NYC people in a strange way mirror Los Angeles in that they had been in such a drought for years for hypebeast Supreme breweries that now that each side got a few [monkish/other half etc] now they desire to toss that momentum into every subsequent upstart is frothy and attenuated. LA bros tried to make that happen with the likes of Mumford and here we are with @licbeerproject which exists as a perfect counterpoint: this is a very good brewery that has to orbit in a huge metro center in the auspices of a local brewery that dipshit consumers have already ruined. LIC is tasty, their wares stick the landing with silky orange pith body and a cream of wheat apricot swallow. But it lacks the oily structure and sustain of other godlier examples, Trillium comes to mind in remedying this foundational issue. There’s a mild conifer but this brewery is squarely interested in the dryhop theraflu game with a wispy citrus crackle that burns and fades and a swallow that mirrors this fleeting experience, the CandyCrush of the palate world. I haven’t had their bigger beers but the paces this brewery is treading seem familiar to breweries that grab the hem of haze greatness: aslin, great notion, we can all name a local that doesn’t something exceedingly well without being a grapefruit smoke show. A build spec’ed with some weakness that is exposed when the grind of endless variety exists as that wheel of ixion to carve down the edges. Thankfully New Belgium and Sierra Nevada are gonna push deeper into a widely commercial available shelf stable example of this, fail by contrast, and make these smaller scaled breweries look much better as a result. Boston Brew co will ironically leverage an inverse marketing for the style geographically and aesthetically. You can do far worse than LIC and the diminishing returns on a $120 four pack of BrocoliCheddarSmashedTater makes this an alluring alternative to be sure.

The nose on this is fantastic but it’s one of the rare examples of @caseybrewing beers that are just way too fucking acidic and flesh-driven that buckle my mandible. I can’t underscore more fully how fragrant and redolent the bouquet of this beer is and it almost redeems the gerd inducing upper GI punishment attendant to this citrus orbital laser. Sure carb is great and mouthfeel is frothy with a great base to it, but that speaks more to the quality of the canvas itself but nectarines are the paradigm of molar dissolution.

Holy smokes I had zero expectations for this @finbackbrewery and @horusagedales collab. Not a sleight to either of them but I hadn’t seen much buzz for this non ba kopi luwak stout. Then this comes out the gates swinging: spamming strong attack with no dodge rolls, unlimited stamina. If they barre age this, it will be worse. This does one thing and it does it incredibly: grinds my beans down to 14 micron. It’s so flawlessly integrated and threads the needle between bitter roast and oversteeped acidity. Outside of the old alesmith naturally aspirated coffee variant speedways you don’t see this. This is purely bean driven through and through and it wasn’t just buying expensive beans and hoping for the best. A level of care and discretion between how much coffee was used and the residual body keeps this from hitting max bell pepper zone. Any action that softens this body or long complex v60 swallow will be a neg to what this beer set out to accomplish, a low acidity kyoto endeavor that also happens to have a seamlessly integrated stout within the Barista Horse. The fall of Troy.

Damn Voodoo keeps that strong punch air to ground with this one. This is strangely thinner than the Black Magick series but the ultra casking makes sense in that regard. It’s just dripping in ooooooold Staggy saturation, but without the heat that will light your chest up like a Hadoken. It is not sweet at all and is intensely oak and lacquer driven, if there is a “dry” massive stout then here it is. It’s the massive counterpoint to pastry in the respect that it is no frills just pure brewing skill framed with long aging and this silky body that is Megazord integrated. Nestle chips and woodshop shavings, the end closer almost has a lightly brackish aspect that is fantastic. But is it worth the insane cost of entry? It’s hard to answer, for a massive 12ozbottle of irreplaceable intense cask driven items, the most comparable item is the equally apeshit Ardea, which I guess is “less” ounce per ounce. Some dipshit will argue for his 2 year old bottle of Target InBev rare in a fancy Anthropologie box, and let them have that, go ahead and drop four times as much in a trade for this. It’s fucking stellar.

Everyone was creaming their respective coconut labias over Helms Deep last year and I had all these southern boys telling me how it was some off brand Bake Kujira. The chin scratching was dermatologically significant. This seems squarely pastry namely that it is literally named German Chocolate Cake and seems to look down longingly to the stretch of waterhags and everglade addled landmass to what Angry Chair is up to with bakery dreams like Kristen Wig in bridesmaids. Everyone tryna bake, kujira notwithstanding. This has exactly what you anticipate, odd little white “coconut” or “coagulated protein matter in suspension” depending on which side of the condescending prick argument you wish to align with. There’s chunks. The nose is inredible and has waves of complexity even for what can be a heavy handed style at its inception. Blackforest chocolate, pudding, mild acidity espresso roast akin to Black Cat, a fucking odddddd sherry barrel character peddling cognac soaked prunes and kinda orchard rot and oversaturated port oak. But it’s cakey at its core. The heft of this cannot be overstated, this undulates out of the bottle with a hateful reluctance. You see yourself and dark shortcomings in the protein sheen of obsidian reflection. You are calorically worse for the energy imparted but this massive endeavor. So of course I drink this alone at 2am while listening to 90s electrodance and playing Monster Hunter world, a lil look in the spicy behind the scenes world of DDB. Bake this is not, BAIGCC this is not, but this is appears more deliberate than capacity driven. The sherry riff was intention and its super novel. You get such a weird merger of like fudge meets craisins, is that the world you want to live in? I would rather see innovation than the laughably predictable shit that the Prairie single barrel “innovation bros” came up with and suffice it to say, no one would have made something like this. And even if I get Hyundai mileage out of ripping on Dark Lord variants, at least when they are shitty they are trying something, even if it is a Miller Boyette punchline. This is good, it tastes very good and I haven’t had stouts that take this approach but it your boner will remain unshattered, there’s not enough chocolately liquid nitrogen to go full T1000 and you live to bake another day.

I butter my bread using Lost Abbey as an easy target from time to time. In this instance, I can’t grist many yukyuks out because they have been on their shit so thoroughly lately that it is almost frustrating from an entertainment perspective to see them do things so well. Some of you may remember the OG New Belgium Falling Rock on the Original top 100 White Whale list from when BeerAdvocate was still relevant. Falling Rock was a beer that I chased for seven years and never locked it down and I am sure it’s an Aquanet acetic nailsalon mess at this point, but perhaps my grapes have soured from lack of punchdown. Enter the b2 Fallling Rock, a component blended, fruited wild from Lost Abbey. My balloon knot tightened when I saw this in both anticipation and expectation that this would be some intensely acidic affair like so many of the fruited Veritas offerings. This was easily one of the best Lost Abbey beers I have had in years and has this distinctively American riff that was both complex and that shredding gauche ‘raise truck Silverado panache that American runs on brett trois can produce.

The fruit profile is muted and instead provides fondant for what is oak driven through and through. This is dry and has an allusion to gum buckling but never gets to that level. It oddly through the merger of all these different barrels you end up with some kind of Biere de Garde hybrid. Part Norma, part OEC cum de BFM. There’s a smattering of grapefruit pith, clementines, CUTIES (if you fuxxx w them), and a long apple skin type of closer coupled with Jura wine that discerning consumers with 13.1 stickers on their foresters were obsessed with last year. This isn’t the pillowy soft wheat driven beer that is in vogue right now, it’s classic American wild ale on all fronts of the AWA acronym. The musk is like a super fresh Doesjel except with carb and you’re actually jazzed to drink it. All the Lambincels about to get rattled. This is a fantastic window into what Lost Abbey is up to on the club aspect, their retail shelf offerings being left alone for the time being. This is absolutely worthy of your contemplation, a fantastic reimaging of the spontaneous cheer days past. I am considering this a WW100 tick, ZFG, take it up with DDB customer support.

This is an extremely historically relevant beer that has a massive cult following here and across the pond. It define the scope of barrel aged stouts and european execution arguably in the same scope as Kaggen, but I wasn’t all jazzed about it. I love the body, I love the restraint and massive cask saturation, I enjoy the deep roast and lightly bitter finish, but there are huge polarizing aspects that particularly fg 1.050+ residual sugar babies embrace. The cask on this takes intense black licorice and anise from Abyss to a massive new Dundersalt level but without the tempering viscosity. The barrel ironically has a deep American oak profile with waves of grape hookah and tobacco to the swallow. Obviously I embrace the “other” king Henry far more but this is unquestionably well made, just not for me. It’s like how you can watch Tree of Life and be like “ah, I can see how someone would like this” while perhaps not investing your own aesthetic vote of confidence. The shamrock shake version was legitimately delicious, not doing a bit. It tasted like a Girl Scout thin mint, but this might not be the most economical drink after getting GKH thought customs. GO SHAMKINGS GO

I have waited over nine years to finally try falling rock. In name. In spirit. Whatever, it was on the original white whale list and along with shit like Black Cherry Bomb and Bee Keeper there were always a few that I could never lock down. The description on this sounds amazing and I’m stoked Falling Rock went with @lostabbey for this anniversary beer. Finally_cecepeniston.wav

Inb4 someone dumps on my chest about how it’s not the original NB blend: i know. I fucking get it. I spent years trying to trade for it, leave me alone.

Lol most people don’t even know what the OG falling rock is and these floccboiz and batterbabies def don’t give a shit

Giving with one hand and taking with another

Reminds me of the drake cover

If you’re ticking these it’s too late

Some say beer is about taste, sure but what about having the managerial skills to meet payroll and coordinate a mule staff of local Tampa drifters to make your pastry dreams a reality?

You think beer is some game when you gotta make sure those vagrants clock out for their 10s and read the muleployee handbook in case they get hit with an impromptu adjunct quiz? What about brushing up on Florida municipal traffic laws to find out how to adequately block school buses and thoroughfares.

You think you can just open a beer without issuing proper 1099s and making sure they make the proper declarations and do drops at the end of the day and don’t even get me started about per diem meal allocations for independent line staff waiters living below the poverty line. Then you get hit with child care requests and other incidentals you can’t even fathom in these pastry pursuits.

Beer is srs independent small bznss