Category Archives: winter warmer

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Kuhnhenn Barrel Aged 4th Dementia, The Perfect Beer Prior to a Parent Teacher Conference

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Ah Old Ales, for those times when new ales just aren’t new enough and sobriety just seems like such a hassle. The perfect beverage for right before a Parent Teacher Conference, particularly this barrel aged monster. Well, let’s see if this helps you escape some demons in today’s run into the 4th DEMENTIA.

Barrel Aged Old Ales: No Longer Just For Salty Old Sea Captains and Sobbing Divorcees.

Kuhnhenn Bourbon Barrel 4th Dementia, 13.5% abv, Old Ale

A: The bottle was almost completely flat with very minimal carbonation that dissipated very quickly with dark khaki bubbles that fizzled like the plot of an Owen Wilson film. The beer looks like a deep dark mahogany treat. The beer leaves this slick alcoholic coating to the edges that is clear but serves as potent reminder of the beast that you are about to wrangle to the earth.

This seems like a deal for all the sweet decadence that you are receiving, but it ultimately does a number on your life.

S: Holy ABV bombs. Not since Chocolate rain and Dark Lord vacated the premises has such a ridiculously boozy beer appeared on the scene. It isn’t that the ABV itself is so high that it is overwhelming cum de Utopias, it is more that the ABV just doesn’t give a shit. It posts up, leaves muddy alcoholic boots in the entryway and proceeds to rifle through the pantry in your nose. It is unabashed and very apparent. This isn’t the regular old 4th Dementia that I recalled., this is it’s alcoholic brother. I kinda like him more, in a weird way. There’s also some vanilla, toffee and mild figs but, covered in bourbon.

T: Again, don’t smoke while drinking this beer, the abv will ignite and BOY WILL YOUR FACE BE RED. This has an intense bourbon heat at the outset that fades into a deep sweetness and plum maltiness. The vanilla and chocolate is present and lends some complexity with all the oak and dry notes that round out this crazy chimera. Also, alcohol.

Again, this beer is both sinister and sweet. Sticky and evil at the same time. Pic related.

M: This has a hot slickness to it similar to a baby chocolate rain, chocolate drizzle if you will. The bourbon hit’s the gum line and warms your chest not unlike a salt shell from a 12 gauge. The mouth doesn’t really coat in a huge way like an imperial stout, this crazy hybrid feels like a Belgian Dubbel gone on a bender rampage. For a sipping beer, this is nice and relaxing. Also, not that it would really matter but, the lack of carbonation just made the angry abv even more rampant. My mouth was left pleading to the police that he didn’t mean it, and assured them that this beer was a “good one” and that it did not wish to press charges.

D: This is hardly drinkable in the 12oz format and, if they offered bombers that would be remiss to not offer a life insurance policy with it. The average user couldn’t take on this beast, and the average craft kid would likely feel that it was too boozy. The lack of carbonation made it all the more apparent that this beer is not here for you, it is present to shirk the trappings of a normal life. I have to knock this beer on the drink ability and overall overwhelming nature of the bourbon notes. If I wanted to kiss a Kentucky trucker, I JUST WOULD GO AND DO IT OK.

Drink one of these at 2 a.m., the sky is the limit.

Narrative: No matter how often he strayed from the straight and narrow, Clemson Biggs knew that he would somehow end up ok. “Hey, uh, Clem, we noticed that you went and vomited all over the side of your freightliner, again.” Clem pushed back the bill of his worn Bill Earnhardt Jr hat, with the Jr. scrawled out. “Oh, I’m SSSSORRY! I thought this was Darlene’s Coffee sop, I didn’t know we were in the DMVs! Hold on let me check for the illegal of BEING THE FLU!” His drawl was overwhelming and the booze on his breath was palpable. “Well Clem, it’s just, we know you are hauling ethanol and industrial chemicals on up to Truckee and, well that’s a long haul, why not give it a rest hun?” Darlene looked over her note pad and tapped her pen entreatingly. “OH OK, how about I jus never do any OF THE WORK? Oh suuuuuuuuure, everyone hey listen DARLENE will do your works and we just made in the shad-” he slipped out of the booth and knocked over a cardboard cut out of Tony Stewart. “I AM SICK OK? Just gotta get some medicine and then I can make that lil 450 mile drive and then, how abouts, this, YOU SHHHHHUT up?” he cackled to himself at the apparent clever quip that he had just crafted, much to Darlene’s chagrin. “God, when he is good he’s great but, it is just painful to see him this boozed up,” Darlene thought to herself. “Here, slice of apple pie, on the house,” she said as she slid him a piece of mediocre pie. “HOW ABOUT THE PIE HOUS-blarghhhhh!!!” Clem’s gem of insight was interrupted by his own projectile vomiting.

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New Glarus Thumbprint Barleywine, The Perfect Beer to Drink Hours Before You Get Your Own Prints Taken

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So, New Glarus has no questionable history of amazing beers. Aside from some smokey endeavors and a foray into fruit that I thought was tailored more to a Sorority palate, they bat 1000. So now one of my favorite alemakers turned out one of my favorite styles. You say what you want about Wisconsin but they know how to get Kool Mo Dee faded with the utmost celerity.

If this is 12% abv, then it needs to be pulled from the shelves. This is almost a product liability suit waiting to happen, protip: Google "foreseeable user misuse"

New Glarus Brewing Company
Wisconsin, United States
American Barleywine | 12.00% ABV

This beer looks like a manly apple juice. Dress it in flannel and buy a food dehydrator, because this is a burly beast. It will drive a Ford Ranger but you will still respect it. The lacing is like a 7th grade TP run and the generous white sheeting is, ah, you get the jist. The smell is tame and, for an American barleywine, I am missing the hops that are so extensively alluded to on the label. They also note that the beer uses “floor barley” which, I guess I missed that day of homebrew class, but whatever was picked up off the floor is delicious.

This is a complex beer that leaves many unanswered questions. Pic related.

The taste has a mild bitterness that leans more to graham cracker meets grapefruit juice with a nice malty sweetness on the finish. If you imagine cinnamon getting up in this mix, guess what, he JUST SHOWED UP. It ultimately reminds me of those east coast offerings that they like to call DIPAs but then modded with a sick caramel body kit and a pine cold air intake, putting mad malts on the dyno. I kinda like the light carb level, it’s like playing baby britches with a friend who knows just how hard to sock you, gentle but aggro at the same time. I saw on the news that a guy went missing Kayaking in San Pedro, I am not saying this beer was responsible but, I wouldn’t rule it out.

If they sell this in 4 or (god help us) 6 pack formats, may God have mercy on the population of Wisconsin. Godspeed to their livers.

Knock a few of these back on a weekday and you will be Gucci Mane wasted. Picture related. Weak ass 22 lbs dog could barley [sic] drink 3 of these.

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Peg’s Cantina, Batch 100 Barrel Aged Old Ale, If This Growler is a Batch; Better Make That Batch Your Wife

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Florida is the king of tiny bottle releases. Wait, let me rephrase that. Florida has the tiniest bottles released in numbers. Fuck. Misplaced modifiers galore, the breweries in Florida, while releasing normal sized bottles, choose to release small numbers of said bottles, and enjoy having sex with the children in the house. The last ambiguous clause was for the parents out there.

I got 99 bottles but this aint batch one.

Peg’s Cantina, Batch 100, Barrel Aged Old Ale, Abv (go ask those 3 dudes who brewed this?)

Growler #19 out of 25, off the scale rare taste factor brah.

A: Looks like a fairly pedestrian old ale outing, some maroon and deep mahonagany tones, a nice chocolate sheen like those baller ass rugs at Pottery Barn, and some spotty little constellational lacing. Spell check it telling me that isn’t a real word, haters gonna hate.

When these 25 growlers came out, I was all sad and thought I would never get one, and then, through a series of misadventures and a 90 minute plot arch I realized that I had Batch 100 in me all along.

S: Sweet sassy molassey, there’s a nice maple presence, with some sweet cream of wheat brown sugar like a 70’s blackspoitation film, with a nice wood profile rounding out the backend like a prosthetic butt cheek.

T: Man, these guys are sadistic for only releasing 25 of these. The taste is 5/5 Amazon would recommend to a friend would read again 1,435 others found this beer helpful territory. The sweetness comes through like a 24th fret hammeron and resonates with a ringing maple sweetness throughout, some harmonic bourbon notes with sticky sweet vanilla and rolo shine through and start shredding, finally the double bass kick drum of the barrel and dry oak lay the finishing groundwork. This is a perfect sipper and perhaps the best Old Ale I have ever had. Not that those ranks are bustling shoulder to shoulder in terms of style, but still, that’s just like my opinion, man.

This beer has an amazing bourbon and sweet molasses character to it and- oh shit an owl riding a skateboard.

M: The mouthfeel has this fantastic prickly alcoholic twinge to it that crackles and zips dusting the gumline with oakiness and very faint peat notes. The actual residual sugars don’t wreck your shit, they just head straight to the back and leave your shit unmolested. The alcohol however, sees it fit to chat it up with your gumline, the bouncer, and starts name dropping bourbons, passing out flyers for the booze it has tried. It isn’t offensive but it lingers a bit too long and is offputting to the rest of the patrons, namely my incisors.

D: This is fantastic and complex but, it isn’t exactly fair to talk about the drinkability of a bold old ale. How sessionable are old people? I can watch maybe an episode of Matlock and have my fill of old people for a month without ever actually interacting with one. The complexity and genius kinda makes this beer like an amazing savant that has bourbon autism. It is enjoyable in small doses to wow the palate’s imagination, but eventually the constant counting, clicking, brushing of its bourbon hair, gets out of control. “That’s fucked up to denigrate a handic-” oh I’m sorry? Anthropomorphized bourbon isn’t here to defend itself against my completely fictional personification, SORRY.

At a certain point it's hard to underscore how good this beer is so- oh shit a mouse riding a skateboard.

Narrative: “Billingsley please, hold my calls and correspondence and allow me to ruminate on this dewy tundra for a moment.” Pitbull, well more properly, Armando Perez was a historian, economist, and epistemological philosopher, but the world could not seem to see through the lenses of his prescription Tom Ford sunglasses. “Ah Armando, A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love, Yeats was so true.” He exhaled and through his consternation he watched his breath make symbols on the pane of the Rococo glass. “Mr. BULL! Er…PIT! These bitches are wildin out, we need you!” Skeezy Bird called through the thick paneled door. In between writing his treatise on constellation alignment and a nested proof invalidating Dyanetics, Mr. Perez had found the time to write a new single for the Men in Black soundtrack, and the bitches were subsequently wilding. “MISSA TREE O FIVE!” he called to the throngs of Forever Twenty One clothes inhabited by vapid bodies. Before hitting the swisher sweet, he ruminated on the passings of winters past, and “GAYYOOOOOCHOOOOO!!!!!” It was brash, yet civilized within the same breath.

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Olde Hickory Seven Devils, For those times when Six Devils Just Isn’t Cutting it.

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My buddy Steve Kim came through and was repping his set real hard, to the extent that he dropped a North Carolina bomb on my doorstep. Even Petey Pablo wiped a tear away when he saw just how hard the block was repped. Well, here’s a style that I don’t enjoy, done by a brewery that I do enjoy. So let’s see what the net result is.

This is how people in North Carolina stay warm during coal rationing.


Bourbon Barrel Seven Devils, Scotch Ale, 8% abv

Brewed in honor of the poor souls who live in a part of the Blue Ridge Mountains said to be “as cold as seven devils”.

“Seven Devils is a Scottish-Style Ale aged in bourbon barrels to create an liberation to delight the soul. Rich, smooth malt blended with the complex flavors associated with bourbon. Perfect for the winter months.”

Can’t argue with that I guess.

A: Deep murky mahogany hues interplay with an impermeable chocolate visage. The carbonation is tough to rankle its jimmies, the Snorolax lacing just dances on the surfaces and chills like a 7th grader during a slow song.

"Our band is totally gonna play Coachella main stage, we just played Zinger's Pool Hall in Burlington. Crazy dissonance."

S: The smell is fantastic with a huge waft of bourbon, vanilla bean, nougat, and chocolate Charleston Chew. It reminds me of a more relaxed old ale but it still smells fantastic. The bourbon works well with this malt like Protoss and Pylons.

T: The taste doesn’t have the huge bourbon or sticky sweet notes that I was looking for and it goes a more oaky, drying route. The malt is relaxed and lights up my chest a bit not with an overpowering alcohol waft, but a kind of hoppy dryness that reminds me of a charred jack and coke.

This beer is only 8% but it feels like something that would incapacitate me much more.

M: The mouthfeel walks a fine line between the overpowering maltiness and a gentle wateriness that makes it hit just the right divide between the two. In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t usually like this style, but I feel that the barrel added that lil zip that pushed it into the “recommended” zone.

D: This is not an exceptionally drinkable beer but, I dont think that Olde Hickory was looking for that in this go round. While it may not have the lasting appeal of a juicy DIPA or tart character of a well-done lambic, this has its own little sense of pizzazz that makes me come back for a second pour, but not a second bottle. It is kinda like Minkus on Boy Meets World, you don’t want an entire episode about him, but when he’s gone, you miss him. Oh Seven Devils, shall I compare you to a winter’s day?

Bourbon. Oak. Malt. I can't believe this shiiii-

Narrative: The sheeting rain fell with demonstrative force upon Daniel’s Mitsubishi Mirage. The blue tint and tanabe exhaust seemed excessive in the scope of this impending flood. He rushed from the soaked awning and jumped into the hard interior, shaking from punishing dampness. “Suckitinsuckitincomeagainifyourimpolin-” Daniel hated Blues Traveler and this twist of fate only made his situation worse. “The HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK brings you downnnn-” he flipped off the radio angrily and looked at his text messages from the night before. A night of whiskey, bourbon, and scotch were only 3 of the seven devils that he had encountered the night before. The other 3 were alcoholic, the final boss was his now ex-girlfriend, Daedra. Sometimes, the seventh devil hurts the worst. His new LCD tv has a noticeable slash across it, and the Cutco warranty remained intact. The tires of the economy car splashed water over the curb and he hydroplaned for a moment and burped, still tasting that oaky heat in his chest. “MAYB IF YOU WERENT BITCH THEN SEX WOULD BE HAPEN.” He looked at last night’s text in horror and swore he wouldn’t drink Maker’s Mark for at least 5 days.

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Sweetwater Festive Ale, A Festivity Transmitted Disease

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If watered down barley wine makes you feel festive, then hang the stockings.

Sweetwater Festive Ale, Winter Warmer, 8.6% abv

A: This pours a deep mahogany brown with generous foam and tiny soapy bubbles that almost look like won ton soup.

S: You get raisins, caramel, and some figs. It smells like a weird smoked quad or a wishy washy barleywine. It’s afraid to commit and say yes to the dress.

OH HEY LETS MAKE A BERLEYWI- DERRRRP.

T: The chocolate is muted and slightly burnt. It comes off like a barleywine that has low ass self esteem and will never ask malts out for a date. It needs to man the fuck up and get some malt in this bitch, or at least warm my winter. Carlifornia already has frigid 67 degree winters and this asshole isn’t pulling his weight. Maybe that flies in Georgia, but here in California, our women shave their armpits and our winter warmers have boozy notes to them Gosh darn it.

M: The mouthfeel is thin and watery but is a strangely cool dynamic for this malty, pitted fruity goodness, so pitted, whapaw. It’s pretty interesting in the way that the new Hyundai abomination, Veloster is interesting to look at, and think how much negative vagina you would get after buying one “how do you owe someone vagina?” details details.

It feels like something classic, but with a childish zing, malty candy action.

D: This is pretty drinkable but def. not made to be a session beer. I guess it helps me celebrate a new year, but I dont feel particularly festive, I feel bloated and moody, hook up the Midol brah. It’s not quite winter and I dont feel much warmer, but it’s not exactly a miss. It like Barleywine Lite, with a thinner body, resulting in some maltiness, just not a stomach detonation.

Narrative: One thing was not made abundantly clear by the gypsy witch. Ok, so, the master has to remain a beast until he finds true love, but why the fuck was I transformed into a bureau? Sure in pre-enlightenment France, there’s not a lot of non-serf positions for a guy like me, but, come on, if I am going to be transmogrified into some furniture, couldn’t I be a laundry cart or something more bad ass? I worked as a simple house servant and now, I am just stuffed with parchment paper. I feel like I aspired for greatness and now I am left to pick up the shattered remains of my simple pedestrian life. Why am I even affected by this damn gypsy curse anyway? I didn’t have any stake in the superficial nature of the owner. This whole enterprise has fallen flat.