Flanders Reds to be going apeshit and tearing my mouth up like Cal Trans workers, but this is as one dimensional as a fashion student. Much like an awkward Bucca Di Beppo date, you forget about it sooner than you should, and there’s a mild family style disappointment on your palate. The cherry is good, the sour patch goodness is rad, but the swift nature in which this pricey bottle is done leaves something to be desired.

It remains entirely unclear to me, on a Mudkips level, as to why last year's version of this beer was incredible and this year's version is closer to the R-word (rhymes with scrodenbach)

Narrative: “Ok and frame up to a half body shot and, CUT it’s a wrap!” the crew looked on in amazement at Cerise Michael, master director at work. His style was innovative and bold to a fault. His minimalist films had gotten shorter and shorter until, his latest project was a series of 5 shots that had a run time of 94 seconds. Still, people flocked to the theater to see what shocking new revelation that he had committed to cellulose acetate. The recent project was a series of shots of a mailman delivering packages, some starwipes to ducks wearing ties, and finally a sustained 12 second shot of a Seattle garbage dump. Masterful. Local theaters had revolving doors installed so that patrons could purchase bulk tickets and imbibe the tart glory over and over, 94 seconds of complexity at a time. Some pundits argued that a concentrated burst of complexity could use some elaboration, suffice it to say, CERISE MICHAEL COMPROMISES FOR NO ONE.

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Avery Brewing Company Immitis, A Tart Zinfandel Smacker for Old Nana

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I always love wrangling these Avery sours to give them the business, for better or worse. Dihos was awesome, and a recent foray, for those who recall, was less than incredible. Let’s see what Immitis has in store, get your grapes in check for today’s review.

Ya'll with tinnitus can't hear what I am spitting about Immitis. C:/run_forcedjoke.exe

Avery Brewing Company, Immitis Sour Wild Ale, 9.54% abv

A: The appearance might be the darkest wild ale I have ever seen this side of Tart of Darkness (kinda?) If you really look into it like a Kubrich film, there’s a light violet hue at the very edges but this beer is straight up soy sauce black with zero lacing or carbonation. Soy sauce swag to the maximum.

Just smelling this beer and reading the bottle, you are confused, but you are pretty sure some epic shit is gonna go down.

S: Given the low carbonation, it’s tough to rankle this beer’s jimmies to elicit an aroma profile. There’s definitely some jammy preserves like blueberry, blackberry and of course red grape. On the backend is this condiment sort of acidity that comes across like balsamic. I’m not dipping a baguette in it, but it would def pair with red sauce well. Colorado loves Italian people.

T: The taste holds its own amiably and delivers a roundhouse of cherry, currant, black cherry, and grapeity grape. The tartness isn’t lambic overload but provides a complex but nuanced deck of rares and supporting uncommons to deal some damage. The abv is hidden well and I would foresee some recent divorcee seeing the Zinfandel moniker and be all stoked to pop in some Borgias or whatever mature people watch these days. This is a beer ripe for serving at some Santa Monica hotel bar with patrons saying “there’s just NO TIME once you have your second child-” that sorta shit.

Despite the initial intimidation, this beer is ultimately amiable and downright amazing in its own strange way.

M: The mouthfeel is very light and again, the alcohol runs hand in hand with the tart acidity and just clotheslines the shit out of all opposition. The oakiness lingers for a long ass time. If you have ever been to Guitar Center and seen the dude with the wavy ass hair running apreggios on a Les Paul, that last note, this is this beer. Just bewwwwweeeeeeeesoursoursouroooohhhhhhhoakoakoakoakzzzzeeeeeeegrapegrapebeoooooooo-

D: This is fantastic on all fronts and it is unsurprisingly a secret potation to take down mid-30’s women at the knee like Cobra Kai students. If college students weren’t piss poor and bad at everything, I would suggest that they buy this to increase the shittiness of watching The Notebook for the billionth time, but they won’t listen. They won’t listen.

In retrospect, it was a confusing 12 ounces, but I am better having experienced it.

Narrative: “JANETTTTT! OMG THIS WEIRDO IS TRYING TO talk to ME!” Skyler yelled across the packed Hermosa Beach bar and pleaded for the assistance of her equally shallow hateful companion. “No, I was just saying that it’s quite humid inside, which is ironic considering the coastal layer-” “EWWW this weirdo is STILL FUCKING TALKING! Not even gonna lie, gotta leave,” Skyler lied. Mike Cureant could not understand it. He was engaging, relevant, an accomplished greco roman wrestler, but somehow, engaging in civil, cordial conversation with emotionally and intellectually bankrupt sociology majors just DID NOT SEEM TO WORK. Tonight he wore a Theory shirt and was assured that has polar properties for the attraction of labia. Notwithstanding, his shirt remained soaked with a Ketel/soda/slash of pineapple/twist of lime/grenadine dash that was spilled on him by a girl whom he could only assume was named after a state or an R.L. Stine character. It was all Mike’s fault, he was tart inside and sophisticated at the same time, but he was pushing himself on all the wrong forums, with souring results.

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Cascade Blueberry Wild Ale, Sometimes a Sour is So Good It Leaves Me With Blue Berries When It Is Gone

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Cascade has plenty of incredible rare offerings, but let’s not just sit back and cast garlands upon Oregon and their amazing case per person law. Sure, I love sitting around like the next guy, waiting for one of the 12 bottles of this month’s rage to come my way. Oh wait, it’s just me? Sorry Oregon, just keep hanging onto your bottles, I will toss up a few Chocolate Rains for the next batch of Ruth. BEER NERDS KNOW WHAT IS HAPEN. Bottom line: Cascade is amazing and their distribution is beyond fantastic. Lazy assholes like myself can hang out online, order, and wait until the blueberry goodness just arrives on his doorstep. Shit is cray.

Murder this beer wrote scopin old ass beer drinkers hittin them with that Matlock .45

Cascade Brewing Company, Blueberry Wild Ale, 7.3% abv

A: This has an awesome light purple or a DEEP LAVENDER if you will, radiance to it. The lacing is nice and the microbubbles splash around playfully, thinking of gentler times. The note told me to leave this beer alone, but fuck all that, this beer just took a fantastic journey from Oregon, time to “bust it open and pop a picture with my phone” – Yung Joc.

Please excuse my lack of enthusia- wait what, one of my favorite breweries just made a blueberry sour? Well nevermind, fuck my reader base, they can get their ow-

S: The smell is a fantastic cascade of acidity, musk, borderline Cantillon levels of funk, and of course an awesome blueberry with a blackberry jam presence. It’s like nana made preserves and the whole neighborhood gang is invited to pal along. Oh and nana is a master brewer.

T: The taste has a sharp acidity at the outset and you get the underlying wheat beer aspect like watching your friend drive away with his hand pressed against a blackberry smeared window. The taste is fantastic and simplistic, blueberries for sal, acidity and blueberries for the bears chasing sal. Pretty simplistic really. But the Volkswagen GTI was simplistic and it got countless eurotrash guys laid, so there’s always that. The nice hit of tannins on the gumline adds a minor bit of complexity but really it is a 2 person White Stripes ensemble and keeps it grass roots through and through. Bottomline, this is a fantastic wild ale and I recommend it highly, get your messy jam sesh on.

Sometimes when I am tasting an incredible sour from Cascade I stop and realize there is another aspect and wait, what is that brett- wait no, there's a spoiler on my spoiler. The end result keeps my drag co-efficient so low.

M: The mouthfeel is as to be expected from a blonde ale base that has gone all apeshit in souring barrel treatment and bunked up with berries for months on end. You come out sweet, but secretly so tart inside. I am not saying that the blueberries raped the shit out of the blonde ale, please, this is a family blog. But before the Goof Troop activists get all nuts, I will say that the drying is minimal and the blueberries add a sweetness that makes you crave the next sip.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and the sour notes don’t slow shit down. I dont even know why this isn’t an outright session sour, having less than 2 bottles of this in your cellar is pointless like an Uzi with a beam, mashing out on sours in a ‘cuzi full of steam. I ordered plenty of bottles and sure enough, I will ship plenty of these to midwest traders and then I will be a whiny bitch in 2 months about how I can’t taste this amazing beer. Boo to the fuckin hoo up in this piece.

Wait, you are a sour, with blueberries, from Oregon...
Did we just become best friends?
Yep.

Narrative: “No, no please just the wash-” Rodney Blahberre opined to the car care specialists. He wondered to himself why every position had now changed itself to a new lofty title. Servers were table maintenance technicians, janitors were municipal waste engineers, Lawyers were still giant assholes, but beauticians that were failures still called themselves “stay at home wives,” which irked old Rodney. Being the empirical beast he was, Rodney laid out all the plans of a failed, boring, wife-based business: a hair and antique boutique. No one walked in with an express desire to buy a wagon wheel and obtain a shitty perm but, well, here we were at Rodney Antiquated Everything: Cuts and Huts Emporium. One day, Rodney realized that this business model, without the assistance of subservient wages, would soon capsize, he hired a series of Portugese people, whom he offensively referred to as “Porties.” The level of racism was staggering around the Cuts and Huts Emporium, particularly to those poor Iberians. After taking a brief tour concerning the failed Southern American colonies and the relics left behind, he lost interest outright. His business was in ruin and he couldn’t offload all these Mayan artifacts. Rodney popped a delicious blueberry in his mouth and left the amazing history to other highhanded sources but everyone in his tour group recognized that he had just accomplished something berrincredible.

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Armand’4 Oude Geuze Winter, Now is the Winter of Our Geuzecontent

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So, whenever one of these seasons come out I sigh to myself and know that I am going to have to get a complete ass reaming to land one of these expensive, rare bottles. Thanks a lot Belgium, WAY TO BE A HOMIE. Anyway, so this is the last in the series, but I am Tarrantinoing this shit and you will get FALL later on, to keep you guessing how this shit ends. CLIFFHANGER LIKE STEVEN SEGAL.

It must be winter because my nips are blasting.

Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen, Geuze, 6.00% ABV

I know who Sylvester Stallone is. Let’s get down to business.

Bump this shit:

A: This beer has a murky orange depth to it that isn’t like the other happy seasons, this is a pissed off geuze that is suffering through a winter of discontent. The carbonation is out of control, in a literal sense. When I pulled the foil off, there was a bit of white residue on the cage and as I was examining the c- BOOM! The cork hit my ceiling and then bounced off the floor. Something about being shipped thousands of miles to be greeted by my disfigured grill just set this season off. The carbonation looks like a malfunctioning dishwasher, suds for days, huge frothy bubbles, baristas getting mad winter boners up in this piece.

It's winter but this beer is unnaturally darker than the others, paradoxes abound.

S: There’s a mild musk and I get notes of persimmon, lemon notes, there’s a kinda char like smoked turkey, and decomposing leaves. For such strange elements, it works. It isn’t the most uplifting season in the series but it seems refined and poised in a way that energetic ass Zomer couldn’t satisfy this mature tastezone.

T: This doesn’t have the huge citrus acidity blast and feels more like the “older” season of the four. There’s this strange pumpkin/allspice aspect to it that lingers with the huge apricot aspect and finishes with a strange metallic allspice aspect. I have a hard time organizing all the elements because they seem to be shouting over one another and clamoring for attention.

They sent me geuze from Belgium, I sent my credit card to the grave.

M: I don’t know if it’s this beer or trying to figure out who A is on Pretty Little Liars but this shit is confusing. I get the normal goozie aspect with the acidity and delicious dryness you’d expect from Armand but the barrel comes in and imparts a deep icy touch that comes off with a mild bitterness and makes it rain with a cascade of adjectives. Ultimately, it is less drinkable than the other ones in the way that a Rush album is less listenable than a Pennywise album in that the complexity is mind boggling.

D: This goozue is my least favorite of the seasons but that is like saying that the Ferrari California is the most underwhelming in their supercar lineup. Still destroys so many other contenders and stands out with an awesome original taste and finish. It was thoroughly enjoyable but didn’t get drained as quickly as I don’t remember the other variants disappearing but it is still phenomenal and worth that…uh…$80…(34 euros,…plus shipping from belgium…carry the zero…uh…) fuck it. It is beer and this was certainly worth the cost of entry. What else are you gonna do? See 21 Jump Street with 4 different chicks? Fuck that, buy goozeu.

It's a slow gentle realization to come to terms with how good this beer is.

Narrative: Frostbarrow Helmchill was a noble Nordic lord who watched over his icicle harvesting operation with impunity and scorn. He hated the family business that he was born into but with the Norwegian economy being what it was, who could afford to earn less than 50,000 krones a year what with the 83% income tax and all. All of his finest workers had left to start black metal bands, shred metal, gothcore, post-indigo shred, or speed subhammeroncore bands. In the mountains of Norway, the work ethic was tempered by months and months of relentless winter and Frostbarrow lived within his cold shell. He retired to his chilly flat and looked upon his unicycle, classical guitar, purple tae kwon do belt, and fruit dehydrators. Inside the gentle repose of his stoic ice cabin, he could enjoy winter in the manner that he saw fit: a litany of strange pursuits. Outside it was cold and bitter, replete with pale women and shameful dentistry. Inside this haven, he could embrace the steady drip of the icicles and look upon his 8 string guitar and know that a colder winter will soon descend upon the masses, sending the need for pristine icicles through the roof. Economics were not Mr. Helmchill’s strong suit.

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Allagash Vagabond, A Beer for All Those Highbrow Jack Kerouac Ne’er-Do-Wells

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Not unlike the Allagash Ghoulschip, I had been seeking this beer out for quite some time as well, what with its fancy packaging and paper and whozeits and whatsits galore. This beer is a complex hydra and I will attempt to cut off some heads in today’s review.

Vagabond Ale is right, details inside.

Allagash Vagabond Wild Ale, 10% abv,

A: This beer has really charming deep plum and mahogany, the radiant hue invokes melodies rhapsodical and fair. The carbonation is gentle and lackluster, the lacing phones it in and does not show up for work, even though you know it was partying the night before in the bottle. Figures.

At first I was all jazzed based on the appearance and smell, but then-

S: Holy complexity Batman. I get a caramel, plum, merlot, syrah grape, and a mild hint of wet hay funk on the backend. I have no idea how this will taste with an olfactory offering this complex. It’s like the Pontiac Aztek where you don’t know exactly what to do with it.

T: This really pains me to say this, but the taste is really intolerable. I traded big to land this and I want to power through this but I feel that I may have received an off bottle. The initial taste is a light plum crispness like a farmers market- wait, it is passing over my other zones and wow. It goes to a strange place of old halloween Rolos, then finishes with a huge strange salinity like soy sauce. I dont want it to be the case and I respect Allagash immensely but as I sit here waiting for the beer to warm I am left wondering if it is my fault, did I lead the beer on? Was it what I was wearing? You get a deep tartness initially and a red wine aspect that is incredibly pleasurable and then it just goes Thelma and Louise out of nowhere.

In this beer's defense, it is very intredasting.

M: The mouthfeel is light and crisp like biting into a juicy, albeit very salty fruit. The mouthfeel has a bit of acidity on the backend of the palate, but overridingly the taste of weird phenols or something. Again, if this bottle is off, disregard this review but man, this feels like the Aston Kutcher of the beer world punking the shit out of my palate. It reminds me of this one time when I went to Universal Studios and ate grape soda and chili and go too hyphy on the King Kong ride and ended up throwing up in the backseat of my dad’s Cutlass Supreme. The taste in my mouth after throwing up, that is what this reminds me of. Not even mad tho.

D: Well given the foregoing, take a quick guess as to how gung ho I was to knock off a 12.9 oz bottle of this. As it warmed the stakes became higher with more delicious fruit and currant aspects and even more hateful salty aspects. I came into this thinking it would be akin to Consecration or the ilk, but, this was quite different. Not my favorite beer of all time. “But you don’t have to take my word for it” – Reading Rainbow.

You don't fuck with the Wu, and you don't fuck with Vagabond ale.

Narrative: I do not want to cobble together an offensive narrative for this beer because Allagash deserves better than that. Instead, I will provide you with a Lil B’ video. Allagash Aint Got No Felonies, Brews Like Bill Bellamy.

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Allagash Ghoulschip, Zuul is the Gatekeeper of this Ephemeral Brew

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I always seem to miss the boat on these highly sought-after Allagash beers. Just like when Sega Genesis came out with its bad ass BLAST PROCESSSING, my NES wasn’t blast processing shit. Now my liver finally gets the chance to blast process this sour and take the Pepsi challenge and see if these limited beers are worth the hype.

Who you gonna call? Alebusters. ::groans::

Allagash Ghoulschip, American Wild Ale, 6.9% abv

Oak Aged Ale Brewed with pumpkin, toasted pumpkin seeds and molasses.

A: This beer has a nice deep yellow hue that brightens at the edges like a sweet agave nectar. The center has a metallic copper color with GENEROUS carbonation. I had to pour a bit, come back, watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica, come back, learn stoichiometry, and finally it was ready to drink. The lacing for some reason wasn’t making a title starring role appearance, it had a brief cameo and some one liners and then peaced out.

The carbonation was so immense that I was like, quit playin. Srsly quit playin.

S: I was expecting a huge October treat with this one but I was worried it wouldn’t meld with the sour aspects of the beer but, they pulled it off with a precarious balance of the two, ultimately favoring the cobweb and smashed drywall muskiness with only a gentle gourd and nutmeg smell at the very outset. I get a big tart melon and kiwi aspect from this as well, but I think that might just be a byproduct of the acidity. Either way, this rocks the Hannah Montana act of sour/seasonal better than Jem.

T: The taste has a nice tartness with lemon, mild pumpkin, allspice, the acidity is huge and there’s a hint of molasses in the finish but ultimately this rocks an interesting swiss army knife barrage of funk, tartness, and autumn goodness.

I tasted it and at first you get some lambic notes, tartness and then sneaky pumpkin rolls in, wait what?

M: There’s a light lingering sweetness, like that administrative assistant whose name you can never remember but she knows you like the Pentec G2’s, and a huge acerbic tartness, more similar to that woman in payroll whom you can only assume hates you. The drying effect hits hard and leaves a raw sensation in your mouth like making out with a chick with bands/braces, but ultimately it is all worth it. I could have used some more pumpkin, but hey, in the land of beggars, the man with one chooser is king.

D: The drinkability is huge and it didn’t even hurt my tum tum. I really enjoyed the clean, full flavored gourdiness to it and it reminded me of fall in the way that Armand Herfst did, albeit in a completely different way as the beers are both unique. Again, making this beer exceptionally drinkable is the clever Allagash curse, particularly since they made like 1000 bottles of this. I got 99 bottles but this ale ain’t one.

I'm not sure how gracefully this beer will age, but I am sure it will still be a complete bad ass.

Narrative: “Wooooo, woooo, this is the Haunted Pumpkin pattchhh on 3rd and Cedarrrrr” Joe Clemson called to the children whose cold ignoring glances did little for his self esteem. “This is so lame, God why can’t we just pick out our pumpkin without that irritating owner hassling us?” one precocious 9 year old remarked while irritatingly smacking her gum. Joe kicked a pile of hay in front of him and took off his borderline racist “ghost” costume. “Ah shucks Joe, they know this ole lot aint no haunted punkin patch, shoot, 10 months out of the year it serves as an overflow lot for the adult book store across the street!” Joe thought back to the one time he actually did scare a child when one of the wares from that store was discovered in the hay. THEN SUDDENLY JOE HAD IT. “What’s missing from this lot is a sense of danger, that sort of imminent ghoulish sense of demise, dagummit!” The next day, Joe allowed the adult book store to commingle with the children. Authentic zombie looking prostitutes came and solicited candy from all patrons. One homeless man screamed into a Snapple bottle for 3 hours that “he couldn’t make all the DAMS” and the children seemed to believe this sentiment. It was a truly ghoulish Halloween indeed.