Highland Park Brewing made an Adjunct Stout for Woodshop 10th Anny and didn’t even screw it up. HOW?

October 8, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

DDB is full of inconsistencies. Sometimes breweries get lit up for using ingredients as a crutch, others get praise for the same shit. Ideological conflicts rub like strike slip tectonic plates creating that magma friction rumbling that is too underlying to ignore. The ultimate benchmark of the aesthetic valuations primarily lies in this amorphous conception of “net quality.” This may be some cloud of invincibility to retreat within when the sky is blackened by projectiles alleging “HOMERISM” or “CONSUMER BIAS” or “GEOGRAPHICAL FAVORITISM” but there are instances where, regardless of the placement of the brite tank, some people are simply more skilled at metabolizing sugarwater into ethanol.

These are the trappings of deconstructive commentary, the thin veneer of objectivity predicated at all times upon an aggregate of subjective impressions. No amount of ground effects or aluminum triple tier wings converts a Dodge Neon Expresso into that which it is not.

That being said: Highland Park Brewing made a fucking awesome stout riddled to shit with adjunct ingredients. Allow me to elaborate.

the entry wound is sick but the exit wound is that of cyclopean nightmares

So let’s lay some foundation for this shit before we bust out the triple beam and start bagging up the raw:

“Brewed for The 10th Annual Woodshop Tasting(s) in San Diego and Los Angeles, 10/3-10/4/15. A double oatmeal stout with Trystero Ethiopian Dry Process Yirga Cheffe Buufata Konga coffee, lactose, cinnamon, vanilla beans, and cedar.”

They sold these at the Woodshop blind rating/bottleshare. Most people were too rekt to even buy these at the event or completely forgot because they left a toddler in their idling Pathfinder.

The carb is minimal, but you probably weren’t legitimately expecting some effervescent bubbler of mocha foam. If you remember my lengthy write up of the strengths and weaknesses of HPB you will recall this is a brewery that makes incredible saisons but bigger beers that are underwhelming because they are too fucking attenuated and thin.

But it’s not tho

So on paper we have 1) non-barrel aged 2) adjunct stout 3) made by a brewery who exhibited difficulties making a hefty beer 4) cedar. I was like “god fucking damnit” and almost bought zero. Thank god I did because this was a 12:1 runaway that cashed out hard.

The problems with other Highland Park Beers are decimated by the same thing that fucking RUINS stouts from Florida and the midwest: lactose. You see, other breweries don’t have a program focused on dialing in dry/clean beers. Highland park has TOO MUCH in this regard. As a result the lactose fills in the hole of the mouthfeel like a decadent sex doll. The sweetness from the lactose is tempered by PHENOMENAL coffee, a dry roasty floral execution like Stumptown rounders. The cinnamon, like a best friend “there for moral support while she picks up her things from your apartment” thankfully shuts the fuck up. It is a little crackle of spice that feels like rye oak and not some Cinnabon mall centerpiece.

No the DDB bullet openers aren't for sale, I'll do a post about that later.

No the DDB bullet openers aren’t for sale through DDB, I’ll do a post about that later.

The problem of lack of barrel aging loomed like them ships in ID4: WHAT WILL ADD THE DEPTH TO AMAZING MOUTHFEEL AND COFFEE BLASTS? Shockingly, cedar helps to dry out the sweetness from the lactose and serves as a foundation in conjunction with the coffee to make a faux american oak taste. This might be the singular example of these ingredients not completely fucking ruining a beer. The vanilla rounds out the butterscotch/coldstone creamery GOTTA HAVE IT barrel experience. It feels deceptively barrel aged, and I am content to drink the Kool-aid and put up with all of the bullshit because the net result is a fucking PHENOMENAL beer.

I will do some filthy things to tolerate awesome stouts.

So in sum, this is the Mad Max Fury Road of the beer world: you expect it to be some one dimensional stupid shit that shouldn’t hold your attention and it comes out of nowhere and rocks your tits off, inexplicably and amazingly.

These Brewers Gonna Make Me Unleash the Dragon: Passionate Dragon. Happy Barrel Aged Beer Day.

October 2, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

First thing’s first, happy Barrel Aged Beer Day, bump this in your lonely cubicle:

So after the shockwaves of Fundamental Observation continue to reverberate. the sweatjoweled world continues to await the sophomore release from these young OC upstarts. You might remember when I went to the Bruery anniversary and called Passionate Dragon the best beer of the entire festival, even better than Fundamental Observation. So I went into this already knowing what type of dragon fist lay in store. Does this hold up in bottled format? Is there logic attendant to the bottle? From zero to R. Kelly, how much passion are we talking about in International Passion Units (IPUs)?

ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED.

So much embarrassment to take low fstop photos like this outside of the home. Such shame.

“Passion and dragon fruit saison aged in wine barrels. In collaboration with Arizone Wilderness Brewing, this saison is brewed with passion fruit, dragon fruit, Centennial kumquats, Rosemary, fresh bay leaves, and White Sonora Wheat. It’s a mouthful, we know, but this beer showcases our shared passion to push craft beer forward.”

Alright at the outset you may be thinking:
“DDB you give other breweries a raft full of shit for using adjuncts in a saison, suddenly your homer instincts kick in and these guys get a fukn pass?”

Well, allow me to temper those objections by stating: this beer is fucking amazing. If you want to add pink peppercorns each lovingly rubbed on the urethral tip of a BJCP master, then go for it, so long as the beer is amazing. I read the description and was like “oh god damn it” but then knew the incredible pedigree of Arizona Wilderness and the calm set in. Those comforting chest pets to relieve anxiety.

First and foremost, the bottled version of this wasn’t as trubby and jammy in its tannic turbidity as the draft version. It turns out, the bottled version is way fucking better. If you wanted a slurry fruit mess, call Pizza Boy. The brewers elected to blend and allow the final version to ferment longer, giving it more of a nuanced barrel characater, less smuckers, more tannins, more structure, and this inimitable lingering bay leaf menthol added to the fruit that lasts and lasts underscoring the oak saturation. For this reason, you don’t get the cliche MAGENTA OMFG that newmoney kids lose their shit over, tasting with their eyes pell mell.

These labels are still admittedly busy and obnoxious. Raygun nostalgia with like 9 diagrams, 500 words of text: too fucking much going on.

Another note is that this beer is a full 1% abv over the draft version and much much drier as a result. The alcohol is seamlessly integrated into the fruit and barrel presence in a scary way. Usually this dryness is accompanied with some sausage fingered acetic aeration, intense tartness. That is not the case here, this beer bangs like Rockford Fosgate subs in a bandpass box but never gets too intense or acidic. It is without comparison of recent memory, a single foot planted hard in the saison realm without letting monoculture emphasis denature the experience.

The taste never jumps completely to rely upon fruits like a crutch, nor does it expect the spices to bail them outta county either. As a result you have a hardened saison criminal, who is a bit fruity from the time in captivity but in that hard way that you just have to respect. In terms of analogues, this is less a saison and more of a Biere de Garde. The whole affair drinks like a fruited, less acidic, cleaner Biere de Norma. Yes, I realize the implications of stating that something with this many ingredients is better than a Hill Farmstead beer, I stand by it. The shit is like 2 tabs of Demerol that starts out normal enough and suddenly your face is being attacked by the sidewalk. You be gripping parking meters tripping not an insubstantial number of balls, tryna make it out of this fruited farmhouse alive.

The beer itself is inversely good to the quality of this shitty pic.

If you went to the Stone Anniversary/Sourfest and had the immeasurably shittier “YOUNG DRAGON” rest assured, this is a completely different beer that stomps out that squad until they turn the lights on. The nose is a phrenetic Hungry Hungry Hippos match wherein kumquat and tropical fruits compete with oak and lingering saison esters to gobble up your white BALs with their wanting maws.

The mouthfeel initially has a Welch’s Passionfruit juice that serves as an opening band to warm things up for the main event when the dry tannic skins spit hot bars over a kumquat instrumental. Bay leaf is in the back providing bitter structure with sick beatboxing.

This sold out immediately online and there was some degree of chaos from a unilaterally reschedule sale, switched to a Sunday morning. I can foresee the degree of butthurt being noteworthy once the reviews for the bottled version start pouring in. The sweet punishment of success, an ambrosial delight endemic to the beer industry.

All said, I enjoyed this more than Fundamental Observation and this beer brings something I seldom encounter in items with this much taking place concurrently: pirouettes of vinous balance. If this isn’t in the DDB top 10 of 2015 I would be surprised, you would be remiss to skip this one as I can’t identify a clear analogue in recent memory.

Electric currant: currant saison. These guys continue to load shells into that bullpup ambidextrous cellar, stoked to see if these guys can sustain success beyond these first two homeruns.

We shall see.

Speedwale from 2009: @newbelgium Bottleworks X Anniversary Ale

July 10, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

Today we have an aging matriarch from the days of the Speedway Jim top 100 white whale list aka them extinct speedwales. If you are a johnny come lately to the beer game who covets King Henry and thinks that Sr-71 should trade on par with Zomer, chances are you have no fucking idea what this is. To those people, Bottleworks is that one store that sometimes sells Deviation, and that’s it. To everyone else Bottleworks is the proto-City Beer model of classic bottle shop meets beer culture hub from the old tymie days. This is the tenth anniversary bottle brewed by New Belgium, 1400 bottle one off released in 2009.

It might even pull a single bottle of Vanilla Rye if you are lucky.

washed out label, needs more contrast, cool pic

New Belgium, Colorado

American Wild Ale, 6.5% abv

For some reason Hair of the Dog also posted up hard in the trap and brewed Matt for Bottleworks X that year, so this old gem is often forgotten under the sands of ticker time. This bottle represents something larger for New Belgium as a ubiquitous ultra micro giant, the end of a non-pasteurized, brewery only fun times era. Now you usually hear about them when your drunk stepdad tells you about how he loves “Fat Tire Brewing Company” and you nod in sad reflection, thinking of Caged and corked la folies past.

This beer is foeder fermented la folie, la terroir and a golden ale blended together and bottled live, un pasteurized, rolling monocultures all raw dog.

The pour immediately looks more beautiful than both Twisted Spoke and 2009 cage and corked la Folie. You can hardly pull your penis out on the metro without someone mentioning those two beers next to this one. The pour is a ruddy burnt orange and light amber that radiates like a turbid blood orange cocktail, with the carb still billowing flawlessly with determined cling. It isn’t that dark auspicious deep mahogany of its contemporaries and it looks great.

Oppressive Portland sun ruining everything for all the white people in that city.

The nose thankfully doesn’t exhibit any of the acetic red wine vinegar aspects of the 09 la folie and instead has tangerine zest, Brie cheese rind, clementines, sliced honeydew, oak and pencil shavings, a touch of light construction paper oxidation and a red berry closer that lingers. The whole affair puckers the bunghole air tight and there is no seepage, no weeping. For all the things that time could have denatured, it has unquestionably improved this beer to a level without contemporary analogue. There’s a degree of musk and earthiness that only time can accomplish, despite what some kettle souring Colorado charlatan may tell you.

The taste is a touch more acidic than the nose suggests but the creamy mouthfeel with ultra fine jacuzzi bubbles offsets the acrimonious effect. It pushes a raspberry and grapefruit pith, there’s a bit of vanilla and Chardonnay staves, white grape that is equally moscato sweet and tart like rainier cherries. The whole experience is a many faced God and a ticker never forgets.

No salad dressing tones detected

I feel like the aging grampa in the 80’s complaining “they don’t make ’em like this no more” and referencing the non pasteurized, aged, meticulous Detroit steel beers from the past. This is truly a magnificent, highly drinkable gem that stands in stark contrast to so many of the ultra acidic offerings clouding today’s lacto and ultra Brett L focused market.

Yet another entry in the ever expanding journal of “this near extinct beer is great, seek it out” annals. DDB is a useless resource, I need to switch to 140 char UNTAPPD reviews for the millennials with short, heavily-medicated attention spans. SOMEDAY

LA BEER WEEK BONUS REVIEW: @smogcitybeer Cuddlebug, Compelled Cuddling is Really Just Pinning Someone Down

June 23, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

Alright before we jump right back into the fray with another brewery review, might as well address this stone fruit prodigy that people have been mentioning with regularity on the trade boards. The Smog City barrel program seemingly has blind sided consumers and top tier tickers alike with monthly releases spitting hot rounds, dropping mad 16s on the South Bay. Even crusty kids with Pennywise shirts are peeping the BAL game.

So what’s the deal with this shit? OH GREAT YET ANOTHER STONEFRUIT SOURED BLONDE WOW SUCH ORIGINAL MANY INSPIRE. I thought the same thing and furrowed my brow, knowing that hard as nails lineage it would need to compete with: Persica, Fen Tao, La Fosse, Veritas 15, Fuzzy, the list goes on and fucking on. Even making a 4.5% AWA with peaches and apricots already puts a red dot on a brewer’s head like Rodman.

Let’s go through the standard checklist that gets level 2 cicerones tumescent:

– Stonefruit

– 2000 bottle release

– brewery only

And then they need to clean the trub from those And1 basketball shorts because that’s all it takes these days. Except this beer is actually good, it’s really fucking tasty.

squeeze that peach until the juice runs down your leg

The pour looks a touch watery but leaves subtle cling before that carb crackles off and belies that potentially acidic affair waiting underneathe. It looks clean and radiant, glowing like a Super Mario Galaxy Star.

The nose is intense pithy apricot flesh, cut nectarine, less peach and more farmers market clementines and satsuma almost. The bouquet seems so representative of the fruits in question is feels supra-real, like when that yellow smelling marker smelled more like lemons than real lemons do. This goes over the top and the acidity isn’t really anywhere to be found. There isn’t much brett C or musky funk interplay and this is one of those “squeaky clean” sours that boost crushability in lieu of cheesy gristiness.

WHOA WAIT THIS IS NOT THE PEACHES I WAS SEEKING. i will accept this willingly.

The taste is endlessly balanced, a fruit profile that never becomes cloying or artificial. It has moderate acidity but you could easily crush a 500ml without a second thought. There is a touch of drying along the gumline but it never feels like they are learning on the fruit as a crutch. With some fruited wilds, you toss 2 lbs per gallon of anything and YOU WIN THE GAME THIS TASTES LIKE FRUIT, but that isn’t the case here. The fruit tannins serve to compliment rather than outshine the delicate drinkability of this beer, it’s like an ultra competent Steve Buscemi performance that makes everyone else appear even better as a whole.

A complaint that perhaps isn’t even a valid gripe is that it is TOO easy to drink and unless you actively contemplate this beer, it will be gone. One phone call from your ex wife pestering you about DID YOU BORROW MY STEPLADDER and boom the entire beer is gone. THANKS A LOT, JANET, YOU STOLE YET ANOTHER THING FROM MY LIFE. It isn’t insubstantial like some of the Bu’s, and it isn’t over the top like some nameless Floridian offerings, it his this perfect inner wall of satisfaction you want to rock upon until you crack your pit and juice it hard.

WAIT WUT.

how long been on them stone fruits? ALL DAY TICKER

In sum, yet another fucking great beer without a clear parallel, that is absolutely worth putting in and around your face.

PLUM WATCH 2015 CONTINUES: enough of @caseybrewing Grippin on my Plums also, OAK THEORY REVISITED

June 19, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

In the past four months the upstarts over at Casey have experienced seemingly overnight skyrocketing demand, and CO hoarders have been hitting the trade boards harder than Soda Popinkski. In what was previously the typical overly-generous, Subaru-driving bonhomie of the mountain people, Colorado traders are flexing hard on the recent releases. They are getting Cut in more ways than one. When KBBS went 1:1 with Blackberry Cut last week it was like when Bane pumps that green shit into his skull and you know things are about to get completely out of pocket.

So it goes.

So what is the deal with this plum fruit stand? We all know cherry was legit as fuqqqq but them plums are tough to massage, that tenuous dance between pith, acidity and insoluble fiber, did Troy Casey bruise ur fruit brah? Let’s get pitted and find out

Enjoying a productive afternoon at Beachwood cruising for chicks on Ancestry.com

Casey Brewing, high altitude north of the wall, CO
Fruited barrel aged saison 5.5% abv

The pour comes out radiant and ruddy, slight glow of turbid tangerine tones and a whipped meringue to the carb that sits in a frothy cap like an orange creamsicle starbucks frap. The sheeting looks like the agitated gallons of juice at the Sunkist factory.

Other entries in the PLUM WATCH canon include:

https://dontdrinkbeer.com/2015/06/05/plum-watch-2015-hillfarmstead-flora-plum-cleaning-up-harmful-free-radicals-with-beer/

and

A review of Out of the Emptiness that I cannot find right now because this site is a pile of disorganized garbage.

Again, some assholes still believe that a plum sour should be purple, but then again I cant expect dudes who wear husky sized elastic waisted jeans from Lands End to know what the inside of a fruit looks like. The nose is far less sharp than Flora plum and has more of a refined acidity leaning towards skins, juicer dregs, Roebeks atmosphere, the late harvest of plums overripe in the sun, closing with a sort of cheesy puppy musk. Them up the nose tangerine tongue kisses.

Chasing this down with an order of cured albacore, typical weekday lunch shit.

The taste has this tenuous relationship where it wants to go balls out with the fruit but with that comes potentially overbearing acidity. IT IS LIKE UNCLE BEN SAID POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY IN BREWING, PETER. In a decidedly unamerican execution, the beer favors creamy drinkability in lieu of intense ph forward kicks to the taint. It feels a lot like the Tilquin plum ancienne but admittedly I enjoy this more because the mouthfeel isn’t nearly as excoriating. Yes I realize beer nerds rip their tutfy brillow pubes out if you suggest that an American sour is in any way superior to a Belgian iteration so I’ll allow you to go grab some Ben gay and cool the burn.

Overall, this is well worth your time and while not as complex as HF Flora plum, it is a marked improvement over the Almanac plum entries which are simply too sour in execution, by comparison. If you enjoyed the plum emptiness from Tired Hands, this is lock step just as good and incredibly similar, acidic but crushable, worthy of your reflection but doesn’t command your focus like some community college drama asshole who won’t give it a rest.
If you can land this 400 bottle banger for something in the realm of Vanilla Rye, absolutely jump on it. I can’t stop grippin my plums. Things are likely gonna get worse before they get better with regards to landing Casey bottles, might as well lay on this Semtex now and shatter your cellar before the next hot 3bbl brewery opens in the middle of nowhere Idaho and starts doing 130 bottle releases. High tide floats all boats.

OK THE OTHER BOTTLE WAS OFF ALRIGHT SHIT

As a corollary, I wanted to revisit my controversial review of Oak Theory. Colorado tickers were seed pissed about my prior impressions that oak theory was too sour so I decided to review another bottle to see if I was being a cranky crab that evening when I initially drank Oak Theory alone.

https://dontdrinkbeer.com/2015/04/06/caseybrewing-oak-theory-psh-not-even-advanced-oak-theory-i-didnt-even-get-any-ap-credits-for-this-review/

Upon another sampling, my initial review of oak theory was wildly different than my second bottle. The second go round felt more like a gentle, more complex, more lactic version of East Bank. Listen, I can’t do every iteration and every batch of every bottle and sometimes my shit is misguided based upon a limited sample size of A SINGLE BOTTLE. Nevertheless, if you previously decided NOT to seek out Oak Theory because I said it tasted like Planned Parenthood afterbirth (I didn’t) go get it now, the subsequent bottles are far different.

TASTES SO GOOD TO BE SO WRONG

Prairie Bomb, As Soon As the Mashtun is up in the Benz, Ales be Poppin like Parkinson’s

June 25, 2013 | dontdrinkbeer

This brewery has dropped a legit blitzkrieg on the trade boards and the offshelf distro world in general. It seems like just months ago I was sipping on the only available beer, Prairie Standard, suddenly places are getting like 10 different offerings overnight from these Okies. Their saisons were a legitmate experience, the hoppy offerings are clean and refreshing…but what about the dark side? Often times when someone is super cutty at the farmhouse world, they go to shit when they try and run a hook and ladder into the chocolate malt world. Remember when Jester King rolled out racksonracksonracks of “farmhouse” stout. Belgian Black Metal sounds like Vampire Weekend. Anyway, this is a huge stout with a list of adjuncts longer than my dick, LET’S SEE IF IT HOLDS UP.

This beer is Bomb, Lloyd Banks is not.

Prairie Artisan Ales
Oklahoma, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 14.00% ABV

A: At first blush this has all the blueprints of a walk down Hunaland, which is the gulag in Candyland most players never make it to. The oily sheeting is substantial but you can see its not just a residual sugar mess of needless sheeting, it holds a certain degree of poise and purpose, coating in black khaki but letting the alcohol sheeting zambonie that shit clean. This is substantial in depth and has the attractive cacao foam on top like some overpriced fixed gear coffee drink some stupid girl in a stretched out tank top with a strapless bra underneath would buy. The coffee, not this beer.

A beer this complex is sure to satisfy, use your tornado tongue

S: Alright, time to tap this core sample because we are dealing with some serious strata up in this bitch. Layers and layers of complex periods piled up like corkboard. You know all those adjuncts on the label, well they show up like Dick Tracy villains in turn on the nose: coffee, roasty acidity, a sweetness like Coldstone Creamery vanilla, a tiny bit of peppers submerged under the chocolatey decadence that is pervasive. No swappertunities here you Yoplait fucks, stout hard or GTFO.

T: This is like a Terrence Malick movie rolled into a liquid medium, I don’t know if I fully get it but damn it feels good to try. The whole thing opens with that coffee dryness, baller ass single batch fair trade painter handing out acidity flyers and drying until chocolate shows up dripping wet in a candy coated slab. A fucking 88 Buick Regal of cacao milk chocolatey goodness leaves trails of stick fondant and mousse on all the low-calorie haters. You can feel yourself enrolling in crossfit when you take each substantial sip, there’s no Instragram hashtag to motivate people to this panoply. The vanilla is ranked out and doesn’t show up at all, for obvious reasons. It’s like the cast of Biggest Loser entered an elevator and vanilla is the thin ass size 20 contestant in the mix. Thank god, the chilis are subtle and don’t go ham handed like Mexican cake. It provides more of a diaphanous crackle than a full on heat that deadens the palate. Abv called in sick, nowhere to be found, having a beat sesh to Judge Judy and scrambled Cinemax all day long.

This beer is strange, but it makes my socks go up and down

M: This doesn’t coat as hard as huna, but it doesn’t really need to since the taste focuses on two aspects that don’t especially need a deep lingering stickiness. It is somewhere in that Parabola range where you wouldn’t call it exceptionally thick, but it isn’t like Blackout Stout/Event Horizon or one of those svelte thin ass stouts. I am looking at you, size 1 jeans wearing Czar Jack with that apple ass.

D: This is tough to answer and I guess it really is up to your parole officer because sure you CAN put away probably 2-3 of these 14% beers. You can smash Goldfish on the entryway and leave a teary voicemail for your ex too, but that doesn’t mean you should. I think the 12oz was perfect, you get the blast of flavors, it opens up and sweetens as it warms and the affair is over with a swift economy that is approachable, unlike a Terrence Malick movie. This displays that poise that I wish some Bruery beers would give in their girth and 750 format, my liver and love handles can’t take it.

This beer is better than most of your other life decisions.

Narrative: The employees at Nestle were non-union, well, slaves really. The cacao factory in Bolivia was the only show in town now that Kraft had shut down all the local illegal logging operations with their new Chocomegalopolisplex. It looked not unlike Midgar with its huge Mako reactor filled with molten chocolate. The human resource department scrambled around the molten obsidian body of a 4’11” bolivian man who fell into the priming tanks. “GOD DAMN IT WE HAVE TO RECALL ALL OF THOSE CHIPS AT THE HEIGHT OF TOLLHOUSE SEASON!” one executive boomed. The tiny indigenous man parted his lips and the saccharine mud gurgled as he gasped for breath. “Por…por favor…no podemos usar…cafe…en la…dulces….” he stammered dripping mahogany drops on the acrylic floor. “WHAT IS HE SAYING! This is going to be a PR nightmare if we can’t get those coffee/vanilla/chili variants out for the holiday rush,” the production overseer fumed. An uncertified company nurse patted dabs of molted chocolate from Isidro, licking her fingers in the process. The press release would be a carefully executed affair, presenting all of the merits in a restrained way, albeit with underlying power and consequences. Isidro would receive a lifetime supply of Nestle Quik in both regular and strawberry variants, resulting in the unforeseen death of his village due to malnourishment.

Revolution Brewing Mean Gene Flicking that Mean Bean on the Clean Scene

April 22, 2013 | dontdrinkbeer

I give the midwest traders dress downs on the regular for shittyh trade offers and some people get butthurt at the perceived bias. In the future I will try to clown on Florida and the Pacific Northwest to make some amends. In the interim, how about a completely fucking favorable beer review of something amazing straight out of the 312? Can we still be friends? I have had latent curiosity about Revolution ever since I tried Mad Cow, and every offering that I have subsequently enjoyed has been amazing. This brewery is spitting crazy ether and dropping hot 16s on cyphers just making other midwest breweries, excepting maybe Haymarket, getting copped up and clapped quick. So enough massaging the sack, let’s get at these beans.

I was gonna make an erection/wood play here but, at this point it is like a single entendre

Revolution Brewing Company – Brewpub
Illinois, United States
American Porter | 8.50% ABV

A: This beer is full of fucking life for a deep malignant looking brew. It froths out crackly and excited, lacing the glass and looking like a Honduran waterpark all dark and full of vigor. The lacing looks great and it maintains that clearly porter aspect to it with some nice legs but no crazy char staining the glass like the petulant beast Huna, just ruining carpets and doling out paternity tests.

It is tough to argue with porters that are this good.

S: This has an incredible interplay between the coffee, roast, light oak, vanilla and the barrel cloystered way in the back like an approving parent. This doesn’t go apeshit in any one aspect and the coffee has this acidity that gently scissors the barrel aspects, straight grinding them beans. I could quaff this all day but don’t think I am some quaffer, ain’t nobody got time for that.

T: This reminds me of “Baby BA Kopi” in many ways. The coffee doesn’t go as hard, the barrel has this coconut/oak/roasty aspect and a gentle vanilla that is not the relief pitcher it is the closer. This just has an incredible balance that remains distinctly porter and doesn’t go down this quasi-stout road. I could drink this all day, hit parked cars, holler at pregnant women and get lackluster hugs from drunk sorority chicks. It is that kinda beer.

cant land limited barrel aged porters? Don’t cry, drink an Edmund Fitzgerald and think about things that coudl have been.

M: This washes clean and just serves to dice shit up quickly with little residual sugars but a great barrel character that is restrained enough that you don’t need to plan ahead or split this. Fuck your friends, they didn’t show up to your Slam Poetry competition, drink this alone. The watery aspects would usually be a knock, but in this instance it just delivers shit up flawless. These other breweries wanted beef until Revolution started serving up slabs. This is on the same level as Batch 2 Birth of Tragedy and gives a sly nod to Jack’s Abby BA Framinghammer, being in the mix with the late great porters.

D: Taken as a whole, this beer is incredibly drinkable and masks that abv with great depth but at colder temps a sort of incredible simplicity. At higher temps the beers opens up and shows its more complex sides, a lil something for everyone. It’s like putting on a Crazy Town album, just incredible depth and clarity for all, magnum opus of- just kidding I can’t even type this, Crazy Town is worse than stapling your labias together.

Bourbon, char, roast, chocolate just getting up in the mix for a sick cuddle sesh

Narrative: Gepetto’s woodworking shop was not performing as expected. Perhaps it was his fault, opening a fanciful woodshop in 17th century Vienna. People just did not have the need for trifles and dolls in a post-reformation world. Gepetto would get so lonely, looking out the shop windows, observing the bustling populace going to and fro. It was never in his constitution to be a butcher or a baker, he was born for the baroque and ornate woodworking was the only thing he knew. Sometimes patrons would frequent his store and he would be seen speakingly lovingly to an inanimate doll or laughing and patting a wooden bear on the head. Despite his beneficent intentions, people were creeped out. He was a master with the wood, but his execution was not for the general populace. It would take generations to realize that his creations required no strings, none at all. His brilliance laid in his ability to take the simple and raise it to a level of grandeur unparalleled in wood grinding until Seventh Veil opened on Sunset, many years in the future.

Foothills Baltic Porter, North Carolina is Known for Its Nautical Engineering

November 13, 2011 | dontdrinkbeer

It makes me feel all like Peter the Great, except not a giant savage asshole.

Foothills Baltic Porter, 9% abv

Gold Medal Winner, BEST FUCKING PORTER SO JUST MOVE ON AND DELETE YOUR OLD PORTER’S NUMBER YOU SLUT.

A: This looks like a Porter but with some serious fortitude, not of that cross-over Imperial Stout madness its a big crazy thin porter through and through. The carbonation looks like a haunted ass house, or that last level of Contra. Either way. Deep dark browns, not black, not overly malty, just enough whoppers.

S: The coffee and deep bakers chocolate is present with a strange sweetness finish that seems to accompany in a red wine sort of way. It’s how I would imagine a sassy nana’s mouth to taste.

Thakns a lot North Carolina for making this brewery only. Now these kids never get to have it.

T: The taste delivers things in that gentle southernly Foothill sort of way. It presents a nice tray of chocolate delights, gives a sweet cup of antebellum coffee, coaxes your mane and assures you of simpler times and gives you a gentle exit, feeling fulfilled.

M: The mouthfeel is distinctively porter with a nice clean watery body that delivers a huge flavor without overloading that malty elements. I got this as an extra and it was amazing, especially since Porters are usually the weird artsy twin of the Imperial Stout who usually are all lame and drama nerds. you know the drill. SOCKING NERDS.

Which Porter Should I Take.

D: The drinkability is outrageous and you can put this away like Magic: The Gathering cards when a hot girl comes over. So fast. This is remarkable for the sheer complexity and huge body that it imparts but washes away clean instantly. It’s like some David Blaine ass porter up in this mix.

Duck Rabbit Rabid Duck Imperial Stout, 10% abv

September 30, 2011 | dontdrinkbeer

Rabbit Imperialism, Briar Patches Appropriated

Duck Rabbit Rabid Duck, 10% abv imperial stout

A: A thinnish black with some deep browns, not a completely oily nightmare, just
moderate BP situation. Nice lacing and stickiness on the glass, like a 2 Live Crew Video.

S: huge smells of figs, dates, roasted walnuts and melted raisin. The smoky profile is
light but huge in dark fruits. The chocolate presents some dryness, but you aren't all
sad like at the end of an episode of Teen Mom, a good dryness.

T: The taste has none of the fruits present and relies more upon a smoky element
and dark chocolate maltiness. If the maltiness were stronger it would come off
like dark chocolate milk but the watery profile pulls away from it.
No heat from the 10% abv is present.

M: Surprisingly light given the appearance and the result is a beer that isn’t
too big for several bouts, nice coating but not a huge malty overload. 1950's diners aint
got NATHAN ON THESE MALTS.

D: As far at Imperial Stouts go, the thin body makes it less memorable, less complex
but more drinkable. It serves a strange purpose in that it doesn’t exactly strive
for a One Day Crazy Release but seeks to be more of a solid everyman’s imperial stout
cum de Yeti, Founders; but it isn’t readily available so it’s drink ability basically
must carry the day and it ultimately does not.

Narrative: Michael Clempson knew exactly what he was walking into. There was an
auspicious trailer at the entry to the cul de sac, unmarked Crowne Victoria cars along
the seemingly benign residential streets. Michael trolled Yahoo chat rooms relentlessly
seeking the undercover Dateline operatives to lead to this epic event. He feigned interest
in a person posing as a 13 year old girl for the strict purpose of making his swift dark plan.
“COME ON IN SILLY GET OUT OF THE RAIN!” Michael chuckled to himself at the pathetic acting
from the operative luring him into the house. He held his head up high and awaited the ambush.
On this blustery overcast day, Perverted Justice would receive justice of their own.
“I MADE YOU SOME SWEET TEA SO JUST COME IN AND HAVE A SEAT!” the voice resonated off of
the surrounding track homes. Michael grinned and gripped the detonator in the pocket of his
cargo shorts, each stick of c4 making light abrasions against his chest as he entered the
house with his murky dark intentions.

dontdrinkbeer

Drinking beer, so you don't have to.

Tag Archives: chocolate beer