It seemed like just yesterday Booker’s used to turd it up for $49 and now regular old rocket fuel ⛽️ Noesauce is $80+. And like a Metamucil fetishist, there’s far fewer dumps but they are more consistent. Then Booker’s 25th came along and people started getting wise to my old workhorse bourbon. B25 is one of my top ten favorite bourbons ever so imagine my nutsack elasticity when I heard five years had already passed: Booker’s 30 was here. People went into vapor lock when b25 was $110 but lick the staves in reverence to drop almost double that for b30, or quadruple that secondary. The machine of excess and diminishing returns hums along. Call bud light because I’m pretty sure they put corn 🌽 in this. I traded a 2015 Lot B for this and have zero regrets because it is exceptional and LOL to actually opening a Lot B amirite. The first pour of this lit up my chest like ET but subsequent drams have been amazing. This new bourbon was put together by mingling 9-year-old (70% of the blend) and 16-year-old (30% of the blend) but we are almost in a state where age statements don’t even indicate sheer quality thanks to Diageo. The 125pf drinks thinner and gentler than even the knob creek special releases, Darjeeling tea, peanut brittle, red hots, leather and construction paper, with a dry depth that feels like it’s old enough to vote. The mouthfeel is slick and oily with a hot tamales and nutmeg aspect. If GTS is a sinewy jock, this is its artistic younger brother. It swings harder than the bottles in the same realm let alone complete overhyped bottles like eagle rare 17 or Saz18 that cost twice as much. Some of y’all never grew up drinking cask strength Booker’s and it shows. #bookers #bourbon #anniversary #juice #whiskey #corn

http://bit.ly/PastryDawgs

I usually give you a recap of the episode as a sizzle reel, but this batch of @maltcoutureddb is probably top 3 for me. Nathan playing flag football, smoking crack at Characters, Matt Garcia from @homagebrewing as Rachel Leigh Cook: that’s the first 15 mins, and the @prairieales madness made for such a ridiculous episode. If you are here for the memes and never listen to the pod, this episode is damn good. Link in bio. #podcast #beer #craftbeer #rarebeer #instabeer #okbeer #comedy

http://bit.ly/BarleywineIsLifeBARLEYBATTLE

We drank M vs Adwtdb3 vs Anabasis

Then paired it with McDonald’s.

These @prairieales DAWG bottles tend to be consistently ape shit. 🦍 the introduction of free for all additions has led to some truly ridiculous beers where chunks are the norm and floaters are de rigeur. While not as thiccc as the likes of Angry Chair [rip everyone laying outside their brewery this morning] the sheer crushing reliance on additives makes them push the envelope even further. It’s almost like there was no professional overseer guiding guy pushing peeps and combos and pretzels into those tragic staves. This beer was so intense in every direction of the flavor wheel you would need either an incredible black patent bitter offset or a lengthy

casking to add any semblance of balance to these punchline blends.

The beer drinks like melted moose tracks ice cream. I mean that in a literal sense, that dairy swish and cling, the viscosity of Quik, the completely masking of any beer tastes. The entire affair reminds me of corporate chain fast casual dining where they invariably have a milkshake with kahlua or baileys added. It’s like, you clearly don’t like the taste of alcohol and aren’t trying to actually drink, just have a sundae. You don’t need to get an HJ and ride a Ducati at the same time. Both are valid experiences and we don’t need to conflate this Coldstone cunnilingus. #icecream #beer #floats #rarebeer #oklahoma #barreaged #okbeer #beerreview #instabeer #beerstagram

http://bit.ly/BeerSnobbinWhaleMail

In honor of the upcoming 2/1/19 Schubas live show in Chicago we have a very special bonus episode with the lambic master and dumpling destroyer: BEER SNOBBIN!

We talk Old whales and old beer trades, geueueuze pairing and everything in between!

@dark_sky_brewing is another moving part in the fantastic modernization of the Arizona beer scene and this is the best beer that I have had from them. Their stouts are robust and finish clean, even too svelte for some tastes. This neg in the batterworld is a fantastic quality for their barrel aged quad. Tipping the scales at a lithe 9.5%, it remains entirely drinkable and aligns gracefully with the ester and yeasty profile of those transatlantic gems from two decades ago. The phenolic VTEC kicks in at higher temps and you get waves of dark fruit, figs, prunes, fruit leather, currant and a nice old fashioned swallow that increasingly seeks to dock in the barleywine port of call. The carb has great sustain and you can smash this with careless Belgian abandon. There isn’t exactly a huge segment of competition for barrel aged quads, so when one comes along and pulls together the classic nanner and yeast profile and reconciles it with cask aged depth, the result is awesome and noteworthy. If you enjoyed the likes of @centralwaters bb quad or @voodoobrewery ba quadfather, you are in capable Arizonan sunburned hands with this offering. #quad #4×4 #belgium #azbeer #arizonabeer #beerizona #instabeer #beerstagram #beernerd #barleywineislife #dryjanuary #smashbros

@clayfu.wine told me that Oregon had some Konami Code heaters that could serve as a Shasta White Burgundy. The issue is that some of these god damn Willamette Valley bottles cost as much as actual Chablis or Pouilly-Fuissé AOC. Whatever I guess I could have spent $29 on some V bucks or a few Baconators. I’m sure @matthewluczy shudders. The good news that will shatter the hearts of old vineboys is that this is really good and comparable to the old world chards without the stupid buttery nonsense that is all the rage in second marriages and vino painting nights. This almost falls closer to extremely mineral driven lambic with those extremely dry chalky swallow along the mandible and Granny Smith Apples, anjou pear 🍐 and a construction paper structure. More @gueuzetilquin less 3F if u nomsayin. The swallow is longer when it warms like pineapple cake and a fun refreshing piece to gush over and talk about how Kaitlynn is doing IVF and how Skyler’s daughter is going to start doing voice acting. That type of “anniversary at Ruth’s Chris” type of existence. #winetasting #winelover #winery #winetime #whitewine #instawine #winecountry #winelovers #winetasting #wineaddict #winetime #winepairing #mywinemoment #winewednesday #winedownwednesday #winesofinstagram #wineoclock #winemaker #winemaking #wineoftheday #winestagram

http://bit.ly/TheGreatLabelLockdown

batch 31 of @maltcoutureddb is now on draft: TTB LABEL LOCKDOWN. Beers from @threechiefsbeer and @hoofheartedbrewing and @newglarusbrewing and more! We delve into what Mr BATTLE is up to now that he isn’t approving labels. Warren G! Cheating in High School! A 🦆 for a president! #beer #podcast #instabeer #beerstagram #rarebeer #ttb #governmentshutdown #furlow

Last year’s [regular old] Straight Jacket had a paradigm shift of sorts. The Chicago sleeper used to enjoy long rests on shelves in distro but with a tectonic palate shift now embracing all things Barley: Rolos are now part of the milieu. So last year I know they back blended 30% of the inimitable VSOJ to temper the usual sweetness and the oaky depth was evident. As a result, the usually tame release last year was a packed house that sold out variants. Then @revbrewchicago really lit themselves up by canning VSOJ, and suddenly even bluntpalate London ale III boys were interested. As a result cans of that now flip for $40 and we are witnessing cracks in the firmament. But ROSJ is our bulwark. Surely there’s too much of it for shitlord flippers to poison this water hole. Well get ready for a snake 🐍 in your boot 🥾 because this year has even more oak and way less of the residual toffee sweetness. It feels older and older and I suspect they @fremontbrewing this with some 18 month barrels stepping on that fresh brown sugar powder. The nose has a Darjeeling dryness, lacquer, planed lumber. It feels far older and in a way reminds me of that eagle rare 17 where you suspect there’s far older casks being blended in. The taste has some bananas fosters and then gives the stage for leather, allspice, hardcandies, and bread pudding. Mouthfeel is slick and the oiliest this side of Very Special orange juice. It has a heft unlike the other barleyesque deep wood offerings and the entire affair aligns with the likes of Barrel Aged Behemoth 2 year, blurring the line between the American cask and English base beer, the way the best barleywines always do. It’s absolutely hilarious that this is in cans and it almost feels like some Earth First activist taking a loss to spread the gospel. This beer requires contemplation and shouldn’t be this mobile or accessible. Rev continues to completely subvert the market and like the Mars Volta of malt, almost aesthetically shames everyone else into improvement by way of contrast. I don’t even want to play bass anymore. #barleywine #bil #barleywineislife #chicagobeer #chicago #revolution #instabeer #beerstagram #bourbon #barrelaged

Let’s just get this out of the way up top, this is vastly better than this years @revbrewchicago regular old ryeway which was a touch disappointing in light of last years stellar performance. There’s a Thanos balance to the Deep Wood program, it’s always solid but spikes of greatness provide the inertia to bring us back to center. Balance in all things. Mineshaft was good but the [regular old] SJ last year with the 30%vsoj back blended In completely set the curve. This year’s ryeway was nice but then you have this insane Big Boss shattering the Raiden class average. It’s darkkk with tons of molasses and maple, very saturated in those sticky staves with pecan and almond skin to balance the sweetness. There’s a kinda dusty cracked walnut providing light bitterness as an offset. Pie filling isn’t what this beer is all about and at its malty core is a throbbing interior of prune and fig. I know nothing about the spirit profile in the French brandy other than it’s made with disgusting grapes and straight up gilded age capitalist/retirement home juice. Apparently it has some properties to propel Urkel to Stefan when it enters that chamber. It’s hard to believe that the spicy wafty swallow of regular ryeway shares the same base beer lineage as this exists as a vast improvement. The body is surprisingly restrained in light of the Marie Callendar’s lineup iterated above. The nose bursts with cassia bark and almost reminds me of a Sazerac in a way, the New Orleans cocktail, not the laughably overpriced BTAC rye. Carb is nice but unsurprisingly is lovingly sheeted away by the massive legs like some fusel zambonie. The swallow could be a touch longer but increased viscosity would take away from how focused the entire beer is and we don’t need Marty ripping open bags of DME and going full Floridian on us. In sum this is a fantastic experience that bends genre conventions from the parade of British confectionary toffee caramel parade we see in the core barleybang experience. I wish I had more because this is absolutely well done and my little pecayunes won’t detract from this decadent gem.

Also buy tickets to the 2/1/19 malt couture show live at Schubas!

http://www.lh-st.com/Shows/02-01-2019+Malt+Couture+Live