It’s like when Californians try and make fattening food.
This is amazing on the nose with mosaic hops blasting a juicy j symphony. But things take a maltier sweeter turn on the taste with a heavy sticky mouthfeel. It is still pretty dank but not g13 levels. Aserose and grapefruit on the backend make it pretty okay, but they make better dipas. Serial.
This beer initially caused a row amongst the land owning barons in the Hoarders Society. The upper class magnates received the opportunity to buy two of these awesome bottles but then THE REGULAR ASS RESERVE SOCIETY MORELOCKS GOT TO BUY A SINGLE BOTTLE. Man that must be what it feels like to watch Firestone Walker release Parabola to all the mealy mouthed masses, them enjoying world class BA stouts without even trading. But in all SRS, this beer is damn good and if you were lucky enough to grab one of these bottles, your cherry has already been popped, leaking all sour on the entryway rug.
OH SHIT INTENTIONALLY ACCIDENTAL HOARDERS CARD CAMEO. like anyone gives a fuck.
The Bruery
California, United States
American Wild Ale | 6.10% ABV
A: This is not as “dark” as I was expecting from the description, and it isn’t exactly as flat as the sad panda marketing description set forth. If you were in Hoarders, this was the email you got describing it:
We debuted Griffon Bruxellois late in 2012 at a few of our events and it was quite a hit. This dark, sour ale was aged in oak barrels on cherries, giving it an incredible fruit flavor, balanced by the roasted malt and lactic tartness. We must admit, this bottle-conditioned beer didn’t turn out quite as carbonated as we were hoping for, but it is still an incredible beer, 100% worthy of our high standards to be sold, served, shared and enjoyed!
So I was like “oh so like Otiose but flat? Carmen on cherries?” boy was I fucking wrong, this has an amazing deep crimson tone that transitions into fuscia, magenta, Lisa Frank binder pinks and….god damnit…I don’t even want to say it
robey tones.
embrace the delcious cherry hugs, no matter how tart and scratchy they may be
S: This has an incredible blast of lactic fruit roll ups, Gushers juice, tart cherry skins, red Fun Dip dust, and a raspberry finish to it. The acidity is there but complimented by a robust fruit profile. Again, this beer exceeded expectations, one of the best Bruery sours that I have had since Filmishmish.
T: This delivers on complexity beyond simple acidity, you get this round tartness at the outset like shocktarts, no acetic vinegar aspects to speak of, a deep dryness on the gumline, raspberry, black cherry, fruit by the foot, tropical skittles, and uncut pom juice, that white brick raw moving hard in the streets. This is kinda like if you cut Sch. Kriek with a more substantial sour like Consecration, really well done and balanced for days.
Bust this out at a bottle share, people be like
M: This is a bit too dry in some aspects because it is incredibly tart, but if it did not have that aspect it would likely be too sweet from the nice fruit profile so I feel that this is a happy medium that has a tannic finish like a full bodied merlot. Drink water with this and hope those old HSV sores dont be blasting open. wait wut.
D: This is like in movies when a cop is chasing a criminal and he is always like tipping over trashcans and shit, like that is a real obstacle come on. This beer is worth the chase and incredibly drinkable but the dryness and acidity is tossing these tiny obstacles in your way slowing you down slightly from going into 750ml+ levels, but this is a beer that is incredibly easy to take down solo if you have some tums and some Smart Water handy. I wish the allocation was bigger on this so I could freeze it or do some dumb shit, but srs, nicely done beer.
Try to take down a couple bottles of this, be a hero.
Narrative: It was not a lively existence sitting in a Chicago highrise apartment all day long. Brixie received the same general care and attention that other dogs in the area received, daily walks, beard combing, and strolls through gentrified areas for defecation. Somehow Brixie felt that she was missing out on something more. The twinge of her heritage pounded in her hindquarters and she constantly looked east over Lake Michigan and wondered just what was happening in Brussels. She felt like an exemplary demonstration of her heritage, yet some short sighted assholes living in a Corn Cob shaped building might fault her for not BEING FROM BELGIUM. It was their loss, her deep amber coat and tart disposition made her a favorite at all of the AKC competitions. Even the most stringent hater had to respect a Griffon with such poise and depth, that did not even shit on the hardwood floors. Brixie was worthy of veneration, no matter what some narrowminded shit head from the 312 area code might think.
Taking that barrel aged numbskull straight to the skull.
Etc. oblique oral sex references.
Three Floyd’s pushes the limits in two things: 1) hoppiness and 2) the elasticity of my anus for these extremely expensive releases. This beer was a ~800 bottle release priced at a whopping $50 a bottle. Some people might be cracking a Rare and shrugging their shoulders, but for the rest of us not living off of capital gains, $50 for a beer is a serious perineum pounder. Anyway, by way of history, almost 2 years ago, Baller Stout came out and it was $30, and beer nerds were acting like the 4 horsemen of the stoutpacalypse had arrived: a blend of Darkness, Dark Lord, Beer Geek Brunch, and Black Albert. So when they announced this, I knew shit was gonna get real. They did not mention that they aged each component beer in barrels prior to blending for 14 months then CPK “two in a bowled” that stout for this masterpiece. Enough fluffing, let’s get to full on stout ejaculation.
Some people be like “$50 rare bottle and you rock pours like that” yeah welcome to DDB, where we arent poor acorn dicks. Make yourself at home.
Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
Indiana, United States
Style | ABV
Russian Imperial Stout | ABV ?
A: This has the slick oiliness like Parabola with a nice beige roast still hiding in the bubbles letting you know there is some unresolved shit going on in there. The pour is deep black but sadly I was expecting it to have a “flat black” sheen to it like those stupid assholes in West Hollywood who want people to know this is THEIR RANGE ROVER AND JUST BECAUSE THEIR DAD PAID FOR IT DOESNT MAKE IT HIS PARENT’S CAR. It is shiny black instead.
What’s that you say? $50 1 per person brewery release? IN THE MIDWEST? Well I never.
S: Holy hell this is a complex beer and you have to pull it apart like an onion, or the psoriasis on your testicles. I feel like that Dark Lord leads with its robed black foot first and supplies a deep black blast of sugar, turbinado sweetness, bakers chocolate and Hershey’s syrup all wrapped in a warm bourbon blankie straight from the dryer. You get this coffee pat on the back from Mikkeller, but fuck Mikkeller, the only reason you are hanging out with Beer Geek anything is because it is surrounded by a ton of hot stout chicks. Darkness finishes things out with a deep roasty dryness and this mallowfoam smell that just lingers like when you wonder how many Taco Bell items that you bought the night before.
T: This taste has the complexity of the above and is like Hungry Hungry Hippos just raping your tastes buds with cascading elbows of roast, then bourbon sweetness, then coffee acidity, and chocolate Stone Cold stunning the fuck out of every taste zone. It reminds me if you took the amazingness of Barrel Aged Dark Lord (any really) and they started tossing on body kits, rims, spoilers, and all kinds of extraneous shit. It is a bit sloppier in execution as a result, but it is genuinely every bit as good. I am so glad that this beer has flown so deeply under people’s respective radars. I guess that $50 price tag and the 1 per person was enough to pucker more than a few buttholes, BUT MY BUTTHOLE REMAINS UNPUCKERABLE.
Drink this stout, then go try a normal ass off shelf offering and be all like-
M: This is sticky on the teeth with residual sugars and stick malts but also slightly wafty from the bourbon and the bitter zones get this deep char, Slippy is just doing barrel rolls all day and doesn’t even need to be saved. I can’t accurately restate the mouthfeel without just putting the aforementioned adjectives in a tumble dryer, so fuck it, if you dont get it this might not be the right place for you.
D: This likely has an ABV above 13% abv and I would drink this shit all day long. No qualifier like “I meant during winter” or some bullshit, I will drink this before my job as a bus driver because everyone knows 1) bus drivers cant get DUIs and 2) no one can get a DUI while the sun is up. It is widely known. The cruelest jokes are always the best beers being the least accessible (INB4 Parabola assholes, I know, I know.) Now forget everything I just said, I dont want you ungrateful assholes ruining my chances at landing another one of these. If you have one, it was not even that good, I will send you some Knee Deep stuff for one. Get at me.
Sure it was $50 and super rare, but try to enjoy yourself at least.
NarratiVe: The life of a Chimera only seemed like a blast from the outside. Sure, you are fierce and amazing, aweinspiring at worst. But what about those other times? Try sharing the duality of identity with a series of united beasts. I was born a lion head attached to the body of a dragon, sharing an L1-L2 spinal segment with a goat head, and an unruly snake as a tail. You think I ever got to finish my memoirs with all those assholes constantly wanting to fly around, raid villages, slay King Cnut’s people, submerge scandinavian sea vessels, and fuck all else? Yeah, no rest to be had at all. The snake is diabetic and constantly complaining about our iron and glucose intake, I swear that fucking goat head just eats anything, peasant huts, cabbage farms; anything. Last week the dragon tried to use our penis to have sex with a Manticore. A FUCKING MANTICORE. Can you imagine the bush on that thing? Having a shared penis is bad enough but, you gotta draw the line somewhere. Sure, I am one piece of a fierce beast, but I have so much more complexity than outsiders ever imagine.
Decent, myeh, bomb.biz, aiite, and pretty dank.
Mother sister grandmother hate me in that order
Bizarre chai mango setup with an almost tobacco finish.
That shit cray
Pale ales have been largely passed over in this bustling world of DIPAs and O-ring fingering. Everyone wants to push that malt bill, get them mosaic hops, pound out some resinous tones and fuckall to sessionability and balance. It is like when Norwegian Black Metal lost its credibility and it was just all about 24th fret shredding. We all remember when that happened. But what about the old acorn penis pale ale? Sure it isn’t as big, but it has finesse and can go for long sessions. If you are expecting an asian penis reference, I will defer, the hop cone parallel is low hanging buds. A well done pale ale is amazing, more so than DIPAs in many ways. If you have ever rubbed Hoppy Birthday on your nips, you will know what I mean. Let’s fuck an undead woman in today’s review, so you can lose your -1 virginity once and for all.
If you posted this as your Walking Dead beer, I approve, but I kinda dont. SO CONFLICTED.
Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
Indiana, United States
Style | ABV
American Pale Ale (APA) | 6.40% ABV
A: For a pale ale, I was expecting some sort of foamy splishy splashy affair, but this is kinda menacing, deep gold tones like those elaborate medals that dictators in Africa always rock. The carbonation is nice and subsides gently in a “pillowy cloud of douchey metaphors.” You get lil archipelagos of lacing and fuck yes I just spelled that without spell check. I dont really want it to be this dark, but, it’s kinda like when Kefka blew up the world, you know that Locke and Sabin will pull through this shit, even if you have to catch fish for 15 minutes.
the label is creepy, this beer is scary drinkable, but in the end you want to give it a hug and tell it everything will be ok
S: God damn, this is like the Donkey Kong Jr. version of Kern River Citra. Seriously, it has mango, peach, dandelions, a light tree sap on the very end but just feels warm and inviting like a shot of fernet branca in your favorite whorehouse while away on a work trip in Amsterdam. You know the type.
T: This is more akin to hopslam at the outset with the janky cloying honey front but then the citra hops push that shit aside and it almost reminds me of that balance that Two Hearted has for a moment but then shit goes more Sculpinerer and finishes with a deeper orange rind zest. This is all painted on the canvas of an incredibly delicate resolution. If you have ever watched shrimping videos online, there’s a certain aplomb and gentleness to fucking someone’s feet that is difficult to look down upon. This is easily one of the best pale ales I have ever tasted, if not the best.
Drinking powerful ass pale ales will prepare you for some impending dystopian apocalypse.
M: This is light and crackly at the outset and leaves streaking of tree sap resin, but in a saucy playful way on the backend and there is some light aserose aspects on the swallow. This is so god damn light but have in the vapors I feel like I am in a Eugene O’Neill play straight waving my face, getting the vapors and wiping my forehead from the execution. Shit is bomb.edu.
D: It would be an aggressive understatement to try and capture the drinkability of this beer. It was bottled 8 days ago and I currently have 40 bottles in my fridge with zero fucks given. Maybe I will give them out at Churchills Finest Hour, maybe I will buttchug some, who knows. Your rectum is the limit with a beer this clean and sessionable. I know DINT, whereever he is, will tell me that I am a shar pei dick for suggesting that a 6%+ beer is sessionable, but for serious, it is. I know we aren’t shooting darts at the pub and eating beans on toast, but if you need to bang a girl from the midwest, this beer will help you get in those Mudd Jeans I am sure they are still wearing. Midwest chicks probably still wear those wonky ass rhinestone BEBE tank tops flossing so hard. Alas I digress.
oh shit I just drank 6 of these on accident? Ruh-roh.
Narrative: Three hours, Chris had three fucking hours to mix this vjolt, pour it in the plant, harvest the hop cones, run up to the observatory, get fucking attacked by crows and finish mixing up his zombie elixir. Who even made this fucking mansion? Some doors require that you place symbols in completely different rooms and gems in moose heads. It seems like if you were living here on a regular basis that would get tedious. Annoyed Chris clutched his resinous v jolt vial and headed for the lauter tun, all he had to do was play Moonlight Sonata on the piano to access the lab. The real estate agent must have been less than forthright when she was showing off this Victorian mansion. Earlier Chris was attempting to get some grain from the storehouse and apparently one of the features of this 18th century gem was a sliding ceiling that would kill someone if they removed a broken shotgun from the parlor. It didn’t make sense, but soon Chris would have a sticky icky potable to sip on. If only he could get his hands on a dank Jill sammich he would be all set.
This is bomb, but the tire smoke is still present kinda like the 2012 fantomes. I wouldn’t recommend this so highly if the barrel presence wasn’t so damn good.
Nucleation and acorn penis pours.
High gravity, no ghosts, no inverted lacing
Alright, in the interest of complete whaling thoroughness I will review this 2012 Cable Car, the old dark horse in the lineup. About 3 months ago, a bunch of shitmouths all went down to Toronado and split a vert of the bottles like 43 ways based on what I saw on Untappd. Anyway, so we have a shitload of Cable Car experts now. Everyone was pushing their dicks into reubens talking about how this beer was chlorine and OMG THE WERST. So, hating that stepchild 2010 CC, I wanted to see what the business was. I dropped the $50 and skulled this shit, like a responsible reviewer.
OH SHIT POSTING THE SAME PIC THREE TIMES FOR ULTRA HITS, dinner is on me.
The Lost Abbey
California, United States
American Wild Ale | 7.00% ABV
A: The carb on this one lies somewhere in between the 2008 (Keira Knightley flat) and 2010 (Natalie Portman tits.) It is filling cups, but not with excitement. You get some wispy crackling but it remains about a step about Doesjel and some old ass lambics in this regard. I asked for a dirtier glass to boost nucleation levels but they wouldn’t comply. The cling is minimal, the sheeting is non-existent and it kinda looks like a Dortmunder with deep gold hues, the darkest Cable Car I have seen since that cherry afterbirth apotheosis version.
LOL the cat is speaking Belgian! but the cat is secretly American.
S: There is a lemon zest, but more akin to super fresh farmers market steeze, like zested on a grater with a slight salinity in the air. You get tangelo, mango, white grape, and hard persimmon. This is all to be appreciated against the backdrop of high acidity that is really more tart than it is straight up Upland Lambic sour. I get a little bit of a muskiness like a gose on the finish that a shiteater might mistake for some kind of chlorine, provided you were completely fucking high on paint fumes, or if you got a sick .9oz pour. Either way.
T: This follows through with that classy musk of Cable Car 2010, light cheesiness, but with that delicious acidity and fruitiness that reminded me of the 2008. Again this is a hybrid of those two years and takes a bit from each and improves upon it, like Mylie Cyrus, a voltron of acrimonious cuntery. That is the name of my acoustic Aphex Twin cover band, Acrimonious Cuntery. Come see us in Connecticut. Anyway, so you get a chardonnay without the drying, a sort of nectarine and tart lychee finish to it, butressed again with this light salinity. I disagree on the chlorine/pool water/salt douche comments that some people were making. If you have banged a few Leipzig hoes you will know all about that light saltiness on your knuckles/wrist.
This beer is refined yet filthy at the same time, like Ke$ha in a pantsuit.
M: This is the meanest leanest cleanest (Ciara got sex appeal) mouth feel that I have had in a Cable Car to date. As a result you dont get that lingering dryness, you don’t get the oakiness dryfucking your bitter zones. What you do get is a light juiciness that is incredibly refreshing, closer in execution to a super lactic Berliner, really. This is a welcome spin and would be more at home in hotter weather, migrant worker sweatshops, etc. I need my American Apparrel jeans made in Downtown LA by non-Americans, for unamerican wages, drinking American beers inspired by Belgian styles. SOURS, MIXED RACE MODELS AND HIGH FASHION.
D: This is off the charts drinkable and for the $/oz you are taking it right down the shaft like a chlamydia test. It is seriously disheartening how fast it disappears. You lose a bit on the dryness that reigns this shit in, but as a result it is more approachable and awesome. You know how a Fender Telecaster has that short neck for ladyhands, perfect for playing Wonderwall and getting those EXPRESS thongs off, but you can’t do sick ass shredding. Then again, sometimes you dont want Dragonforce melting your face, sometimes you want a Night Court marathon to relax to. The people who like this Cable Car best are those contrarian assholes who say that JACKIE BROWN WAS TARANTINO’S BEST WORK NUANCED AND MOST PEOPLE DONT GET IT. I get it, this Cable Car is slowly, subtle, and doesn’t blow anyones fucking head off. Better than 2010, but that’s about it. That’s kinda like big leaguing on the kid who lives in Section 8 housing with his aunt though.
Pop open a $50 bottle of world class beer, put on those jammy jams, and get to chillin.
Narrative: “Ring a clink dernk-” the chimes rang in an off-minor fashion. The city had never approved the financing for the business improvement district and as a result the downtown trolley had fallen into woeful disrepair. It only ran from Fashion Bug to Little Samoa and usually smelled like curry. The seats were all worn and someone spraypainted “NIKO IS A SHITDICK” on the side of the trolly 3 months ago and it was never addressed. To be fair, Niko was a shit dick though. The passengers were supposed to get this whiff of nostalgia, like they were living in the gilded age of oppressive factories and limited social benefits, but instead they lived in the modern times where corporations were just doling out high wages and benefits. It had seen the marks of time and it made some of the Matlock watching passengers smile, but to the average person it was a blemish in the heritage of public transportation and Cable Cars in general. A guy in an ECKO jacket sat in the back row with his clearly underaged girlfriend and rode to the end of the line, Fashion Bug and depression for all riders.
dontdrinkbeer 