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@santeadairius Always in Death, 25th fret shredding, black farmhouse death stainless fermentation

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Well as 2014 creaked to a close, the final bottle from the SARA Cellar program was the caress of death. This was the swan song and a single bottle was issued to 2014 members before all these 2015 SARA cellar gentrifiers come in pushing up property values, ruining the rich cultural heritage of the invite only society, driving out the original residents. Let’s see how this tart DARK farmhouse performs, whether you can slam this at a Bauhaus concert or if you should save it for the next Joy Division show.

Time to play that cliche game LIST SOMETHING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE BEER PHOTO. always funny ervy tiem.

Time to play that cliche game LIST SOMETHING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE BEER PHOTO. always funny ervy tiem.

Capitulation, Santa Cruz, CA
Black Barrel aged Saison, 5.6% abv

That commercial rubdown:
Everything ends. This simple fact reminds us to make the most of the things, to breath deeply, to chase inspiration, to live and love with abandon. With this in mind, we offer you the final installment of SARA’s Cellar 2014. Always in Death. A tart, barrel-aged, dark farmhouse ale, this single barrel selection stood out from the rest, and is now yours to memorialize in solitude or with friends. Everything ends, always, in death.

Put on The Spill Canvas, pour a glass of Grenache and sink into deep contemplation with your Sartre tome, WE ARE DISCUSSING DEATH.

A: Well true to form, this is a dark dark farmhouse that leaves you looking circumspectly at the jet black inky depths, that foam challenging you to a slap boxing fight in the old barn. I usually don’t enjoy this style or really any sours predicated entiretly on a porter base, but this is admittedly a pretty beer due to the bone dry lack of sheeting or residual sugars. This is like Natalie Portman in Black Swan, you come for the white swan, you stay to see her get stabbed.

Pictured above: target dark saison demographic. Look for them at the next bottleshare.

Pictured above: target dark saison demographic. Look for them at the next bottleshare.

S: The nose on this is phenomenal and reminds me of a baller version of Tart of Darkness, with a turbo charger and cat back exhaust. You get merlot and currant, tart cherry, craisins, oak and light cocoa. The closer is a sort of red wine Dr. Pepper aspect that again, feels agile and doesn’t leave its dark husks and tannins laying all around the living room its like HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS.

T: The taste sheds the Tart of Darkness robe and the ebony form glistens beautifully across the palate. You get the malbec and blackberry, tartness, a faint cheesiness, and a lingering intensely dry closer. I can confidently add this to a list of two other dark farmhouses REALLY worthy of your attention, next to Civil Disobedience 4 and Guillermo Prunus. Yes CD8, Shadows of their Eyes, and Edith are intentionally left off of that list. Dark saisons usually dont do it for me, but this exhibits the red grape and hay profile in such an elegant way, its worth your attention even though you might not give a shit about the style.

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, i like my farmhouses DARK and DEEP, i have substance and depth, I OWN A COPY OF HARLAN ELLISON SHORT STORIES

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, i like my farmhouses DARK and DEEP, i have substance and depth, I OWN A COPY OF HARLAN ELLISON SHORT STORIES

M: This is dry and presents a bouquet of tart floral goodness, its this odd melange of dry bakers chocolate a flanders red and a straight up saison. At warmer temps it feels a bit acetic but never enters a realm that someone would really complain about, I am just that prick who watches Whiplash and complains that the syncopation isnt timed with the frames of the drums. Nitpicking garbage because shit, otherwise why even read this.

D: This is this and you can easily crush the entire 750 without getting dry rot. It never becomes cloying or warrants splitting a million ways. Thankfully this doesn’t have any stonefruit in it, so dipshits on the trade boards will continue punching one another in the dick over the same tired lacto blonde ales and leave this well alone.

This saison tastes like when the wolf cries to the black corn moon. You probably wont get it if you havent painted with the colors of the black wind.

This saison tastes like when the wolf cries to the black corn moon. You probably wont get it if you havent painted with the colors of the black wind.

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@newenglandbrew Fuzzy Baby Ducks, Fugly Bubbling Dougs, Funky Buzzing Dunks, Fumbly Bonky Dorks

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Man this single IPA has been ruining my life for upwards of three years. I remember this popped hot on the scene with twin desert eagles drawn back in 2012 just popping .50 shells into the trade boards, fucking with trade values like JadaKiss and D block. So after 2 and a half years I finally landed a growler of this elusive draft only quacker. Let’s see if other breweries have caught up with this world class peep in the intervening years.

DDB the realest ticker in it you already know, got sipper of the year 4 years in a row.

DDB the realest ticker in it you already know, got sipper of the year 4 years in a row.

New England Brewing Company
Single IPA, not doubles, no trips, 6.2% abv

A: This might have been revolutionary back when people were getting their BJ’s certified in 2012 and having a turbid IPA would DQ you like a blizzard. These days this is pretty legit and tame by modern standards since tired hands and Horny Trooplers make some of the slurriest yeasties this side of the game. It has substantial carb and it is quick to put two nines on your back like Wayne Gretzky.

tickers recognize and say DDB the truth and the IPA same color Donald Duck orange juice

tickers recognize and say DDB the truth and the IPA same color Donald Duck orange juice

S: This is an explosion of tropical scents, Donald Duck orange juice, tangerine rind, dry lingering citra aspects like a more ballerer Zombie Dust that doesn’t fade days after packaging. Really impressive and reminds me of a less Nelsony Pupil/Nelson. YAMEEN.

T: This follows the citrus profile in a substantial way, oily and sticky hops create a melange of grapefruit and pineapple that pulls the E brake and J turns into a resin alley. The finish has nothing akin to the opener, like that movie Inherent Vice. It closes with this aserose and pine, a resonant conifer on the swallow. WHERE DID THIS DOUGLAS FIR COME FROM.

Neo Englands y u do dis, ned moar cans pls, no more sea haggings

Neo Englands y u do dis, ned moar cans pls, no more sea haggings

M: I get surprisingly little duck on the mouthfeel, I wonder if they just dry hopped with infant ducks or if it was supposed to be in the boil. I can imagine the production costs would go through the roof, defending this against PETA, tossing live freshly hatched chicks directly into 150 degree sparge water. The mouthfeel closes dry thanks to the residual tufts of feathers and poached bills and tiny duck feet. It is exceedingly dry and oily, as is to be expected with a carnivorous IPA.

D: All duck jokes aside, this shit is so so so crushable. I drank this entire growler when I wrote that 1200 word 18th street sophmore saison review and got all manner of faded. I told my NEBCO hookup that a 32 ounce would be sufficient and just like getting pegged: BOY WAS I FUCKING WRONG. You could crush this all day while whipping up baking soda on a Foreman Grill. Someone needs to explain to me why they still bother canning that horrendous Sea Hag when this exists? Take all the money from G-BOT, cancel it, divert all funds into making nothing but this beer. No satire here, I am serious this is top tier, area dominating IPA without competition in the segment, unless Vermont starts flexing hard in the yard. This trades for absurd shit, not unlike Citra, and it is well worth it. I give this 9 out of 10 duck eggs.

DDB is the ticker that queefs in the night

DDB is the ticker that queefs in the night

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@18thstreetbrew Sophomoric Saison, A Categorical Examination of Farmhouse Values Attendant to Reflection

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Last week the owner of 18th street brewing and I had a discourse with an undercurrent of hostility and I elected to review another one of their offerings to determine if it was worth the $4.65 for a can of saison, or alternatively, if I am a huge prick.  The two may exist concurrently.  This offering is a collaboration with a brewery that I love, Arizona Wilderness, and I don’t know their interplay and I would rather judge this on its merits rather than throw rocks at trains and make dick jokes, the same tired Mikkeller finger pointing that this garbage blog usually embraces.  Let’s take a blank slate and examine the nature of examination itself in today’s review.

This is what the beer looks like

This is what the beer looks like

18th street Brewery, and perhaps some involvement with Arizona Wilderness, who knows

Saison with lime, 7.2.% abv.

A:  The beer is admittedly beautiful, in the way that anyone with a modicum of perception could decide for themselves.  Perhaps it isn’t beautiful, far be it for me to offer up prescriptive statements about the nature of beer.  To think this site would concurrently hold out a degree of aesthetic parameters and then ridicule the BJCP is laughable and lamentably sad at the same time.  If you enjoy what you see, as I do, then we are both simply damned, our appraisals as worthless as grains of sand worn down in ever cascading waves.

No number of trite references or watered down saison contrasts will ever best the begrudging realities of time or creation, Not even Shining Force.

No number of trite references or watered down saison contrasts will ever best the begrudging realities of time or creation, Not even Shining Force.

S:  I personally love the smell of this beer, the lime rind, the zest, the muddled citrus and lingering ester waft like a murky Brother Soigne, it easily justifies the price of entry, regardless of format or shithead blogger commentary.  The closer is bitter and dry on the nose akin to grapefruit pith but the entire experience is highly refreshing and never lacks depth like hundreds of words cast daily upon an immutable surface, feeble attempts to avoid the pressing weight of time.

T:  While no manner of validation can appropriate of enhance the value of anything created, the reverberate chorus can unflinchingly agree that this is delicious.  Perhaps one gets a bitter mandarin orange, kiwi, kaffir mint, muddle mojito lime, and a complex bready profile like sweet cornbread is not for this site to say, maybe you taste chocolate.  Who knows.  This entire endeavor is an exercise of futility and false hubris.

Alright, some Sega Genesis RPG references, baiting the readerbase like usual, keep it coming, phoning in the content, that cynical nostalgia carapace as thin as a Socratic discourse.

Alright, some Sega Genesis RPG references, baiting the readerbase like usual, keep it coming, phoning in the content, that cynical nostalgia carapace as thin as a Socratic discourse.

M:  This finishes dry with an intense lingering of key lime pie and slight yogurty creaminess that is very pleasant.  Reading any website to inform you about endeavors of personal experience is foolhardy from the inception.

D:  What is drinkable and enjoyable is an intensely personal journey and it would be futile to arrange a series of statements to tell you how to feel, you will find your own truth about a lime saison.  I can never raise your perception to the sublime nor can i degrade it from the tragic, I am a mere lifeguard shouting inaudibly from the banks with inconsequential gestures, maybe I throw a lime, who gives a fuck.  The very structure of reviews are inherently flawed and favor the creatives over the regressive.  Lena Dunham snowball loads right in your mouth.

none of this shit matters, just so long as 900 words are there. Self imposed goals adherent to no one. Same old bullshit

none of this shit matters, just so long as 900 words are there. Self imposed goals adherent to no one. Same old bullshit

Narrative:

The petulant blogger rests the wanting fingertips upon the worn keys of the laptop, lifeblood of existence.  The most recent offering still resonating upon the jawline, and the concepts attendant thereto, resonant and glaring balking for commentary, at least in the mind of that self important morass. While the lime and yeast danced platitudes, the underpinnings of accomplishment and creation were a secondary back biting from outside commentary. Try as one might, it remained entirely evident that the critic contributes nothing but a murky mirror, distorted and filtered, denaturing true art, pulling apart the seams at the expense of the whole garment. It ultimately draws paralells beyond the unknowable concept of “value” in life pursuits namely “can a critic ever serve a valuable purpose? can reflective criticism ever be art within itself? as the saison alludes, is criticism merely the zero calorie substitute for the danger and peril of actual creation?” The last point cuts the deepest and identifies an undercurrent in the shortcomings and feeling the lack of gravitas to one charged with criticism, namely perpetual commentary. The warmth of the farmhouse ale stands in ever more glaring contrast when the hollow shell of a commentator must contemplate ones own contributions, the attendant failures at countless endeavors, the sheer power of anonymity, the invulnerable shroud of caustic biting at the works of others, perpetual sand castle stomping while lacking the fortitude to ever lift a shovel in a meaningful way.

While cascading foam in unambitious circles, anyone can hammer out word counts to satiate the itch on a daily basis, this amorphous concept that somehow the secondary agent is pushing towards a teleological goal but knowingly remaining at the first pistol shot in true development, concerned with accomplishment but never committing to true meaningful assertion, caressing the easy content and swift praise but well aware that in almost every instance, the act of dissection can rarely rise above creation. Every saison sip a testament to the cold fingertips resting in inaction in a world of perpetual development.  In even the most lackluster brown ale lies the existence and essence predicated therein, no matter how bad, it is paint upon a canvas and there isnt the same true grade of value in acerbic dissection, no matter how knowledgeable.

The menthol smoke draped the tired IKEA furniture around the laptop.  All was still except the carbonation dancing mockingly in the glass.  Art and moreover living a meaningful existence predicated on anything worthwhile is, for most people a topic that is either never broached or properly addressed. The aluminum can, regardless of price, was a satyricon of discontent.  It underscored the nature of “contributions” but inspired concurrently with the gauntlet lain at the feet of all to see the shades and gradations of ability. Those who can do, and those who cant, etc., a million tired epithets, and watching the self reflective perpetual drag of uprising bubbles represented a million vignettes into wasted ability, every bursting c02 bubble a testament to the endless drag of chronology and the futility of commentary.

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@sudwerkbrew Funke Hop Farm, DRY HOPPED, barrel aged, lacto, BRETT SAISON HNNNGGGG

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Alright so I got to the bottom of things.  Before I reviewed anything from Sudwerk I was warned top to bottom from people who had been going to the pub itself for a long time.  The PUB not to be confused with the BOTTLED OFFERINGS, offers an inoffensive standard fare of bar food and the typical lineup you might expect from a local brewpub.  However, underneath the calm veneer of this establishment runs an undercurrent of talent and malignant ability.  These igneous plumes have only began to surface lately and spill their precious magma all over consumers, coating them in sheets of precious barrel aged obsidian.  So these are unlike anything you may have seen on BEERADVOCATE and their wealth of information, and represent the current direction of the brewery at large, so get some hot loads of aggie magma all over those man tits in today’s review.

A ganache barrel aged, dry hopped, brett saison. Inner thighs pounding so hard about to grow some farmhouse ovaries.

A grenache barrel aged, dry hopped, brett saison. Inner thighs pounding so hard about to grow some farmhouse ovaries.

BA Saison, 6% abv

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS BATCH 2, BATCH ONE COULD GARBLE RABBIT BALLS AND I WOULD HAVE NO IDEA.

Here’s the commercial tug job:

“Brewed with oats and wheat, and fermented out with two strains of saison yeast. It spends about six to nine months in an assortment of barrels-Petite Sirah, Grenache, Chardonnay-while being fermented with Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and a house yeast culture from their in-house solera system. It’s then blended with an all-Brett beer that’s barrel-aged separately, bringing in more tropical and guava notes. Oh, and it’s dry-hopped at 1.5 pounds per barrel with Simcoe, Nelson, and Citra.”

A:  Before I even poured this, I was like “this will be dead flat and then I can rip on this shit for being clearly a wild ale, I know how to read words, this will be nothing like a saiso-” and then billowy clouds of frothy carb sat there defiantly, forming upturned middle fingers in the foam, insulting my family line.  It looks murky and unfiltered, if this had a touch of the wheat tarbrush I wouldn’t be surprised.  I can’t parade out my typical NOT TO STYLE bullshit on this one, and that’s sad, those complaints eat up so many words, bringing me to ropey verbal completion so much faster.

you put a saison in an obscure wine barrel, and your name isn't Mystic, then my trap card gets activated so hard.

you put a saison in an obscure wine barrel, and your name isn’t Mystic, then my trap card gets activated so hard.

S:  This is unquestionably the best part of the beer and god damn, is it something to behold.  The triumvirate of the ultra juicy hops, the complete absence of any aserose aspects, the tart yogurt sharpness from the lacto, and dry closer from the brett make this huffable for days.  It is waves of tangerine, sliced clementines, those little Cuties that are wildly overpriced, fresh sliced honeydew and cantaloupe, it just smells radiant like some Ganiere Fructis shampoo.  SORRY IF YOU ARENT UP ON GAME AND STILL USE SUAVE ITS 2015 GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

ganache barrels are usually some divorcee tier component grapes that plastic dragonwomen talk about like "ITS LIKE PINOT AND THAT HOT NEW VINO CALLED MALBEC OMG SO TELL ME ABOUT HOW STAN IS MISTREATING YOU" shit like that

Grenache barrels are usually some divorcee tier component grapes that plastic dragonwomen talk about like “ITS LIKE PINOT NOIR AND THAT HOT NEW VINO CALLED MALBEC OMG SO TELL ME ABOUT HOW STAN IS MISTREATING YOU” shit like that

T:  This follows the foregoing smell but delivers a bit more of dryness and less of the fruit explosion.  It is very dry and crisp like an anjou pear with a manner of arugula grassiness to the closer.  If you enjoyed Dorothy and Alpha King, this will be well ensconced in your house of wheels.  It is refreshing and reminds me of Printemps with more wild ale inclinations.  While this doesn’t step full on into the Side Project sour saison realm, it is rubbing the tip dangerously close to the folds.  It is unquestionably sour but never stops your from drilling the entire bottle and palate fatigue never sets in.  That reminds me, I need to tick Lattice.  GOD DAMNIT THERE IS NOT REST IN THIS SAISON GAME.

M:  This is a touch thinner and drier than I would like, but other may find this to be a more exceptional aspect.  It finishes long and drops bits of tart lemongrass and grapefruit rind that, while awesome, seems to pull it away from that initial nose and the saison roots that made me draw the shades earlier.  Not every Tinder date with a 750ml is gonna hit the sheets ok, some take time, you gotta have that m’lady game, fedora tipping to the wild ale side with GENTLEMANLY RESPECT.

most these 2014 tickers think this BA saison shit is all about soaps and suds, ticker what

most these 2014 tickers think this BA saison shit is all about soaps and suds, ticker what

D:  This is unquestionably crushable.  I drank this while watching the limitlessly sad BITUTIFUL and drilled it while basking in Javier Bardem’s majesty.  You will accidentally the entire bottle, it will happen.  Don’t bother sharing this with anyone, let alone multiple people.  All that will do is generate 8 simultaneous UNTAPPD check ins that say shit like “tastes like farmhouses, is ok I guess, my 2oz pour was fine, not a good siason like Beautification, which was winner of the night.”

Just spare me that shit.

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Three Floyds Earl of Biggleswade, Early Contender for the Shittiest Beer of 2015

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This beer represents the nightmarish deception and manipulation of beer ratings that take place in beer trading. Last Dark Lord Day, this beer was putting up solid perfect scores and being touted as THE BEST DERK LERD DEVIANT EVR MADE LOWERST BOTTLE COUNT EVR. If you trust a dipshit who is excited about a Dark Lord variant because they made the least of it, you are already starting out on a bad foot.

Your next massive red flag is right on the bottle: Dark Lord aged in a brandy barrel with cardamom, coriander, and cacao nibs. Let that sink in for a moment and try to imagine the desperate hellish reality that those adjectives would produce when exposed in and around your mouth. Sure, the writing was clear on the wall, but I had no idea just how much worse things could get, especially after trying the indefatigably horrible BA Cognac Murete Dark Lord. It turns out, when I removed that sticky stone from the Satanic altar of distaste there was a chamber of eternal hatred below, with dizzying self flagellating depths.

Let’s get to this review and never look back.

The vast majority of this $50 raffle only bottle met its end at the bottom of my garbage disposal

The vast majority of this $50 raffle only bottle met its end at the bottom of my garbage disposal

Three Floydenens, Munster Indiana
Zombie Dust Whales, 15% Russian Imperial Stout

A: Well, so far so good, this has carbonation and the platonic form of flabbiness on the pour. It cascades out like brownie mix or Nestle QuiK made with heavy whipping cream. The sheeting is so intense that it looks like someone mixed a bag of dried malt extract in at bottling to beef this sludgey muckwater up a bit. This is the best part of this unearthly bottle.

Dark Lord traders are a refined sort of gentleman bandits, m'lady

Dark Lord traders are a refined sort of gentleman bandits, m’lady

S: The smell takes things from a spine tingling glance to the crushing depression of realizing that you have over 25 ounces of this to reconcile with your body. On the front end of things is an almost passable York peppermint patty, that distorts and melts into images of your children dying in their cribs, intense jasmine, Downey, Glade plug ins, dryer sheet, Indian ice cream, dry cleaning solution and Christmas morning where mommy leaves daddy for tennis coach mommy. It is intensely saddening on so many levels.

T: This affair gets far worse when you actually elect to put this inside of your body. If the smell was serving in the Luftwaffe, the taste is being a prisoner of the Red Army in the most torturous Stalingrad detainment center. The oily heft substance rolls onto your tongue like mercury, it has a sort of adhesion to itself in oblong orbs, like how lava lamp particles flow. Each one shatters in an inky mess like T1000 and runs over your sweet and bitter zones imparting the worst disharmonious clanging on your tastebuds possible. It is so sweet that it tastes like straight wort at times, sickening fudge from eastern European countries with strange items mixed in like anise and wormwood mixed in because Hungarians don’t know any better. It is herbal and chocolatey, clashing at every opportunity, its like going down on the husky chocolatier at a humid Renaissance Festival and you are forever scarred.

I don't know who can honestly open this and without hesitation enjoy their pour, even split 14 ways. It takes a very special type of beer drinker.

I don’t know who can honestly open this and without hesitation enjoy their pour, even split 14 ways. It takes a very special type of beer drinker.

M: The mouthfeel is completely inexcusable and you would have to have a serious deviant palate to indulge in this fetish. Regular Dark Lord is sweet and toes the line of salinity but this is just bad, like Community College performance of The Iceman Cometh, unabashedly deficient in so many ways. The viscosity is so high that it feels like it was component blended with unboiled mash, this egg soup heft to it that creep to your molars like coffee phlegm. To close things out, imagine if someone mad dirty bombs using materials only found at a Bath and Bodyworks. Herbal disgusting cluster bombs detonating and taking out anyone within a partisan radius.

D: This could not be less drinkable if it were a solid object. The second you try it, you have had enough. I let this open up, I tried it cold, luke warm, there simply was no remedying this situation. It’s like, you can take all the underattenuated sips you want, it wont change the fact that you had sex with the busboy at Golden Corral. Some flaws are so apparent that they cannot be forgotten. This is one such beer like the 1982 Bellevue that is exceptional in its sheer harrowing Kafkaesque presentation. If you have ever drank too much gin one night and awoke the next morning with that juniper bush tingling your bile ducts, you will know this beer by the trail of dead it leaves in its wake.

After escaping this permanent press tumble dry nightmare of a stout, I felt so tuff n hard as fuqqq

After escaping this permanent press tumble dry nightmare of a stout, I felt so tuff n hard as fuqqq

In closing, the fact that this beer was receiving solid perfect scores from deceitful, capitalizing, landlocked traders is outright shameful. It is in many ways worse than lying about an infected beer and trading it, THREE FLOYDS MEANT FOR THIS TO TASTE THIS WAY. Please look at these reviews immediately logged in after Dark Lord Day and revel in the top tier shitlords attempting to hype this beer up, then watch the precipitous drop once the rest of the world was exposed to this hateful contagion:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26/119203/

As much as I hate directing traffic to BA, that is where the top tier shitty content is generated and you simply must look at those ratings in cold consternation at the crushing pathos of the human condition. It is gut wrenching both figuratively and literally.

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I HAVE GOSE OPINIONS: Clickbait Bullshit from a Presumptive Dumbass

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Hot on the heels of sifting through mountains of derivative garbage about the HARD WAY and PEACH PUMPKIN BEER, we have this week’s incendiary bullshit for the beer scene to address with baleful contemplation:

A verbose article groundlessly objecting to Gose, by an uninformed dipshit

Now we can already take it as a solid premise that Thrillist is THE go-to spot for hot beer news. It is undisputed that this isn’t some shitty newsletter turned clickbait factory that pushes the consumeristic drives of the late 20’s male demographic. This is a company that purchased JACKTHREADS to ensure beer nerds have nicely tailored vests, corduroy suits, and email services to refer/mine any user data to drive readers into purchasing more and more shit that they don’t want or need: We are talking a srs authority on all things beer.

So who did they get to tackle this hot-button issue of GOSE RUINING THE ENTIRE CRAFT BEER SCENE? Zarathustra himself, JOE FUCKING KEOHANE. Now if you know anything about the beer world, this guy is practically the Jean Van Roy of beer palates and the neo-Charlie Papazian of unbridled beer knowledge. Thrillist would accept nothing less for a matter of such grave ethos and uncompromising importance. GOSE IS RUINING AN ENTIRE MARKET SEGMENT AND A NEEDLESSLY LENGTHY SERIES OF SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS WILL PROVE IT.

You knew Thrillist was serious, they don’t just toss content onto their site hoping to sell you shitty barware or gawdy apparrel, I mean, just look at the gravitas of this incredible exposé: THE 13 NAUGHTIEST THINGS YOU CAN DO IN ATLANTA

So we know the site has unimpeachable credibility in its intentions, but what about the monolith of authority, Mr. Joe Keohane, the master of all Cicerones?

Well not only does he have an extensive background in beer and beer culture (don’t worry, he doesn’t) he also has penned these gems:

A bunch of shit for Esquire magazine, none of which is about beer.

But we already know that Esquire themselves are the UNDISPUTED MASTERS OF BEER KNOWLEDGE

But enough about KNOWLEDGE and CREDENTIALS and EXPERIENCE, let’s examine why this one ignorant dumbass has predicated the death of all craft beer on hasty generalizations and opaque vapid observations. Let’s do that.

Joe Keohane might as well have written the entire article about Thundercats toys

Joe Keohane might as well have written the netire article about Thundercats toys

Alright so you get three solid entry paragraphs of fondant with a zero calorie breakdown of the history of craft beer, and then finally Mr. Keohane, grand vicar of all ales gives a sketchy history of the gose style. The entire article reads less like some derivative opinion piece and more like your mailman trying to tell you about this segment he saw on Hardcopy, and then does a shitty job of it. The author notes that he did some extensive research though, dont worry, “[he] went to three craft beer stores today in search of more varieties to cement (or rebut) [his] opinion, and the first two were completely sold out. The third had two left.”

Is the budget of the $1 billon Thrillist really that paper thin? IS the author really that fucking lazy? Then the entire article is drawn from a trip to three whole stores and then generalizations leveled predicated upon sampling TWO fucking goses? That would be like if I wanted to write a piece for Jezebel on male hegemony and privilege in the workplace and then I went to Barnes and Noble and looked at the covers of some Betty Friedan and Kate Millett books and called it a day.

Goses are like this Cheetara toy in that I don't know what the fuck I am talking about

Goses are like this Cheetara toy in that I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about

At its core, the author lacks the one thing that you would expect from an article about, well, anything: authority. If this were a shitty livejounral entry entitled “TODAY I TRIED A SALTY THING I DIDNT LIKE” we could dual list it under homoeroticism and stupid uninformed rant that you could readily dismiss. Instead it is presented as a legitimate inquiry into an entire style of beer and the mechanics of destruction attendant to an entire economy and culture. Or wait, maybe it is a horrible broad generalization about shit that the author has not idea about. Maybe the title served to drive up referral links, responses, and watered down alexa traffic to pump this shitlord of a website trying to sell you tacky Ben Sherman messenger bags. NAH I AM SUER THAT JOE KEOHANE TRIED HIS BEST THAT’S WHAT MATTERS.

In case you couldn’t tell by his run on sentences, multiple independent clauses and irrelevant comparisons to other areas of culture: Joe Keohane doesn’t know shit about beer and his opinion is as irrelevant as a 9th grader’s stance on sub-prime mortgages.

THe thing you need to know about gose is, well, this is a Mumra toy. I trust you see the clear parallel.

THe thing you need to know about gose is, well, this is a Mumra toy. I trust you see the clear parallel.

So taking that with a grain of gose, you can read laughably faulty logic like “If Gose was that worthy of so much excitement and attention from America’s world-class brewers and drinkers, we simply would have gotten to it by now” with a wry smile like seeing a Nascar fan in the adult literacy school: he is just trying his best. Because that’s what craft beer is, a sweaty neckbeard with a clipboard just combing through old styles to revitalize, AND WE JUST DIDNT GET TO GOSE FAST ENOUGH. Shit why not “SAISONS HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR CENTURIES THEY HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO BECOME POPULAR BUT THEY ARENT AS POPULAR AS IPAS THEREFORE, HERE ARE 900 WORDS OF MISGUIDED BULLSHIT, MY OPINION PRESENTED AS LEGITIMATE RESEARCHED FACTS.”

credit: wired.com

Thrillist owner Ben Lerer discusses how to get people to buy shitty sneakers and how Joe Keohane desrves a raise

I don’t mind if someone is an ignorant dipshit, as long as they are entertaining. IF they are not entertaining, then at least be informative. If not informative, at least be well written. Joe Keohane is the furthest bottom right segment of the Punnett square of beer writing, comletely undesirable recessive traits: boring, unfunny, incorrect, shitty writing presented from a pulpit of stern earnestness. It really is as bad as the beer game gets.

I guess in being exceptionally shitty Joe Keohane can show us all how to draw tired irrelevant parallels to Prince and foodie culture, and in the sheer lack of merit, we are all edified by peering at how trifling beer journalism can be.

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Tioga Sequoia Brewing, Piece of Cake, THE CAKE IS NOT A LIE, GLADOS.

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“This brewery only release from this brewery in Fresno is really tasty” is a sentence I didn’t think I would ever get to type like, “when I saw his collection of Katana swords, I knew we were going to fuck.”

I initially was highly circumspect of a SPECIAL RELEASE from these guys since, their blueberry saison was an exercise in cyclopean terror and GENERAL SHERMAN tastes like heavy ropes of jizz shot onto a pile of wet pinecones. BUT OH BOY WAS I WRONG. This beer is really fucking good, and not a single person cares about it, just how I like my reviews: ESOTERIC AND UNRELATEABLE.

I got the longest road if you nomsayin

I got the longest road if you nomsayin

Tioga Sequoia Brewing, Fresno CA
7.2% abv milk/sweet stout

The commercial reach around:
“This elegantly delicious sweet stout was created to be the perfect dessert beer. We age our chocolate milk stout on freshly ground coffee, Madagascar vanilla beans, and toasted coconut to represent a similar flavor experience to a German Chocolate Cake. When you find yourself looking for something different, grab a Piece of Cake!”

A: This looks elegant and dances playfully, evidencing its sweet stout roots, ducking and dodging with beige foam that clings and drags like a drink from Starbucks, without dipshits writing tired screenplays on their Macbooks. The dark hues reveal milk chocolate browns at the edges that appears highly drinkable without residual sugars staining the glass or dragging ass all over the place.

Listen, you dont need your stouts to be hard as fuck, sometimes a thin classy approach is just fine.

Listen, you dont need your stouts to be hard as fuck, sometimes a thin classy approach is just fine.

S: This has a phenomenal nose of coconut, massive coffee, vanilla, waffle cone, snickers, and dry roasty finish. I was expecting this to be some C6h12o6 massacre but it surprisingly dry and toasty, with an almost mineral chalky finish to the nose that is oddly welcoming and makes it feel crisp and clean in light of the sweet aspects. Really solid through and through.

Until you hit some 559 breweries, you wont evn know real beauty

Until you hit some 559 breweries, you wont evn know real beauty

T: This leads first with the coffee foot in a massive way. This shocks me to no end because, I have searched HIGH AND FUCKING LOW for good coffee in Fresno. I looked at all the Yelp reviews and there’s a place called REVUE, that doesn’t even have coldbrew/kyoto/Chemex/v60/pourovers and THAT IS IT. So where did this phenomenal coffee come from? Surely not the Yuban drinking contingency of the 559, I can assure you that much. The vanilla and coconut aspects play in tandem cascading like almond joys and Kit Kats, but the whole affair never because too oily/sweet/sticky/decadent. The taste is more like a robust porter in execution because you dont get that sickening glucose/lactose finish that is present in some sweet stouts. It is so balanced and finishes long and toasty. Again, it is like a baby BA Speedway, a sessionable BCBCS of sorts.

M: This may be what carries the day for this Central Valley banger, the finish and swallow never lingers and its strangely refreshing in a segment dominated by beers with 1.040+ finishing gravity. The watery aspect kinda reminded me of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald but with a ton more going on thanks to the adjuncts. “THANKS TO THE ADJUNCTS” is another sentence fragment you hardly get to read around here but, well twist my nutsack, there it is.

Top ten downtown skyline, easily.

Top ten downtown skyline, easily.

D: This is highly crushable and sufficiently complex to avoid slipping into that ho hum Founders Porter sort of realm. This is an aberrant offering relative to the rest of this brewery’s catalog and I can only hope this is indicative of things to come. I think this was like 700 bottles but, I cant imagine people are hoarding or being covetous of this gem. The only issue is, I have no fucking idea where you will find a Fresno trader, their beer distribution is like Alabama-tier and I think there are like 5 traders in that city of 600,000+. In closing, BC’s Pizza is amazing, thanks Fresno for your top-tier Hmong gangs and exceptional coffee stouts.

Hey, for fun check out this site:
www.FRESNOBEER.com

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The Bruery Mango Hottenroth, A Lackluster Jaunt Down the Produce Aisle of Sighs

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Today we have a Hoarders only bottle that people were writing fanficiton about all year, just waiting for this banger to drop. All fucking year we witnessed other west coast breweries parade out reasonable ABV wild ales, fruited goses, fruited berliners, DOUBLE FRUITED sours. Each impatient dipshit in the Hoarders crew longingly shook a snowglobe and waited and waited for this beer to drop. FINALLY WORD CAME! HS ballers would get a single. bottle. with their membership. To prevent people flipping over Priuses in the streets of Placentia, another bottle was available for purchase. A single. bottle. The anticipation ran high and, with a crisp fulfilling base beer, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Well strap yourself into that sex swing and prepare for that mango to get plenty bruised in today’s review.

Them tropical tones on blast, looking all Naked/Kerny

Them tropical tones on blast, looking all Naked/Kernsy

The Bruery, Placentia
3.2% abv, Berliner with Mango

A: This is a messy, turbid affair that wears the mango guts proudly like an ornate sash of pulp and frothy flotsam. It isn’t particularly beautiful, but regular old Hotty didnt have a pilates body either. The carb exits almost upon inception, a wry tip of the hat as if to say “we lived in the bottle for long enough as it is, good luck with this one, Mango Hotty is a hot mess.” There is no lacing, no cling, just you and this second runnings from the Jamba Juice blender. A Petite Smootheeiere`

S: The nose is undeniably mango, tropical life savers, Haribo peach rings, yes yes, that is all present. Apricot Jolly Rancher even? Sure. The problem is not within the mango funzone, it is within the dark undercurrent of odd happenings that clearly were not invited and are stretching the expanse of a +1 roster. You get a sort of lemon meringue, alright not standard but, wait is that egg? Hold on, sulphur? Detonated fireworks? WHO LET THESE INTO THIS HERETOFORE AMAZING BEVERAGE? The whole thing closes with a sort of “bottle shock” note that makes it seem like, despite waiting so long to release this bottle, the March 31 pickup date pushed this to be released too soon. And DDB, like a stupid asshole wants to have the first review up, so I opened mine far too soon. Let’s move on.

Drop molly with your pet otter, pop a bottle of this, anything goes. taste colors.

Drop molly with your pet otter, pop a bottle of this, anything goes. taste colors.

T: Things continue to get weird from here on in, theres some apricot fruit leather and a brackish spray like riding a clementine orca over a sea of Donald Duck Orange Juice EVERYTHING IS AMAZING- until you swallow. The clinging pulpy barbs leave an odd “Bubbilicious chewed way too long” sort of cling and a waxiness like those opaque candy bottles with juice inside of them. Something just seems, not quite right. It isn’t exactly sick or ropey or phenolic, none of that, but it feels kinda like I am sipping a molten mango Yankee Candle. The whole affair is circumspect and breaches the expectations of “Yeah I love Hottenroth, just put mango in that shit, alright, let’s get this done.”

M: This is crushable and drinks like an odd variant of Vitamin Water. It is crackly, crisp and dry, leaves a tannic presence along the gumline and leaves nothing to be desired in this realm. It never becomes too acidic or sweet and cloying. The weird eggy taste along the back palate is strange and I can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for it, if you like Mango Oikos Greek Yogurt, you will love this untameable Rancor.

The Bruery's reaction when I saunter in after this review.

The Bruery’s reaction when I saunter in after this review.

D: I can’t pretend to know what happened here. This seemed like a simple enough task but things just did not work out as expected. You take your Civic Si in for a new timing belt, suddenly it has a wet fogger system and isnt street legal and runs in a less than satisfactory fashion. Hottenroth is simple as shit and people love it. Adding mango to this should have been a plug and play affair but this thing has spoilers and sideskirts and all manner of shit that seems to have overly complicated the whole execution. This is by no means a bad beer, it isn’t a drainpour, and if you split it at a massive Indiana backyard share the untappd single digit reviews would rain like Phoenician arrows. It is a disappointment though, given the high hopes, delays, anticipation and fanciful imagination of beer nerds everywhere. Perhaps the promise of unbridled deliciousness were unfair from the inception, maybe Trevor put out way too many fucking tasty De Garde BU’s and people just assumed this would be the same way. I don’t know, it is Friday don’t you have better things to do than read this shit? It has to be 25 cent wing night SOMEWHERE.

SHAMELESS APOLOGIST SIGNING OFF.

I wear many hats around here.

I wear many hats around here.

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@thebruery Port Barrel Black Tuesday, Poppin Tannins like when Postmenopausal Baes hit the club and Order Grenache

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Well it only took a solid 6 years for the Bruery to start rolling out a series of BT variants, but now we are swimming in them. We did rum, did madeira, but what about this vinous banger? This is a wildly different romp in the barrel and comes across more like the missing link between regular ass Black Tuesday and Wineification, WINUS ERECTUS. Let’s squeeze them grapes in today’s review and get lazier than a Portugese government employee

Fully turnt popping them big BALs at Kern River.

Fully turnt popping them big BALs at Kern River.

Placentaville, OC, CA
The Bruery, 18.1% abv

A: Pepper your angus, this looks exactly like 2014 BT. You know, the same nimble, clean, balanced 19.5% stout that is the best vintage since 2009. That BT. The carb is on point and gives deep dark mocha foam and jet black countenance that looks slick and more attenuated than other beers with half the abv. It drops it low in a three point stance and errybody in the brewery watching it pop them porty hips for dollars.


WARNING: u betr b alfa as fukkkkk to enjoy this beer.

S: This takes a radical departure into a realm that is not even BT really and feels like it could be it’s own beer given how deviant it is contrasted to the normal bourbon barrel treatment. There is a massive grape and red fruit aspect to it, intense merlot oak, drunk your aunt’s kisses at Thanksgiving, this beer can run through your whole team like Jerome Bettis. There is a Welch’s grape meets muddled raspberry. It is unquestionably the most fruity execution of BT this side of straight up Wineification.

18% abv, flexing hard in the trap, no keys, push to start shit

18% abv, flexing hard in the trap, no keys, push to start shit

T: The nose had the fruit and this executes in a massive port, sherry, carmelized blackberry, currant, and lingers on and on with chocolate like those cherries coated in chocolate, CORDIAL TONES. This doesn’t tread so deeply into the wine world ala Wineification itself but it sure straddles the fencepost between the two plots of land and grinds on them boards. The oak profile is the driest BT of them all, and while Madeira is the easiest to slam due to balance, this has the sheer depth and apeshit execution that would make a Sommelier start talking about degassing and floculation, running that grid all half mast.

M: This is intensely crisp and makes the regular BT seem relatively flabby by contrast, it is bone dry and leads with those grape skins. Jellys jams and dry french oak round out this chocolate desert. It is a phenomenal beer to let open up to near room temp and huff it hard. Rolling with Port BT is like pulling up with two bad bottles with you, molly and Aquafina.

Only the hardest in the game need apply.

Only the hardest in the game need apply.

D: This isn’t quite in the straight crushable Madeira range, but the dryness is what you receive in return. You are awarded a degree of complexity that takes that massive stout which may seem unwieldy at first blush, yet becomes drillable very quickly. For better or worse, you might drink this and buy all kinds of shit on Amazon and not remember it. Don’t act like you didn’t want the DVD collection of every season of Small Wonder. This beer just helps you achieve your latent dreams. Shotgun a pull of BCBS and then mouthkiss a Williams and Sonoma tier plastic divorcee from Santa Barbara and you just got the full Port BT experience. Oh you taking her home but you gotta move that carseat first. IT IS ALL WORTH IT.