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Selin’s Grove IPA, Backwoods Pennsylvania Taking Hops Right to Your Dome Piece

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IPA week chugs along with another fantastic draft-only offering. Hell if Taco Bell can do a world class burrito bowl, I figure I can try my hand at rating a world class IPA. Back in yesteryear this was on the top 100 and haunting the top IPAs but it has since subsided into relative anonymity BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT ISN’T AMAZING. Let’s get after it in today’s review

Mashing out on growler only gems, on the reg.

Selin’s Grove Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States
American IPA | 7.00% ABV

A: There is a nice translucence with brassy straw meets gold hues. The carbonation, despite being shipped thousands of miles, is still holding strong and flexes hard with moderate lacing. You might be partial to some off shelf selections, but sometimes you gotta walk in someone else’s liver.

This beer reminds me of simpler IPA times, when Ruination was enough to turn your bitter zones inside out like a Gusher’s commercial.

S: The smell was actually pretty tame and almost went a light honey route with some grassiness and playground romping. There’s a dull lemon rind but nothing really blasting my face off with hop oils. Perhaps there is a precision in execution like a trebuchet, but again, for a world class IPA, I would say Sculpin rustles my jimmies more than this.

T: The taste is even more tame and pops a percocet and slides you a small saucer of light citrus, pale malt, creamy middle body like a baked biscuit with a bitter finish. This isn’t something that makes me lose it, and with a 2 liter serving size, I am positive I got my fair share.

I was expecting the R8 of the IPA world and instead got the A4. Which is still nice, but I don’t see Tony Stark drinking this IPA is all I am saying guize.

M: The mouthfeel is incredibly light and washes away clean. There is a sweetness to it with barely any lingering hops. The dank hop oils might be lingering somewhere in there but it feels more watery and refreshing like an alcoholic’s sports drink more so than a big hop warhead. Maybe I am just too demanding, MAYBE I AM JUST LIKE MY BREWER, he’s never satisfied. This is what it sounds like, when hops cry.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable, slick and watery and obliges the dancefloor amiably with a waxed surface of water and pine hops, and that is about it. Consuela has done an expert job pulling off the balance between an impressive IPA and something you can drink at the lake. In the end, nothing I would lose my oils over, just leaves me with blue cones.

This is an amiable delicious IPA that anyone can get their mouth on. However, this gentle demeanor makes it less memorable, even the Mouth of the South would agree.

Narrative: Narrative: “I hate yearbooks” you grit your teeth and attempt to conjure up a page worth of something to commemorate all the good times with. “WHATTT WHO HATES YEARBOOKS, TYLER JUST WRITE WHAT YOU FEEL!” You know that Geometry was fun, that the pranks were the best, but what do you say to a person in a single yearbook page to sum up all the good times? How do you commemorate the fading visions of the past? Suddenly it clicks and your pen cannot keep up with your Dostoyevskian insight, eevery phrase parsed perfectly, with Hemingway precision, terse but fantastically executed, insightful self referential quotes fold into themselves like mitochondrial membranes, you scribble out your signature and hand it to her. “You wrote ‘I cant believe that they closed Hot N’ Now’? And then signed it with someone elses name? What does this mean Tyler?” She doesn’t get it, you flip your aviators and walk away, you are too bad ass for memories, too bad ass for yearbooks, and you sure don’t need to spend your life living on a semiglossy page. You are Tyler and you live in the moment. The smell of the IROC tires lingered in the air, peppering the masses for effect.

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Lawson’s Finest Liquids Double Sunshine,

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IPA WEEK kicks off with a bang, this old hoppy gem from Vermont. I know what your worries are “WILL THIS ENTIRE WEEK BE FOCUSED ON VERMONT AND CALIFORNIA?” I can assuage your concerns, we will jump around the map, never you fear. This beer is sold at a Farmer’s Market and in 2 other stores in Vermont and…that’s about it. Hopheads near and far blast their oils when they get their hands on this one, so let’s see if it rustles any cones in today’s review.

I am two stepping on double sunshine, wooo ohhhh.

Lawson’s Finest Liquids
Vermont, United States
American Double / Imperial IPA | 8.00% ABV

A: This has a nice radiant glow and the malts have been assembled with loving care. I would imagine this is a step with Beatrice up through the rings into hop heaven. The lacing is as generous as Good Will and hands out sticky dank doilies to all the 7th graders. It is indeed a very pretty beer and alluring to even the most adverse to hop character.

Dear God, please don’t let Vermont gems become unattainable due to hypetrain ticket holders. Also, more abalone. Amen.

S: The nose is vindicating for the old stigma of “balanced” East coast IPAs as it is more unbalanced than an Arizona State fashion student. There’s a huge tangelo, tangerine, grapefruit and deep citrus rind. You get a nice pine needle on the back end, but it stays in its place and lets the adults talk in peace.

T: The citrus character is sadly more tame than the nose would suggest, bait and switch harder than Piranha 3DD. There’s a bit of orange zest and sticky hop oils but it turns and kicks your aserose and starts grinding your pine cones like a high school prom. I love the pineapple but the whole maple leaf and grassy resolution leaves something to be desired in the third act.

At first I wasn’t sure what was going on with this one, but then it all became abundantly clear.

M: The mouthfeel is watery and light, exactly as it should be. There’s a bit of a filling and drying from the aggressive hops, but this isn’t my first alpha acid rodeo and I can ultimately mutton bust this lil hop wrangler pretty easily.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable, amazing for the style but ultimately falls short of the crowded “best of” list. To be fair, any double IPA offering will be hard pressed to shoulder the ranks with Citra, Ephraim, etc. I really like it, I really dislike trading for it since there is so little of it. Again, it’s scaled economies so if you live in VT and have ready access to this, grease up your hop hole and slide this one in.

After I tasted that pine profile, the consequences were never the same.

Narrative: The traveling apothecary show was going poorly for the Brackensons. Stop after stop they would set up their charlatan charade and plant members of the family to be cured in the audience, per usual. In the year 2012, this kind of snake oil salesmanship took a certain panache and aplomb to trick the discerning customers of backwoods Vermont. The Econolinevan idled as Chauncy packed a bunch of tiny green cones into a medicinal bottle and scrawled some high handed panacea aspects upon it. “Come one come on all, try here and only here, the cure of SPAM in your inbox, cure for mortgage refinance woes, GOUT, and other afflictions!” Father Briggs called into his megaphone and brought up his planted cousin from the crowd. She took a deep pull of the sticky resinous liquid and was instantly cured of all afflictions, imagined or otherwise. Those chicanerous old Brackensons went and accidentally stumbled upon a vinuous grassy potation that could solve all kinds of dilemmas. Now if they could only find a hop pun that was not already used by a ton of other mediocre companies, they would be set.

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La Trobe Brewing (InBev) Rolling Rock Extra Pale, Because That Trans Am Won’t Fix Itself

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Have we hit rock bottom yet? Are you feeling neglected? Man, looking back on those days when we were drinking Duck Duck Gooze seems pretty good right now, right? Well get off your high horse because I am going to smash your stones in today’s Rolling Rock Rick Rocking Review

“Wait, I am not sure if he has really even landed Rolling Rock, dubious stock photo.”

Rolling Rock American Adjunct Lager 4.6% abv

A: The appearance looks like a very pale honey with thin light straw clarity. If you pour it incredibly hard you get to witness a few fleeting seconds of wispy carbonation, which is no doubt a hindrance when you wanna be slamming this beer all hard. The appearances isn’t enough to roll my rocks, maybe a light polish.

With reviews like this, I just sit and look out the window waiting for the old Fedex truck to save this beer review site.

S: There’s some zest with a bit of bread, obviously corn notes throughout. However, in its defense I must say that this is a pretty standard example of this, almost inherently flawed, genre. Sure Reality Czech is better, and Humulus Lager makes it look bland by comparison, but what about those days in the security lock up because she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut and how the hell are you supposed to know when unemployment runs out anyway?

T: That taste is similar to, of course, corn, cooked sweet potato, mild lemon zest, lemon bread(?) and mild bread notes. Even since the transfer of ownership in 2006, it has a slightly different cinnamon finish, nothing to rock you off of your rocker. My rocker remains fully in tact, as does my home, which I own. Most Rolling Rock drinkers cannot say the same. I guess this is a “fancy” beer at < $1.00 per bottle, which if you served this as your UFC soiree your Peruvian friends would polish their monocles on their AFFLICTION tees.

M: This has a ghostly non-existent mouthfeel. It haunts for a moment and finishes in a watery refreshing swallow. I have a hard time knocking this beer for its various faults when it delivers on its critical fronts. Sure, every Pennywise album sounds the same, but if you crave the latent similarity and that predictable notes, it delivers amiably. The same applies with this old workhorse. This might be my favorite aspect of this beer, the base predictability and almost unerring inability to get you too drunk.

D: This is the. Most. Drinkable. Beer. Ever. I know I will upset scores with this rating but this has been a mainstay and always will be. Every other aspect is incredibly flawed but I cannot downgrade the drink ability of this beer and I challenge highbrow aficionados to deny its muted, watery, refreshing character. Sure it comes are the cost of appearance, smell, and taste; but if you want a lopsided ass experience, this wacky amputee will provide you with hours of fun.

Don’t like reviews of adjunct lagers? COME AT ME BRO.

Narrative: Just another day at the Latrobe Waterpark, day in day out. Same water rushing through the same pipes, same heat, same dingy finish, yet, each summer the staff felt fulfilled. Sure, it was a cheap gig, no one felt exceptionally proud as a Wild Aqua waterpark attendant, but it paid for just enough Steel Reserve in the evenings to make the oppressive days worthwhile. Sure you get the occasional obese pre-teen exhibiting his rebellious nature coming down backwards. It was a mild hell, with mild rewards, but long term sustainability. Maybe a girl gets felt up in some dank bushes, ah to be 15 again and reeking of Polo Sport and dirty water. Sure you get 100 patrons in a day urinating in the fetid pools, adolescents having tawdry affairs in the bushes, and a thousand forgettable days, however, some days the employees would look left to right and realize how good they had it. “STOP NO RUNNING, ALSO STOP URINIATING WHILE RUNNING, THANK YOU FOR NOT RUNNING NOW STOP URINATING!” Just another solid Sunday in July.

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Ommegang Gnomegang, A Gang of Bangarang Tangs Bang and Slang this Gnome Gang

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Here’s a throwback from the days when off-shelf offerings were considered acceptable for beer review sites. When all the other beer review blogs thought it was super acceptable to force their friends listen to their review of Sam Adams Boston Lager, those days. Grin and bear it, we have another theme week coming up that will make up for all this pageantry. Be a solid bro.

I couldn’t find a picture of that stupid bottle, it has the Le’Chouffe guy with an Ommegang background or something. Who cares, here’s a picture of S’More Tuesday.

Brewery Ommegang
New York, United States
Belgian Strong Pale Ale | 9.50% ABV

A: Hazy yellow with lots of wheat particulates, huge carbonation from the bottle, after you wrestle open the draconian Ommegang cork that extends deep into the bottle. Moderate lacing and straw notes all around. I once opened one of these at a comedy show and it went apeshit and foamed all over, AND I WAS THEN THE PUNCHLINE. It is a nice hazy orange hue similar to well done belgian goldens (think: Duvel) but also a sort of graininess to it like 1970’s exploitation films.

I opened this beer and my eyeballs were all like-

S: There is plenty of orange and lemon zest present with a nutmeg and/or holiday spice profile to it. There are some clove notes and musty belgian yeast that are expected from the style. Look good, smell good, hit the club good. And the steering wheel wood like a baseball bat.

T: This beer has a huge bread profile with an expansive body that burns itself away with the alcohol profile. You get a honey with biscuit quality up front that subsides into a heat that tastes like chinook or perhaps just the unsupported alcoholic profile. The balance is precarious but well executed.

Bring a corked bottle to a party, people make faces at you. THEN YOU FEEL BAD. Until you vomit in the terrarium, then who feels bad?

M: This beer has an incredible balance for the three batons it maintains in the air at all times. First and foremost a big wheat and malty character lays the groundwork for all of the sweet notes including banana and very starchy fruits. Finally the heat from the alcohol appears and drives a heated zambonie over your palate to await the next sip.

D: For a beer of this abv and character, this is dangerously dirnkable. If they sold this in 12oz bottles I would see it performing as a condescending older brother to any Blue Moon siblings. It shines most in its ambition and delivers in execution. I would be able to drink this throughout an entire game of Civilization, which is to say I would pass out because 5 hours of Gnomegang is just too much gnome for any man.

If you try comparing this to some of the rarer Saisons and Belgian goldens from say, Soy, Belgium, you get taken out of the pot and into the MS Paint fire.

Narrative: PING! PING! PING! Garnab loved his craft and it showed. He surveyed the blade of the battleaxe with pride and rolled its haft in his calloused hands. The blade was competent and durable, yet light and precise. FSHHHHHH! The iron sizzled upon being cast into the cool water. “GARNAB GET IN HERE!” his supervisor called from down the hall of the Morgrem guild. Garnab slid into the chair daintily, an impressive feat for a gnome of his heft and weight. “Garnab, we have all been noticing you around here, your fine work, your precise castings, and impeccable attention to detail.” Garnab grunted lightly and carressed the chain of precious silver that he painstakingly created years earlier. “That is why you have been promoted to assistant vice-Gnome of the Belbgaar foundry.” He nodded silently and exited, his cool stride demonstrating his poise and power within, Garnab was going places.

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Oakshire Brewing HELLSHIRE I, Hellshire II Chronicles the Story of the Outbreak

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Now we turn our attention from Vermont back to the Vermont of the Pacific, full of greenery and tolerant, socially conscious people. Also, shortsighted artistic hipsters with no post-30’s goals. Way back in the beer timeline, people were super jazzed, Charlie Parker even, for this barleywine to drop. Let’s see how it fairs in today’s review.

Yeah, no pour picture for this one. Boo hoo, now you have to use your imagination. YOU ARE NOW A PART OF THE GREATEST GENERATION.

Hellshire I
Oakshire Brewing
Oregon, United States
American Barleywine | 10.00% ABV

A: This had a deep brown copper color to it with a great clarity considering the amount of frothy carbonation and lacing that it leaves on the glass. It seems pretty par for the course, not exactly turbid, not transparent, just by the numbers like a Jake Gyllenhaal movie.

This isn’t the best barleywine that I have had, but I will always ACEPT MOAR!!!!1!

S: The wood just leaves the bottle and the glass and makes itself right at home in the immediate vicinity. This has more wooden notes nice and boozy bourbon to it than most beers I have encountered, however the bourbon seems a bit imposing and overstays its welcome like basically every character in any Neil Simon play. There is a nice caramel smell with some vanilla and toffee, BUT YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT.

T: This beer dries and imparts a nice booziness to the palate in short order. Each sip is strangely overwhelming and alcoholic for its 10% profile. That’s not to say that 10% is insignificant but this is the life and substance of this beer: booze, oak, and caramel. It is a wire frame drawing stripped down to the component frame of what a barleywine is. I need some more padding before I get double stuffed like an Oreo.

This feels familiar like other BA offerings but unbalanced and strange. Kinda creepy.

M: This has a great caramel body to it that coats nicely, however, no one should smoke around you as you will clearly be a fire hazard. The waft of this is like rubbing alcohol that is somehow abated by the sticky wood and malty notes. Unbalanced, but refined, is how I would describe this beer. Take your Nova II and drop a 454 into it, allow your 16 year old to take it to prom. Post obituary results.

D: This is incredibly shippable, for long periods. Drinkable? I guess that comes down to how much time you have on your hands. Get yourself and old tymie rocking chair, and a Victorian porch, sure you could pass the days away sipping this and telling the neighborhood kids what words “used to fly back in your day.” But for the rest of us, this is just too big of a beast to control. That being said, please send me more of this, for the lulz.

If Martians came to our planet and saw us drinking this, they would assume we were bourbon cyborgs that ran on Kentucky tears.

Narrative: “Well nah….I aint no big city lahyuh!” Atticus Oakwood boomed to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury. “But I say, I say, it seems to me that if you exude negligence, then proximate cause is just gonna, I say follow!” The voir dire went almost as strangely. This man was clearly drunk each day of Trial, reeking of cigars and cheap whiskey, yet somehow, he could articulate the finer points of incredibly dense material. “See now here, hyennnnhhh, see now, if the perpetrator were using the oak resaw machine, wouldn’t the shavings land to the right? Closer I say to the barrel refinery?” Each juror nodded intently and breathed through their mouth to avoid the acrimonius cloud that was imparted upon them with each passing word from Mr. Oakwood. “SO THERE CAN BE NO NEGLIGENCE!” he declared triumphantly and the words resonated against the rich mahogany walls of the courtroom. “Mr. Oakwood, your methods are unorthodox, but I must concur, I RULE IN FAVOR OF THE DEFENDANT!” He wiped his brow and popped a Worthers’ Original into his mouth, just another day in the office for that old boozer Oakwood.

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Hill Farmstead, Civil Disobedience Batch 2: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS SECOND TO CRIMINAL DISOBEDIENCE

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Happy fourth of July. To my international readers that seem to love using Google translate to make my page already less not more understandable, cheers to you as well. For today’s review I figured I would do something symbolic and the idea of doing Budweiser crossed my mind, but it seemed contrived and predictable so I thought I would go more ABSTRACKT with Civil Disobedience, that which The United States is predicated upon.

Civil Disobedience sounded like a good idea until the war of 1812 happened. That was basically Vermont’s fault anyway.

Hill farmstead, Civil Disobedience 2: THE REVENGE
Oak Aged Saison, 7% abv

A: This beer has a radiant yellow/golden hue that looks like the contents of a treasure chest in video games. The carbonation needs an entire preamble to address sufficiently. It would take the full Too Short discography to describe the amount of head that this beer imparts.

“Oh great, another Hill Farmstead review of a limited release, I wonder if he likes it.”
Maybe I should be like the mouthbreather neckbeards on other beer review sites and make an uncut 8 minute video of me rambling talking about Prima Pils or some shit.

S: Hill Farmstead just knocks it out of the park with each release and the nose on this one is incredible, to say the least. There is a pronounced grassiness with a lemon and orange peel zest. The Belgian funk is muted and the dryness from the oakiness is present in a majestic way. It is like watching Raven Symone develop from Hangin with Mr. Cooper into a proficient thespian. The maturity from this barrel has imparted a great smell, not unlike the Cheetah Girls themselves.

T: The initial taste is that of a chardonnay dryness that melts into a crisp peppery orange peel finish. The entire experience is fleeting but makes you want to take another sip immediately. The esters are similar to a Belgian pale ale but impart this incredible crispness that just assaults the gumline in an incredibly refreshing manner. They say 27% of Americans die from heart disease, I want to see the number of people who die from drinking this amazing saison. That’s right, zero, so ipso facto, this is incredibly good for you and makes you immortal. Thank you Vermont, +1 to you.

It grinds my gears when people refer to Batch 2 as the “bad batch” when it is still head and shoulders above more than 90% of the saisons out there. Gears straight grinded.

M: The carbonation is so well done on this that, I sat hatefully waiting for the massive head to subside. The mouthfeel just laces and sets up sticky Victorian interior drapery to your mouth. It is incredible.

D: This is off the charts drinkable. There is no other way to address this. You take a sip and the dryness couple with the fantastic orange and peppery character to create a fantastic self-fulfilling prophecy wherein your glass is drained. You look around the room like in a text adventure game, although, no amount of keyboard banging will replace what has been imparted.

My face whenever a box arrives from Vermont.

Narrative: Sure, Chip Dexter didn’t go to college, didn’t need to with his flashy veneers and his $10,000.00 vocabulary. You didn’t know you wanted an extended warranty or a Dyson vacuum cleaner, but then Chip arrived and all of a sudden you had a volcano insurance policy on your Kansas home. He was a swift fast talker with the gift of gab and people loved him for it. Sure he had nothing to say and just reiterated Huffington Post articles relentlessly but, in small doses, you cared for old Chip. One day Chip found himself visited again and again by a confused eHarmony.com user. As all riparian trends go, Chips well of smalltalk ran dry and it was discovered: CHIP HAD NO SUBSTANCE AND WAS NOT FIT FOR LONGER TERM RELATIONSHIPS. Yeah, old Chip was a whore, but he didn’t care his crisp Michael Kors suits and dimples kept him company enough.

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Evil Twin Brewing, Imperial Biscotti Break, It’s a Coffee Drink for Hipsters that Weight More than 135 lbs.

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Man, if I were a hophead in my degenerate beer development, I would be pissed off at this site. What with Wale Week- NO IPAS, then two stouts, it’s like, man what’s a guy gotta do to get his hop cones blasted? Well suffer through, today’s gem is a decadent coffee treat from Evil Twin, not YOUR evil twin, he doesn’t brew beer, he is just barred from coming within 1000 feet of schools and parks.

Phase one: take your eharmony girlfriend out for coffee, phase two: present this libation, phase three: Babylon 5 Marathon.
Let her explain that to her pretentious friends.

Evil Twin Brewing
Denmark
American Double / Imperial Stout | 11.50% ABV

A: The appearance takes the coffee note to new levels of Seattle hysteria, deep frothy mocha whip no shot side of upside down malt caramel, is the most concise description of the pour. The darkness is deep and complex like Alan Thicke’s character on Growing Pains. The lacing is whimsical and adorns the glass with streamers for the coffee baby shower.

This beer is dark, but adorable, complex, but dangerous. Best enjoyed young.

S: There’s a deep coffee note with a sweetness on the backend that, as the eponymous beer notes, is like deconstructed biscotti. For those of you who in the south who do not have biscotti, it is a stale bread that pretentious people dunk into overpriced coffee. Think Dunkin Donuts, and then the converse. There’s a sweet vanilla, sticky almond meets hazelnut, acidic coffee with a mocha finish that imparts a sort of cocoa dryness. I am a bit wary on the sweet notes but, hey, I once ate an entire Sbarro pizza and fell asleep on some Macy’s beds, so moderation is hardly my strong suit.

T: There is a fantastic interplay between the coffee and the rise to power of the almond armada. The warring factions represent different fealty to the overriding crown of the Church of Stout. Surprisingly, this war of attrition results in savage interbreeding between coffee and vanilla, the nutty aspects couple nicely with the acidic finish from the coffee, and the sweet chocolate and baker’s chocolate nod approvingly at the new feudal stout empire.

Coffee and high alcohol content? This may take me to places that I am not ready for.

M: The mouthfeel coats aggressively and toes the line that Huna and Abyss so admonishingly drew into the sand. I would say medicinal in its sheeting, however, this would be medicine for someone like the person who works the Customer Service desk at Walmart: not quite legitimate medicine. The sweetness eventually overpowers as this thing warms and, while watching the Bachelorette, the sweetness was overriding and unpalatable, also the beer became undrinkable BA ZING!

D: As long as you keep this below 55 degrees, it washes away nicely and imparts huge flavor, however, once the Torani syrup demons are awakened from their century long slumber, this biscotti turns into Bicotivrex, vile libation destroyer and sorrow harvester of palates from the netherrealm. So, serve…serve it cold is basically…that’s what I am trying to say.

If someone can’t find a beer, here’s usually how the discussion goes. I was lucky to have someone in Washington who cares about me help me out. CARING, pass it on.

Narrative: Maxwell House stock had been in a freefall ever since meth hit the market. It wasn’t that people didn’t want Maxwell House, they didn’t, and never really did. The problem was that the poorest of the poor, riddled with vice and an abysmal view of the future, now simply smoked crank to wake up for their degrading jobs. “How can we recover from this newest batch, Jennings?” Wilfred Maxwell IV asked the boardroom as he stared out over the Tarrytown, New York skyline. “Well, the Samoan spiker vanilla blend has been covering the spread in-” “NO JENNINGS, the newest batch of meth. Maxwell House can’t take another potency renovation, people know that we have never been good to the last drop, must less the first, they just want to get high-” he surveyed the hopeful faces surrounding the rich mahogany table, sipping bourbon, enjoying biscotti at their leisure in Brooks Brothers suits. “THEY JUST WANT TO GET HIGH!” Mr. Maxwell IV exclaimed. Jennings rocked back in his supple calfskin leather chair and nodded knowingly. The chemists began cooking down the horrible beans into synthetic caffeine crystals. The dank sticky shards broke like brown stained glass after the first batch was completed. Guillermo, the local day porter of the facility, was asked to try the new product. Ironically, Guillermo was already on meth to face his horrible employment prospects. The coffee glass burned deep and hard like almond and vanilla shards, but it could be worse, he could have been a P’zolo tester.

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Avery Uncle Jacob’s Stout, A Stout that Socks You 215 years Beyond the Grave

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Avery beers have been divisive for me, sometimes it is a tart delight, other times it is a dramatic wine substitute. This is a nice foray into the world of their hellish huge beers in the same lineage as Mephistopheles, The Beast, Grand Cru, etc. I enjoyed one of those three, so we shall see how this 17.42% abv giant socks me in the face in today’s review.

The Left Hand glass is appropriate because this beer straight slapped me across the face.

Avery Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 17.42% ABV

Let’s let the label speak for itself:

In the quest to create a collection of barrel-aged beers to be reproduced annually, Avery Brewing Company is releasing Uncle Jacob’s Stout, the second member of its Annual Barrel Series. The collection began with Rumpkin rum barrel-aged pumpkin ale in the fall of 2011, and now continues with this 17.4% ABV stout that was aged in first-use Bourbon barrels for 6 months. While the Avery Barrel-Aged Series features one-time-only batches, such as the recent Muscat d’Amour and Récolte Sauvage, the Annual Barrel Series features a selection of cellarable barrel-aged beers that fans can return to and get to know every year.

In other words, get ready to get socked in the liver.

A: This is jet black, Joan Jett black and this beer loves rock and/or roll. The lacing is minimal largely due to the huge slick sheeting imparted by the massive ABV. It settles to an inky blackness almost instantly but I wouldn’t expect my tank class to be nimble.

This beer will beat you ass, but you won’t feel embarrassed about it at all, well maybe a little.

S: The smell of this beer isn’t too menacing and almost comes across as something at half the alcohol content. There’s some gentle chocolate and brownie batter smell that subsides into some nice light char similar to a sweet Cohiba cigar. The bourbon has that oaky vanilla aspect similar to single barrel Buffalo Trace, but at 684 cases you know they used Rebel Yell or some shit that Eclipse nerds go apeshit for. Smells good, but this is the eye of the storm.

T: The sweetness of the bourbon rolls onto the sweet zones like tight sickles prickling the entire way back in a crackly chocolate pop rocks sensation. The light char can barely hold back the massive kraken that is the bourbon and sweet malts profile. Even the baker’s chocolate looks pissed, furiously rolling out baked macaroon shurikens and tossing them down the back of my throat.

Maybe it is the 17.4% abv, or maybe I am just too immature for this shit. Or both.

M: This is as hot as a New Mexico meth lab and scorches the insides just the same. The chocolate and coffee notes haunt like specters of mouths past, letting me know that this 12oz bottle should have been shared but, oh well, too late for those prodigious moments, off to 17.42% assaults. The chocolate octagon takes it out on your liver and Uncle Jacob stares on knowingly from a bourbon barrel altar, thumbing through the maltronomicon.

D: This is a tough call, at the outset I want to pull the simple “too hot, too big” red flag like all the haters but, I don’t think deserves that treatment. Sure it is a behemoth to wrangle and puts you back in 6th grade pretty quickly, the 16 bit RPGs are busted out after a single bottle. Sure you CAN drink a single bottle, but you certainly SHOULDN’T. I mean, sure I did, but do you want to be like me? Buying clothes at the LA Morgue and running a website that talks shit on beer nerds and hipsters? Well, I guess it isn’t so bad.

I guess this is similar to being put at peace, it is tantamount to self administered anesthesia.

Narrative: “This is a cop out but, I can’t formulate a reasonable response to this beer. My chest feels like E.T. punched my sternum and my mouth is like a 5th grade sleepover chocolate binge. I was gonna write this dystopian steampunk novella about a chocolate harbinger that steals bourbon souls, or some shit, but after a couple beers and then this haymaker, the creative juices are frozen in my head. I homebrewed something of a similar strength that was aged on Willet oak and it gave me this same heat in my chest and light residual headaches. Maybe I am just a cooze, maybe I could have just framed it as a first person narrative from some dialogue mouthpiece but oh well, here we are-” Thomas Jacobs thought to himself in his 8th grade algebra class, thinking of the 6’er of Coronas he had hidden under his bed.

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Peg’s Cantina G.O.O.D. Rare D.O.S., C:/run_DOSwhale.rar IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE

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For anyone watching at home that isn’t familiar with this big fat cetacean beast, this is the initmitable Rare D.O.S. I am sure that the RareR was amazing, but this is the unassailable O.G. of the stout world. I am hesitant to toss around definitive titles but this may be the best stout that I have ever had. I said it. What your stout got to do with me? I ain’t trying to hear that see.

This may have been the mostly costly stout that I have ever landed, excepting a certain black whale that is forthcoming.

Peg’s Cantina & Brewpub
Florida, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | ABV ?

This has never been bottled. This has never been growlered. It took some seriously shady maneuvers to lock this one down, enjoy the fruits of my efforts.

A: This came from a 15oz swingtop so at the outset I figured that this would be flatter than Keira Knightley but it actually still came through with a huge viscosity, deep sheeting like Bed Bath and Beyond. The lacing still arranged mocha foam streamers like some barista baby shower. The deep mahogany pool reflects my failures like the portal at Delphi.

I hope you tried plenty of great bourbon barrel stouts before this one, because this beer will end that shit pretty quickly.

S: God damn this smells so good. This is like the discarded uniforms of the employees from See’s Candy. There is a nice charred molasses and baker’s chocolate that feels like a Sequoia and Willy Wonka scrapped it up hard. There’s also muted marshmallow foam and vanilla bean on the backend. It is an extremely well balanced and delicious smell. It takes the ultimate Voltron aspects of my favorite stouts and composes this beast mode Power Ranger amalgamate for a crazy hybrid stout.

T: This is the best tasting stout that I have ever encountered with the tight reigns of Goose Island Rare pulled close. To think that this second hand handbottle approached the throne of the best stouts that I have ever had and comfortably sits upon the throne. I can only imagine this fresh off the tap, but that would require a trip to Florida, a prospect that seems like slamming my cock in a bourbon barrel aged car door. Alas I digress, this beer tastes amazing and I can’t honestly rattle off the traditional cadre of adjectives because it killed my palate in such an inventive way that it seems like a series of serial murders that remains unrequited to date.

I dream of a world where everyone can enjoy beers like this, without having their handbottles questioned.

M: The mouthfeel has a coating somewhere inbetween Huna and Abyss but delivers much longer lasting satisfaction on the sweet coffee notes that just resonates like an Adele wail. You didn’t even have to get dumped by a chubby chaser to enjoy this beer. The sheeting coasts like a bourbon SeaDoo kicking up a noteworthy vanilla froth.

D: If you have ever seen some crazy shit on AMC that you can’t explain to anyone that approaches brilliance, you will know how it feels to try this. It was like a fleeting phantom that I opened alone like a complete asshole on a Tuesday night and I sat looking at the wall like an apparition in Plato’s cave. I have had other stouts that approach this archetype but this particular little gem from a certain unnamed source rocked my conception of what bourbon stouts could be. If you have seen my site, I have had a few within the genre. I could easily merk a growler of this and smile under the dialysis machine.

My face was all like this when the bottle was gone, but I was too lost in the moment for a fuck to spare.

Narrative: It was the day of the MCATs and Jordan Belzer felt a tinge of panic in his brow but knowingly patted the inside of his jacket. The sweet caress of the cool 15oz bottle gave him the assurance that he needed to pull through this endeavor. “At the sound of the alarm, you may begin the examination” the proctor announced and Jordan spit out a chocolate candy from his gumline with khaki stained teeth and grinned to himself. The alarm sounded and Jordan took a deep pull from his medicinal bottle within his Kill City jacket and felt the sweet elixit run through his veins, edifying everything that he had known before and after, all synapses blasting on full bourbon glory. Jordan was technically intoxicated while completing each section, but it was a lightning fast panache, and the brew/apothecary in Koreatown did not lie. Whether it was the tiger penis or the phen phen in the chocolately solution, he achieved the peaks of greatness he would never know again. “BZZZZZZ!!!!” the final alarm buzzed and Jordan awoke to find the entire test completed. He staggered out into the afternoon sun and squinted at the prospect of medical school and gripped his empty glass container. The swingtop clipped back and forth jovially, almost calling him to the apex of greatness that the liquid blessing just imposed upon him. Jordan spit a deep vanilla black expiration upon the asphalt and watched it glimmer in the summer sun. He had just approached the edge of greatness and blacked out to tell about it.

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2010 Portsmouth Kate the Great, Katherine Sure Was Great, Until She Went All Small On Us.

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Ah the venerable Katherine the Great, I know her intimately as Kate, but the rest of you who don’t know her closely likely press your face up against the ebay glass and hold the silken glove of oppressive royalty in reverence. I can open this review with a quote from economist/philosopher, Dan Olson, “That shit didn’t even go into a barrel” is the purest sentiment that is usually cast upon this decadent gem. However, before we depose this matriarch, let’s see if she can swim with the big baltic whales in today’s review.

You may notice that this bottle is twice the size of the bottles that you are accustomed to. It also may come to your attention that the label doesn’t look like a Thomas Nast outtake. That’s fine, stay with me and go Google Thomas Nast like you were about to.

Portsmouth Brewery
New Hampshire, United States
Russian Imperial Stout | 12.00% ABV

Today we class it up with a representative allegory, oh shit, street knowledge takes a back seat ONE MO GIN’

A: This stately old woman is a firecracker but maintains her slim figure and delicately splashes into the glass like a size 4 woman into a wading pool. There’s a gentle mocha whip to the poise and sticky lacing that clings to the glass like those texts you wish you could avoid from Jdate. The color is light cola at the edges and lets you know that this playful minx isn’t here to ruin your night, but to get it started. You are expecting more of a boisterous presentation, but the subtle glove of a caring Katherine is only one of her nuanced gentle charms.

Kate’s court was severe but loving at the same time, and you are edified as a result.

S: There is a sweetness that rivals bayou Sundays after church. Mammy brought home some milk chocolate and bottles of Portugese wine. Those porties are famous for their wines and Russians sure know how to cultivate cacao in their icy hateful tundra. The court begins a delightful scherzo and lovely Kate guides you amiably and you can feel the coffee mantua bounce with surprising acidity as you look across the deep plum overtones from the walls ordained with imported Rococo crown molding that buttressed the vaulted deep fruit ceiling with ornate care.

T: The dance picks up with a chocolate Bourrée or wait, is that a port wine gavotte? The steps are so thin and quick that it is difficult to discern where Katherine is leading you. Countess and courtesan has fallen beneath her tender anise toe steps but she will pick you up, despite the power in her 12% offset steps. A mahogany deep fruit rag wipes the drops of sweat from your ascot and the Court looks on lovingly as Kate performs her signature molasses menuet that exercises grace and poise, the likes of which make the boorish Count Van De Stone IRS look clumsy by contrast. It was a once in a lifetime tryst that lasted scarcely the frame of a Handel opera.

The short stays that are endured with Kate are enjoyable and opulent in the fashion of the finest repose.

M: Katherine leads you deftly out to the outside terrace and the grace of her chiffon mahogany dress peels lightly from your lips and, despite your unworthiness, you retract knowing another touch of pinot grigio and chocolate vapors will come shortly. She is a cruel mistress of terse demeanor, but you can only seem an aggressive Ivan, terrible by juxtaposition in light of her diaphanous dress and light airy nature. It takes little equipage to prepare such a rare specimen of beauty, the dressing would only weigh down such a figure of balance, coffee and port, chocolate and roast, the newly discovered Americas coupled with a deep baltic tradition. In a strange manner, she reminds you of a strong female porter you met on a Scandinavian whale hunting journey in how capriciously she could handle both the blade and warming blanket in a loving fashion.

D: The night had passed in a way beyond comprehension and you found yourself wishing for just a single measure of additional contact. Alas, the 22 beats are gone, the band has retired to a gentle repose on the balustrade and you have returned to a lowly barrister class. You seek another court, another tryst, but to your chagrin the sweet succor of this caliber should only be enjoyed in short bursts. Little would you know that a smattering of inferior short dances would follow this, with a series of imposters all claiming the be Kate’s equal. Nothing will rival that coffee and port soaked evening in the greenery.

Despite the gentle scherzo, the 3/4 step was completed all too soon.

Narrative: If you seriously expect me to write a narrative after all that, you are an asshole.