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Armand’4 Geuze Herfst (Fall), Dropping 32 euros on a bottle of beer Herfst so good.

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How negligent can this website get? I reviewed Spring, Summer, and Winter of the Armand’4 series and straight up neglected to provide you with this banger: HERFST. Just so this is clear, here is how I would rank these Armand seasons: Zomer, Lente, Herfst, Winter. IN THAT ORDER. Well taking the bronze in such amazing company is nothing to be a sad panda about. Let’s get puckered in today’s review, for the geuze haters.

Love HERFST. Gueuze scars.

HERFST
Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen
Belgium
Gueuze | 6.00% ABV

A This has a huge generous billowing cloud of carbonation that is cummulus to the fullest. It is light orange at its center with light yellow and gold edges. It boasts a slightly unfiltered appearance. It’s like a 6 year old at CVS, you don’t want to touch him but you know he is a little sticky and filthy. The lacing is substantial as well, it leaves little party streamers on the edges of the glass with gracious aplomb.

With every season you expect a normal geuze, BUT THEN YOU GET AN AMAZING SUPER SOUR SOAKER. Dnt be fukn stpid Gooby.

S: Not surprisingly, it is stick and filthy. There are sour and sweet tart notes are blended with hints of granny smith apples underneath. I don’t want to go out on a limb but I am going to say a Skittle reduction is at play here. Compared to the other seasons, this has a funk and earthiness to it like the landscaping section of Home Depot. There is a great wet dog meets soggy alfalfa aspect that integrates with the acidity in a fantastic way.

T There is a pleasant sweetness for a split second with a latent backroundhouse to the bitter zones immediately thereafter. Its a sucker punch which leaves your mouth a bit dry but welcoming more if only for the strange assault. It’s like getting socked in the armpit, you aren’t mad youre just a little perplexed and glad it wasn’t worse. It provides a mild hop bite and this toes the line closer to an extremely funky saison but this provides an incredible acrimonious punch to the tart zones.

This is a huge beer, but small and restrained at the same time. It is a paradigm of delicate imbalance.

M: This is very light and dries in a refreshing fashion hitting that gumline deep and hard. It reminds you of an advanced cousin, the one who learned compound cussing earlier and gave you Too Short cassette tapes. Its like the tiny asian fighter who you underestimate who delivers fast swift blows that disorient and surprise your mouth. It is clean, crisp and damaging to your bitter zones. It is concurrently musty, funky, and also coats with a nice wheaty aspect to it.

D: This style is in my opinion fantastic for hot weather and, if you have some water on hand, a great companion outdoors on the beach or a boat. If you like very mild lagers then you will disagree but then you are also a raging pacifist and it is unclear how you ended up reading this review in the first place. The juiciness and earthiness of this perfectly captures the spirit of fall: straddling the heat and acidity of Zomer with the somber earthy tones of Winter.

32 euros PLUS shipping from Belgium? This is why we can’t have nice things.

Narrative: 47 years of service. Francine Manzana gave that caramel apple pop company the best years of her life and she was terminated “for cause” for reading a Patricia Cornwell novel when she wasn’t clocked out. Francine wasn’t going to take this lying down. She knew the secret behind the tartness in those pops, and she had full intention on taking this issue public. With her box of belongings from her desk she strode over to the quality control center only to find that Loretta was out. “I will make them feel the tart bitterness of abandonment, just like they showed me.” With a few calibrations she reset the dials and the mixture began running an entirely new batch of Caramel Apple pops through the line. Her acidic personality boiled inside with a deep complexity. She stared at her spiteful reflection in the bubbling pool of acidic green glucose. The wafts of the additional citric acid stung her eyes and nostrils. Francine smiled and tossed her mystery novel into the simmering goo, for she had an unemployment officer to speak to.

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Troegs Nugget Nectar, Would an IIPA By Any Other Name Taste This Dank?

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Whenever I am confronted with an exceptional red ale, I always scratch my head and wonder who this hybrid style is aimed at. If you like hops, why not just brew a dank IPA? This top 100 red ale just crushes any other beers that approach the throne in this style. I guess variety is the spice of life and there are even degenerates who enjoy hoppy porters, so anything can happen if 50 fucked Vivica. Let’s grind some nuggets up and sip this sweet nectar.

If you have been fiending for hops, this will cure your blue nuggets.

Tröegs Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States
American Amber / Red Ale | 7.50% ABV

A: Guess what, this has ruby notes at the edges and a medium mocha center to it. I bet you didn’t see the red notes nestled in there did you? A good looking beer with no lacing and solid carbonation.

This beer throws so many pinecones.

S: great big hop profile pine grapefruit, orange rind, the red is hidden in the malt in what would otherwise be an exceptional ipa, but if they say it is a red, shoot, who am I to object? Would a red by any other name, etc.

T: I have a hard time accepting this as a red given its hop profile. They should just call this an exceptional IPA and stop with the pageantry. Sure, you have the malts and all this yeast run around but I feel it is like when they put glasses and a ponytail on a really hot girl to set her out as a nerd. Problem is, beer drinkers, and adolescent youth (sometimes aligned) can see through these tactics. I want an unadulterated IPA, not this Red with her paint splattered overalls and beguiling Freddy Prinze Jr. crush. Call an IPA for what it is and she will love you more.

“Red ales are a fun style to enjo-” I don’t remember asking you a God damn thing. Red ales are for people who eat at B.J.’s not real binge drinkers.

M: Again, guess what, it has the mouthfeel of an IPA. This review feels like what Car and Driver must go through in reviewing the Firebird and the Camaro concurrently. It tastes like an IPA, it is an IPA, it’s here, it’s clear, get over it.

D: Picture a solid IPA, then add some mellowing malts to it and call it a red. There you go. It is exceptionally drinkable but its identity crisis warrants mentioning, over and over. I don’t know that this compels me to squeeze any nuggets, specifically, but its does make me wonder why this beer is not shipped to the California and we are left to sift through…oh wait…I see why this is not shipped to California.

“I like red ales because they are from Ireland, and so am I!!!” My face when-

Narrative: Jacob Walters could have showed up at Bull Run. He could have showed up at Appamaddox. As a union solider he basically could have enlisted wherever he was needed but, no, he held to his pride. You see, Jacob Walters preemptively joined the United State Air Force, a squadron that would not form until almost 100 years after he signed up for a union military. As a result, Jacob refused to fight in Antetam without aircraft, would not serve on Sherman’s march, absent air support, and was disinterested in any carpet bagging reconstruction unless he were flying a zepplin or a plane. He was a staunch air pilot and no civil unrest would wrench that from his grasp. If someone on the streets of Burmingham saluted him as an officer he would waft his hand and lightly reply “Red…I am a red…ale? Just call me RED ALE!” He was batshit crazy, but the military let him fly his ornithopter just the same.

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New Glarus Raspberry Tart, Get your Epipens, This is Going to Be a Sweet One

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People love this beer. Girls have 100% enjoyed this beer, every single time. Let’s clarify, not in a sexist generalization treating women as a homogenous group, I mean every girl that I have ever poured this for has really enjoyed it. I do not like this beer. When I am drinking beer, it is to forget about the puppy that urinates on everything in my life. When I am eating fruit, it is due to the guilt of drinking too much. Put simply, I don’t need these two worlds to collide in equal parity. New Glarus is the shit, but this beer is anything but. Anyway, step on these berries, let’s get it:

I lost my old pic of this beer, I took it with a Blackberry anyway, so you know that shit would have been in monochrome or something.

New Glarus Raspberry Tart 4.0% fruit beer

A: There is a deep ruby he that almost appears like a muted amber, huge deep red foamy carbonation that leaves very little lacing. There is miminal sheeting and this seriously just looks like a glass of juice or something you give to your toddler in a sippy cup. Hell, in Wisconsin, anything is possible. This beer is on some top 100 lists so apparently someone loves this beer. Some people liked the ending of Vanilla Sky too, fucked if I know.

I don’t know what needs more refinement, my palate or the gallons of fruit sugars in this beer. It’s perfect for the Wisconsin clubs, bottles in the basket pills in the plastic.

S: The bouquet smells overwhelmingly like raspberries, fruit preserves, sweet flowers, and a slight wine/cabernet finish. This is just already far too sweet, I can go buy a bag of Skittles, this just takes things to excessive levels.

T: The sweetness from the raspberries is present and accounted for, almost overwhelmingly. The sweetness has a cider character to it and subsides into an intense dryness with an incredible crisp finish like biting into a granny smith apple, only, raspberry.

I feel like I am too old for this beer or maybe it is reserved for people who read Marie Claire. The correlation is astounding.

M: The mouthfeel has zero coating, zero stickiness, and washes away crisp and clean. There isn’t a whole lot to comment on here since this beer barely toes inside the beer framework. I know there is a cadre of dedicated NG kids who love this beer, I am an adult, I don’t need to drink a cup of Torani syrup to enjoy a beer. Grow up, get high octane, or go the lambic route. This beer just wasn’t my jam, but I will preserve the record for others to PRODUCE.

D: If not for the sugary-juice overload, this would be a incredibly drinkable beer. It presents great utility to those “black sheep” or the XX chromosomal order who “don’t like beer” or “beer makes them feel bloated.” This is an undercover beer that emotes like a crisp cider and presents the ambrosial delight of a champagne. Strictly speaking, I wouldn’t buy this again or seek it out, but that’s largely due to the style. If I was on a boat with some dour faced sad girls, I would provide it like a benevolent Spuds Mckenzie.

This beer ganks your sweet zones with a robble robbel swag.

Narrative: ::TOOOOOT!!!:: the olde timey steam whistled hissed signaling the end of another shift. The stern overseer, Rose Juiceworthington, kept a watchful eye over the employees of the Smuckers’ canning line and made sure that her will was enacted to the T. “Williams! My office, NOW!” the loudspeaker boomed. Williams, soaked in mashed raspberries had a sweet winsome disposition, but a sordid past. “I have seen you down there, slowing on the mashing. . .what’s so funny?” Williams raised raised her glanced slowly, then swiftly smashed a can of raspberry preserves over Ms. Juiceworthington’s head, sending her cascading backwards into a molten pit of bubbling preserves. The gasps for breath made sweet gurgles and Williams nodded a sticky sweet approving nod, not to be confronted again.

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Hair of the Dog, Bourbon Fred from the Wood, I Think I Am Getting a Clue, Oh Wait It is Bourbon Wood.

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Hair of the Dog releases can get out of hand. The last time Adam from the Wood was released, everyone on the trading boards lost their shit and the traders who were sitting on entire cases could not be compelled to let bottles go. Well, some time has passed, wounds have healed, and livers have regenerated. This is the often overlooked analog to Adam from the Wood, Bourbon Fred. Apparently the first release had some carb issues and it affected the ratings but I can safely say that this 2012 release is incredible and it appears that the ratings are spiking harder than a 6 man tournament. Let’s get after it:

If you see Fred up in the club, hit him with a bourbon high five.

Hair of the Dog Brewing Company / Brewery and Tasting Room
Oregon, United States
American Strong Ale | 12.00% ABV

A: This isn’t the most beautiful beer that I have ever poured, but sometimes it is inside what counts. To my amazement, this beer was actually carbonated, unlike so many other Kuhnhenn and HotD offerings. Matt was flat, Adam has been tepid, but this just bursts with excessive lacing and frothy tiny bubbles. It was like every time that I had been burned by prior offerings was amended with this jam.

At 12% abv, this will hit you out of nowhere.

S: This is as barrel as it gets, you get coconut, macaroon, vanilla, sweet heat and nice sweet pancakes smell cum de IHOP. Whenever I see trifling ass beer blogs complain about heat on a BA beer, it is like someone complaining about an escort being “too forward.” That is what you paid for, peep game. This is ready to roll and at 12% abv, things could get way more twisted.

T: This is pretty easy to summarize, the castle door drops down and some gentle maple and Werther’s original flavors enter and then HOLY SHIT BOURBON IS RIDING AN ELEPHANT. There is a harem of servants casting vanilla and sweet oak chips to the clamoring masses. The bourbon is so far forward that it is in the engine compartment. No punchlines, no riddles, I am talking white squares with a stamp in the middle.

This beer rocks crazy vanilla, but is smooth as hell. Word to your mother.

M: This has an incredible dryness but also a sticky malt that pulls from both ends like a sorority tug of war. You are up in your glass communicating with the bourbon like Michael and KITT, perfectly integrated. This leaves residual sugars lingering and nice sheeting of alcohol to think about. The 12’s up in your mouth leave that palate shaking like it got Parkinson’s Disease, but it is so damn fulfilling.

D: If you are accustomed to merking Buffalo Trace to the skull, this might be your session beer. For most people, this is too big, too sweet, too complex, and too heated to session up on, however, the 12oz single is a solid banger. If this was in a bomber you’d be forgetting to pick your kids from school, taking apart the VCR and shit.

I just want moar.

Narrative: It was hard for Malcolm Rogers to relate to the guys. They always rooted for the Big 10, what with him and his fencing hobby, he felt a bit outside the ranks. However, there was one thing that Malcolm could consistently offer that would bring even the most stalwart of opposition to its knees: “DID SOMEONE SAY TOTINOS PIZZA ROLLS?” It did not matter the class, creed, or character of his guests; once those preservative laden rolls hit the table, things were off of the hook, hinges and heezy concurrently. No one really thought much about Malcom’s job, or his background. While others traded people on their fantasy teams, he would swirl 18 year bourbon in a bucket and ruminate on habbedashery. He was too classy and refined for his own good. He made horrible fantasy draft picks based on name alone, and his antechamber smacked of Anthropologie; but they tolerated him. His sweet decadent pizza rolls wafted through the KB Home, securing his eschelon amongst the bretheren.