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Cigar City Leon Brandy Barrel Aged English Barleywine, The King(s) Or Leon

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Time to get down to brass tacks and finally review what many have dubbed as the “King Henry” slayer although others believe that Bloody Mary is the true King Henry slayer, wakkawakkawakka. I was holding out for someone to send this 1200 bottle limited release AND NO ONE SENT ME ONE FOR FREE, but then I landed this bottle on mybeercollectibles.com go check them out. So anyway, an apple brandy barrel aged barleywine? Does it have the temerity and strength to overcome the progeny of Rare? Let’s find out.

Leon spelled backwards is NOEL. Perfect xmas beer.

Cigar City Brewing
Florida, United States
English Barleywine | 13.00% ABV

A: This has a dull reddish mahogany hue to it that doesn’t go a particularly turbid route but maintains a beautiful sheen to it. The sheeting was minimal considering the 13% abv but the carbonation left nice archipelagos. They are tiny apple brandy islands of foam where the indigenous people are wasted non-stop like a Vengaboys concert.

If you take this abroad and don’t share it, at least know how to offend people properly. This beer begs to be shared.

S: This might be the most amazing part of this beer, flat out. This is like if someone burned a Werther’s Original factory to the ground. This boasts a full caramel bouquet with nice sweet roast to it. This also reminds me a bit of a Payday bar but with a prominent brown sugar all up in the mix like some official Creme of Wheat action. The finish of it lacks much alcohol presence and reminds me of Bruery White Chocolate and a macadamia nut cookie. This is pretty decadent, even by my 10 year old palate.

T: This goes a bit sweeter than the roasty balance of the nose and if you have had apple brandy treatments of anything, you know what I am talking about This has a nice brandy aspect at first with a sweet almost cognac caramel aspect to it with the malts pulling full steam with some dark fruits like plums and pluots be grinding on one another like a slow jam. This feels like a hybrid between a nice Belgian Quad and an Old Ale given the sweetness but roasty balance. This is an exceptional beer.

This beer will warm you up more than a baby rhino wearing a blankie.

M: The coating is pretty substantial but doesn’t go balls out like Hunah, which is a good thing for this execution. I wasn’t the hugest fan of the base beer but this, like Hunah, is a completely different beast altogether. The alcohol doesn’t seem to lend heat so much as it lends a stickiness like so many ungrateful Craigslist girlfriends.

D: For 13% and massive sweetness, this is strangely drinkable. I did not find myself wincing at working through a 750 of this. Then again, most beer drinkers are gigantic blubbering labias and will find something to complain about. This will likely be where they voice their shitty timid concerns about how when it warms it is too sweet or how they wanted more chocolate stout notes in their English Barleywine just the way Mama Goose Island likes to make. Wah wah wah, don’t listen to them. Seek this beer out. This is an interesting beast and can go toe to toe with Sucaba and Kuhnhenn with Alpine Great nodding knowingly upon an altar made of bone.

Let the others stumble over themselves to land King Henry, you are a refined gentleman.

Narrative: The Kingdom of Leon held its traditions proudly, despite the constant Moorish interference with their golden heritage. The bowed masses gnashed their teeth in the gold mines, awaiting the coming of a ducal potentate to liberate them to a sweet future. They indulged on holy days and presented sweet gifts in the classic tradition. It was upon these backs that the roasted fields presented the sticky promise of a future holy barrel empire. The citizens of Leon would be challenged again and again with unerring faith, harvesting the sweet fields of malt and grain, enduring the mistreatment of a malignant king with cool determination. Leon would one day overcome. Each dynasty results in Patricide and ultimately a free exchange of golden discourse. This was no different and the Iberian Peninsula teemed with wanting desire, for soon the King should fall.

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Rogue White Whale Ale, A Beer Brewed with a Copy of Moby Dick in the Brewkettle

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I am not shitting you:

A reading from the book of Hyperonomy.

Rogue White Whale Ale, brewed with Moby Dick, just released in bottles

As though their last foray into Maple Bacon Burned Down Planned Parenthoods was not enough, now they are putting printed paper into the brew kettle to drum up hype. I get it, whales are a trope of the trading and ticking culture. There are tan whales, taupe walez, white wales, and even midwestshelfwalez. At the heart of all wales is usually 1) rarity 2) taste 3) bottle counts or 4) inaccessability. This beer takes a regular beer, adds recycled paper with ink on it and therefore destroys #2.

It is made by Rogue so we know that item #1 is out by default. If you are shipping to BevMo, you can expect n00bsexual traders to offer this up looking for BA Batch 9000 and shit. What about bottle counts? Well this is available online, so let’s just guess upwards of 30,000 bottles. So item #3 is out. On that same point, if you can sit back and order it ONLINE and have it delivered to your house, unless that box says “Etre Gourmet” or “Cascade” on it, it likely won’t be a white wale. This parade of dumb ass adjuncts seems to be the new rage either in this form, or by fruiting base beers that taste like shit to pass them on to an unsuspecting beer nerd populace.

THIS IS NOT A WALE. Giving it pieces of paper will not make it a WHALE

Look forward to your uninitiated normal friends to buy you this garbage and then you have to nod thoughtfully and thank them for their pointed gift. Call me Bitchmale.

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New Glarus Thumbprint Saison, Wisconsin Get Its Hand on The Farmhouse Style and Straight Up Fumbles

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SAISON MARATHON SOMETIMES REVIEWS MEDIOCRE SAISONS.

Let me say this at the outset, this is not a BAD saison. In fact, it is dead on and falls directly in line with what you would expect from an American take on the Belgian style. That is the whole problem, it is too predictable and ultimately is the most frustrating type of review to write because it is too conformist, too gentle, for some what would not even register as a bad thing, however, in the realm of top tier heavy hitters that we are addressing, this comes off as more of a sessionable belgian golden with aspects of saison interplay. Enough bitchassness and complaining, let’s get on this grizzy.

New Glarus always delivers, just sometimes not to my tastes.

New Glarus Brewing Company
Wisconsin, United States
Saison / Farmhouse Ale | 6.50% ABV

A: This is a beautiful beer, let’s just get that out of the way. The carbonation is not excessive and the lacing is pretty like nana’s doilie collection. There is a radiant golden hue to it that almost reminds me of a Belgian Tripel with some deep gold at the center. It looks refreshing and substantial at the same time like a Charlie Kaufman screenplay.

This is not an exceptionally dramatic saison.

S: This is where they bust out the cookie cutter and makes it fall in line with the ultra-predictable saisons and borderline, dare I say it, Hennepin levels. If we are looking for some crazy lactic element or a crazy blast of funk, this is not where you will hang your hat. You get a nice cornbread waft from it, a light spice, some very faint lemon rind, some banana but more like the yellow runts type of banana and finally a light grassiness.

T: This follows the nose almost congruently and presents the wheat and chewy bready aspect, some recumbent light spice, and closes with a honey meets sod sort of execution. Again, this is not bad at all, but you drink it, the glass is empty, and you carry on with your stamp collection. Nothing to really say about the lingering aspects or any level of ruminating necessary. For some people, the lack of impression might be the hallmark of a refreshing farmhouse ale. For me, this just kinda comes across like a John Hughes movie that isn’t memorable but is temporarily uplifting.

This is a sweet loving beer, but it might not executing things exactly as you hoped.

M: This has a light chewiness to it and a lingering honey finish to it but the refreshing watery aspect is the overriding aspect to this beer. I am not sure if this is sold in 4 packs but it seems to be less of a special occasion saison and more of a “I fucking hate my daughter’s dance recitals” sort of every day beer. In this aspect, it is phenomenal. Usually when I am opening a saison, it is caged and corked and feels like a substantial event, but this beer makes it more of an approachable glory hole where you don’t feel bad for wasting it.

D: If you missed it, this is exceptionally drinkable, but not necessarily the best saison evar. It is kinda like that person you rent Redbox movies with and make out with but know that there’s no lasting potential in this one. Wisconsin fanboys might lose their shit over this appraisal, but seriously go drink Squatters Fifth Element and tell me those two are comparable “but they are totally different beers” yeah I know, and I enjoy one more than another, zero fucks given.

Don’t think about it so hard, take it, put it in your face hole.

Narrative: Julia was never really tall for her age, or exceptionally intelligent for her grade. She not an unremarkable 5 feet 5 inches, shoulder length brown hair, enjoyed baking and flagging innocuous items on Pintrest. When she went to clubs, she would order a vodka soda and keep her composure and remain poised in an unnoteworthy Bebe dress. No one would fault Julia for not taking risks, some would applaud her conservative presentation. Her favorite book is 1984 and she enjoyed watching One Tree Hill. No one is saying that there is anything wrong with that. Somehow, on those lingering coffee dates, all of her courtesans would secretly long for something more deviant, something funky, acidic, or a hateful streak to compliment their own shortcomings. She was too supplicant for the general public for the simple reason that she was just what the world needed.

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Cisco Brewing, Island Reserve: Saison Farmhouse Ale – MA has some fertile farms

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SAISON MARATHON CHUGS ALONG LOVINGLY.

Cisco recently killed it at GABF and Lady of the Woods has been received as a crowd pleaser by all accounts. I have enjoyed quite a few of their sours but remain relatively uninitiated with their other beers. Since this is a saison marathon, I could not rob you of this unappreciated (underknown?) gem. With their strong pedigree of sours, I expected this to go off the rails into a whole new realm. This did not disappoint and actually presented itself as one of the best american saisons that I have had in recent memory, straight up lemon lime on the funky tip. Highly recommended.

Having an island saison kinda makes me wonder about the farmhouse cred, maybe granary cred but do islands usually have a farmhouse on them? WHO KNOWS.

Cisco Brewers Inc.
Massachusetts, United States
Saison / Farmhouse Ale | 6.00% ABV

Label jazz:
Saison Farmhouse was fun to brew and is fun to drink. Buckwheat, oats, and rye fermented with Brettanomyces and a Saison yeast in a 50 hectoliter french oak cask. Herbs and spices grown here at the brewery replaced most of the hops. On it’s way into package it was treated to a host of microflora to create additional character over time.

A: This was a touch darker than I expected but by no means is offputting, it presents an amber and almost verges on the realm of the bronze in execution. Much like all the other saisons we have been seeing, the carbonation is intense and you have to go play a round of Borderlands and wait for it to subside. There is a nice webbing of lacing and spotty cling on the glass. I enjoy that whipped up lemon merengue, reminds me of when my alcoholic babysitter would let me mix soaps from under the sink together and breathe in the fumes.

I would hit this on the reg.

S: This smells amazing and goes a completely acidic lemon lime path very similar to last year’s old label Fantome Printemps, if you don’t know what I am talking about, I mean this:

Last year’s batch, Fantome Printemps

not to be confused with this year’s new label batch:

2012 Printemps THE RETURN

Anyway, you get a deep sprite and sierra mist with some carpet sample book that has been left in the rain. There’s a fresh grassiness to the finish and the whole things just reminds me of a fresh rain bodywash or something. Sure there’s some light breadiness on the backend up the whole beer is executed magnificiently, relative to my 11 year old palate.

T: This has an incredibly crisp apple skin at the outset with some white grape and bisquik biscuit in the middle providing some chewiness. There is a light clove aspect but largely the juicy aspects make this toe almost toward the wild ale realm ala Ithaca Brute. The cask and brett in this give it a fantastic finish that reminds me of an IMPROVED VERSION of Sanctification. I said it. Cisco killed it on this one, someone send me more plz.

It took hours of extensive saison research to reach these findings.

M: This is incredibly crisp and has a sort of chardonnay aspect to it with a brackish oakiness on the backend that makes you drill this like a negligent dentist. The fruit character and wine cooler aspect also make this approachable for all of your underaged sorority friends that you are trying to so desperately to impress. Get John Locke on them and disaow epistemological actions that you cannot confirm you performed. Feided.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable despite being drier than people’s eyes after watching Battleship. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it came across like kind of a hybrid between Printemps and Hill Farmstead E. in execution and drinkability, enough pumping up the unstoppable hubris that is Cisco Brewing, they did a hell of a job.

This beer is so good it is almost inappropriate.

Narrative: Skylar Jergens had hit his writers block. Well to be proper, it was a creativity block. Being the lead creative director at Mountain Dew entailed a mountain of responsibilities that he was heretofore able to manage. A quick glance around his spacious Pepsi Co office could evidence his series of achievements with high fructose corn syrup and water. There was his platinum bottle award for the inimitable Mt. Dew Code Red, the Pop Award of Distinction from the Midwest Conference for his Baja Blast, and who could forget his integral part in Halo Mountain Dew, brewed exclusively for gamers complicated dietary needs. Skylar tapped his pen on the legal pad and looked out the window onto the Missoula city skyline and wondered what combination of water and artificial sugars would be his next masterpiece. He idly rolled a tangelo in front of him and it suddenly hit him “HAY, WATER, INFECTED LIMES, AND ORANGE JUICE.” He clicked his Pentec pen and furiously began writing out the recipe for his new Mountain Dew magnum opus: Farmhouse Burst.