HEY LETS REVIEW THREE BEERS FROM Aardwolf Brewing, @aardwolfbar WHY NOT IT IS MONDAY SURE OK FINE

August 3, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

Florida is in such a magical and endearing place in the beer game at present. It holds a checkered past replete with some of the most coveted releases, the lowest bottle counts, and just short of Chicago, some of the absolute worst beer traders in the game. Despite the foregoing, this leaky waterhag filled peninsula has unquestionably pumped the everglades with some of the finest breweries in the game right now.

Since we are painting with sweeping generalizations about a huge swath of land occupied by an equally diverse populace, coveted Florida releases usually go like this:

1) take an existing style
2) add a bunch of obscure fruit, coffee, chilis, or white oak to it
3 release like 120 bottles to the public well knowing that over 1000 sweaty nascar bros will show up.
4) wait nine months and release the barrel aged version to cause a shitstorm of even more pandemonium and butthurt

That’s pretty much how things fly down there, five times a year since always until forever.

So today let’s take a look at an upstart brewery that is concurrently working within the climate of Floridian demands, but also ekeing out their own character: Aardwolf Brewing.

BREAKFAST TIME HERE COME SOME EGG WHITES

Whiskey Barrel Aged Early Bird Special

Stout aged on vanilla bean, cinnamon, coffee, aged in whiskey barrels

If this particular breakdown looks familiar to you, it’s because every fucking brewery founded after 2012 is brewing this same shit. It’s like dudes saw Founders drop CBS in 2011 and then talked their rich stepdads into buying them a 7 barrel brew house just to make this adjunct banger. Hold onto your hats: a stout brewed with coffee, vanilla, cinnamon, the works.

when FSTOPs go wrong: this fall on Outdoor Life Network

The first thing I would like to note is that this is markedly thinner than the traditional foray into this now predictable style. It feels more nimble and svelte coating the glass more like an imperial Porter in a way, leaving nice earthy foam on the glass. The nose dominates with coffee to a staggering degree and closes with a long toasty roast. There is a touch of residual sweetness but the ultra thin body and relatively low Abv don’t give this artist much canvas to paint upon. Sometimes an intentionally restrictive medium lends itself to focusing the performance; that is kinda the case here. The taste is focused and it delivers in the manner it promises without overstaying its welcome or feeling poorly crafted. It is tasty albeit not altering the consciousness of the style. If there is a “crushable” entry in this increasingly crowded realm, this would be it and it is unquestionably well brewed, but perhaps not spec’d to shatter any molds or conceptions.

drive up that content with multiple angles of the same bottle GOT IT

I would much rather prefer something be delicious and come in understated rather than the typical under-attenuated execution we see far too often. This is nice but it won’t displace the greats within its ranks.

As a side note, there is a long lingering spice and cinnamon aspect that was borderline cloying. In what may amount to an incredible amount of irony, DDB is being a bitch about the cinnamon. There is simply TOO MUCH cinnamon on the finish that artificially dries out the mouthfeel and gives it a lingering spice profile that displaces the delicious coffee like a cup of Abuelita. FINE. I GUESS I AM JUST A CINNABITCH AFTER ALL.

They even included a nod to DDB on the label.

Zagreus, Red wine barrel aged Tripel

Last week fuqqqed around and got a tripel dubbel

Ah a barrel aged tripel, the diciest of consumer gambles in beer. This style can fall close to the pin of Curieux if it wants to play it conservatively; or it can aspire to hit the pinnacle of the genre like Sante Adairius’s Always in Life. More often than not, breweries turn out over oaked, over estery adjunct messes like Bruery BA five golden rings or something that becomes too big for its tripel britches.

The hue on this beer is a touch dark and i bunkered down for some mettalic or sweet crystal malt, neither showed up.

This offering hugs the curieux design so conservatively that you might have a hard time telling the two apart, aside from moderate differences. Now is benchmarking and coming close to nailing the industry standard worthy of derision? Not really, Hyundai bites luxury brand styling all day and makes cars for single parents year in and year out. This beer is dry and doesn’t exhibit the flabby honey and banana issues most Ba tripels fall into: thank god. In fact it is more oaky than honey, and the red wine barrel gives it this tannic dryness that almost reminds me of Darjeeling or a floral type of chamomile tea.

she’s not a shower, she’s a grower.

You certainly should drink this around 50 degrees because it becomes a bit hefty at higher temps and a syrupy mouthfeel develops. If you see this, you should certainly pick it up, but if this shares the same price point as Curieux it is hard to make a compelling argument for one over the other as they are so similar in scope and execution. Pretty tasty stuff, nothing you need to slip your Fedex delivery man’s L5-S1 over tho.

Brandy Barrel Aged Mariachi
Stout Made with Cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, and chilis

Wait, this beer, from Florida…I am getting some feelings of Deja Vu

Man if you want a textbook definition of the most predictable stout release from Florida, here it is. This infected Westbrook upwards, and then spread like some Umbrella corp virus to all of the brite tanks around the nation.

If you read DDB, you have already had a billion beers just like this, so let’s parse this down to how it is DIFFERENT from the various iterations of this style. It isn’t as hefty as Huna, the barrel profile comes across as understated but presents a light caramel sweetness as though it wasn’t racked for a significant period of time or didn’t hit optimum saturation (i.e. basically anything released by a North Carolina brewery.) The peppers aren’t overpowering and if anything this is a bit hamfisted in the cocoa aspects. I had this side by side with regular ass Mexican Cake and, despite having barrel aging, the two are about comparable in quality.

This could use less sweetness and brownie batter from the cocoa nibs and allow the various other aspects to shine. This is the best of the three and it is worth seeking out because it presents a novel riff on an increasingly crowded genre. While it fails to reach the heights established by BA Abaraxas, Brandy Huna, or Double Barrel Mexican Cake, it stands its own and parries blows with admirable speed and dexterity.

In sum, I like where this brewery is headed in terms of marketing, branding, ambition and DDB nods. In jumping headfirst into the foray of the most contested styles they are bold and didn’t fail in any one of their attempts. It will be a pleasure to see how things progress with these guys in the near future.

@Sudwerkbrew Strawberry Solara Berliner, Healthy Spirits SF Beer Week Exclusive, BAKING SODA I GOT BAKING SODA

February 18, 2015 | dontdrinkbeer

So today we have a RARE GEM from the Brewer’s Cut series from Sudwerk, these scamps in Davis. So this is a STRAWBERRY berliner, but then when I went to their website, it notes “Davis microbrewers of hand-crafted lager beer adhering to the Reinheitsgebot German Purity Law” so I WUTTTTed pretty hard. When I initially asked people about this, they said it was a myeh brewpub, but then other people staunchly defended the brewery itself and said that the barrel aged/brewery only offerings are amazing compared to the quotidian offerings sold at the yawn-worthy pub. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. So let’s see what these Davis boys be putting they tips into in today’s review:

Glassware fail, SORRY MY DAVIS GLASS GAME ISN’T ON POINT. Funky Buddha used to make berliners jeez.

Berliner, 6.5%

Sudwerks, Davis, Strawberries added, in comport with purity laws.

The brewer presses his hips against yours and whispers this into your ear, lovingly tugging on your Beats by Dre ear buds:
““Strawberry Solera is a blend of Solera Weiss fermented with Sudwerk microflora and a Brett-Saison aged on 1lb/gal Sacramento Valley strawberries in Bordeaux barrels. The nose is lactic, lemon, and berries with moderate Brett character. Clean palate with bright berry and tropical highlights with a dry finish.”

A: This is a turbid lil messy Jesse and has a creamy look of some Vermont trubtastic offerings, but at least this makes sense given the unfiltered hefty wheat bill. There’s an orange julius and whipped smoothie carb to it and it looks gentle albeit far too substantial for a BY THE NUMBERS berliner. But Southampton brews shit like UBERLINER and gets away with it so, whatever, just think of this as a Wittbier with fruit, you don’t give a shit.

Whenever I see strawberry on the label, I flashback to horrid beers from the past. Trying to live life in the present like Foodbabe tells me to.

S: At cold temperatures you get this lightly plastic aspect that can occur when using strawberry as an addition. It isn’t like a sick/ropey/phenolic, none of that business, its more like when you unroll a fruit by the foot and there’s a faint synthetic aspect. After it passes 55 degrees this burns off and it is imperceptible. The fruit character is very pronounced and the berry exhibits that same tannic farmer’s market aspect attendant to Cask 200 Strawberry or Omniscience and Proselytism. As long as you don’t drink this exceptionally cold, you are cash money records.

Your hombrew club is gonna flip out when you tell them how RAER this beer is. Also, it tastes good, but THAT SHIT IS IRRELEVANT TO YOUR HOMEBREW HOMIES.

T: None of the synthetic aspects are present on the taste and this is actually very impressive. It leads with a tangerine, lightly brackish cream of wheat breadiness, then the strawberry dominates IN THE FLAVOR PROFILE. If you have had many strawberry beers you will know that most of the time, it exists on the nose and then peaces the fuck out on the taste. All that insoluble fiber aint got time to be tasted and shit, gotta take its girl to the seed clinic. This is less jammy and more like a saison with a pump of Torani strawberry, aged on musky red Jolly Ranchers. That last sentence sounds like shit, but this is very legit. Too legit to quit, even.

M: The creamy profile is very silky and soft with a far more substantial heft to it than most berliners. It feels more like a straight up AWA scissoring a saison in a hybrid Apple car. If you told me this were a berliner I would shake my head like when Cigar City hands me a 12% robust porter and starts quoting BJ standards. As long as you dont need your BJs to be completely certified, you will enjoy this fruity creaminess to full completion.

You can handle a barrel aged weissbier on strawberries. Dream big.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and again, feels like Cask 200 Strawberry and Cascade Strawberry had some extramarital affair and dropped this tannic trub baby on the steps of the berliner orphanage to be raised under a different name. THAT SHIT SOUNDS LIKE A NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE NOVEL THAT COULD HAVE BEEN. At any rate, I saw the brewpub ratings for this brewery and expected this to be a bowl of anus dipped berries, but it is actually really tasty. Go to Healthy Spirits and ask to see the spot on the shelf where these used to sit, light a candle, make a day of it.

@alchemistbeer Focal Banger: Better than Heady. I know this will rustle people with Certified BJ palates.

November 6, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Whoa, whoa, let’s put the pitchforks down and extinguish those torches. BOTH BEERS ARE WORLD CLASS. Focal Banger just goes hard and crushes it out of the park in a totally different and admittedly superior manner almost across the board. Let’s start oiling those cones and get back to them entry level hoppy palate roots in today’s roots.

Gemini, Focal’s Majesty

Focal Banger
The Alchemist
Vermont, United States
Style | ABV
American IPA | 7.00% ABV

WE DOING HOPPY BEER REVIEWS WITH A FULL NARRATIVE TOO, can you Digglett?

A: This has that same turbid, milky, Sunny D meets Tampico sort of radiance that the Cicerone schools gnash their teeth over: SUCH A LACK OF CLARITY. This was to be expected, as the farmhouse game is pervasive and not everyone subscribes to the crystal clear SRM of generations past. That’s chill. The carb is ample but doesn’t get in the way with excessive head or entendres connected thereto. It reminds me of how HF Double Galaxy Looks, except this shit only gots one galaxy, NEED TO UP THAT GALAXY COUNT SON.

S: This is an earth shattering limit break of olfactory delights, I am left mashing X to execute an ever expanding combo. There is of course the Citra aspects of tangerine and grapefruit zest, sure like you didn’t expect that, but HOLD UP, there is also a sort of Honeydew and a crisp watery melon profile that starts chopping up alpha rails real quick on a jewel case. This is overwhelming in scope and capacity but also adds depth to the old Bells’ hop overload formula. Balanced and excessive concurrently, a work of staggering brilliance.

You don’t always need to be massive to put in work. Str8 swole. Mad hoppy striations

T: The taste is intensely bright and nimble in a way that heady feels yeasty and sluggish by contrast. If Horny Tubbler is the Tank, this is a nimble rogue casting hoppy DPS all over the place. There is lemon cirtus, peach, apricot, a watery panache that buttresses and fires shots like Ocelot Revolver right into your bittering zones on the swallow. The intense citrus closes a touch minty and herbal with a bittering juniper mixing with the pithy juiciness. I can’t eke out punchlines when beers are this phenomenal, DDB just turns into one of those basic ticker 50 hits a day fan service pages. IT IS NOT MY FAULT.

M: This is more thin and malleable than Heady by a long shot and feels dynamic as a result, closer to Pupil or Nelson really, and those are exceptional ranks to shoulder. It sallies delicately from zone to zone on your palate and cascades crisp like an Anjou pear upon the swallow, like Deadpool backflipping and laying a trail of explosive citrus clusterbombs. UR MOUTH JUST GOT DOMED UP BY DEADPOOL.

pictured above: basic tickers become cicerones overnight after discovering hops

D: When asked how Michaelangelo created David, he replied “I looked at the marble and removed material until only David remained.” This does the same thing, except it strips down all the extraneous flabby water profiles, the excessive yeasty profiles, the overload od dry hopping, the needless crystal malt, excised honey and all the other bullshit and stripped this down like a roll-caged MR2 ready for the track. It is phenomenal without qualification and you are doing yourself a great disservice by skipping this one, even if it means dealing with rapacious Vermont traders who want Chez $4$ with cans of this, or whateverthefuck.

Narrative: Alfred Hopsdam clutched the radiant emerald amulet with trepidation as the train approached the platform, wisps of steam filling the air with wafts from the local orchards in the swing of harvest season. “Waterb…Waterburry…” Alfred stammered as he presented his entry forms to the elite Alpha Work Academy. The conductor glanced hurriedly at his pocketwatch and nodded, motioning for Alfred to pick up his forest green equipage and enter the cabin. The air inside of the Academy tram reeked of dabber oils, Jamba Juice smoothies, and herbal apertifs being decadently enjoyed by the senior members of the Hop Warriors Guild. One corpulent ranking official dropped his substantial mass onto the bench beside Alfred, “NAMES HOPSLAM, January class, BEEN AROUND HERE FOREVER, sayyyyy, you lookin a lil too thin to ride with us, you sure you on the right train bud? HAR HAR HAR!” His foul honey laden breath belied his true nature, sticky and coniferous. Alfred shook his head and gripped the amulet tightly and felt the clicking of the wheels onto adjoining rails as he watched the apricot trees buzz by with increasing celerity, he thought “they will see soon enough, I will show them all.”

PROTIP: Not everything needs to be barrel aged for you to give a fuck.

@drugstorebrewer Ale Apothecary Triple Scissor Shootout: Those sub-300 bottle count bangers, for the haters.

April 18, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Slowly but surely, beta tickers are starting to turn off their Tae Bo tapes and now are discovering saisons. As much as I didn’t want this to happen, like those first tufts of curlies, all those baby 2012 bitches are taking those wobbly farmhouse steps, jingling daddy’s Wallonia keys. I guess this was the logical extension of waiting on kids who were all about Black Note and KBS last year, now they have a litany of ultra-lactic, wild, high abv super saisons at their disposal and suddenly we have a new crop of saison masters.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those same weak peninses who thought saisons were all Hennepin and Red Barn suddenly are flexing their traps in the yard, tryna run shit. I am fine with that because I let my Biere De Garde lats swole like bat wings. So what is the deal with all these small run saisons that push the inner butthole of the American Wild Ale game? Cory King is kicking out these 400 bottle runs monthly and now has main bitches and side bitches in his Sidekick. Chase started crushing up lines of Caravienna on a CD case and letting tickers wipe it on they gums now guess who is hooked?

Today I wanna holler at these mountainous farmhouse purveyors up in Oregon. I picture head brewer, Paul Arney, doing burpees and deep dips in a hollow out spruce coolship, cooking up these super saisons turned wild ales, working on his chest piece. So it wasn’t like their “normal” lineup of Sahalie and…uh…La Tache I guess, were easy to come by. Those were already like 700 bottle runs and asspensive. So I moaned initially at the idea of having to seek out their LIMITED shit. The waiting list for their AA club is over a year long and I don’t have that kinda patience. Luckily, the PNW traders are staggeringly charitable and hooked it up.

Today we will be counting down the recent limited Ale Apothecary releases, RANKING THEM, and tossing beats along the way. Because I am not writing no 2700 words with narratives and shit.

THIRD PLACE:

We are not the same, I am a Martian, approach these cellar doors with caution

The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | ABV 9% (handwritten, hard to see?)

Why is this a bitch:
270 bottles produced
Ale Club members will receive theirs automatically, leaving “100-150 up for grabs”
No bottles will be available for public retail sales

– Alright first and foremost this is by no means a “bad beer.” Not unlike the Blind BABW tasting results the competition is fierce because we are talking about top tier super saysuns/AWAs. I initially opened this super cold because I had carbonic acid issues with MASSIVE carb and gushing. It’s like AA takes a page from old Logsdon on their attenuation swag. This spill out as lively as Champagne and just sits soapy with a thick domeshot of Palmolive bubbles.

This is strange, but you welcome it lovingly. RIEEEECHARD PARKER farmhouse swagger.

– This beer is just too. fucking. sour. I know some people do naked diamond pushups and call me a pussy but the lactic profile coupled with the low ph, intense dryness, and crackly overcarbing just makes this hard for the 750ml trudge. I mean, I still finished it and really enjoyed it but god damn, it’s like going to Mormon summer camp, just running your mouthraw with that farmhouse heavy petting. This has a tart bouquet of tangerine, light bitterness like orange pith, grapefruit juiciness, and a closer that is bittering like some of the Blaugies offerings. I still killed it, would love to try it again, but this is the least balanced and more extreme of their offerings. Still def. recommended.

SECOND PLACE:

IN CASE THINGS GET TOO EXTREME INSIDE THAT ARTISANAL KNOT WILL KEEP THE CORK IN PLACE

The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | 10.70% ABV

Why people lose their shit over this:
SPENCER (The Dispenser of Provisions) is our annual fruit beer. In the early fall, we harvest wild blackcurrant fruit and add it to a batch of year-old SAHALIE. The sugars in the fruit produce another fermentation and the blackcurrant tannins create additional structure over the 8-month aging period. Prior to bottling, the beer is dry-hopped for a month in oak barrels. With close to 2 years in oak, Spencer has a much more developed Brettanomyces character than our other beers.  Because of the extremely limited quantity of wild blackcurrant available, we produce only one oak barrel of Spencer every year. This beer is unlabeled and reserved exclusively for our Ale Club members.

This tart sniper looks inviting and will put you down just as fast

– See all of that above? That reads like a romance novel for the modern beer trader. All those adjectives just create that perineum tingling that people who seek Raries just gotta have. I really enjoyed this beer and loved the riff on the same Ale Apoth offerings. This has even MORE absurd carbonation, on the same level of Sahati where you pour it and just stand back like “alright, enough already.” When this finally settles down it has a radiant golden, quasi turbid precious metal allure to it.

– This beer is less dry than Sahalien and is easily the most drinkable, the abv in all of these beers is laughably imperceptible but this one drinks like a belgian table beer and you could pull some PUNK’D stunts on your bisexual roomate with this sleeping beast. You get apricot, tart kumquat, there is light graininess to it and this would be the closest to the super saisons and less in the AWA realm. If you liked Fantome Extra Sour, you will really dig this beast. Again, highly recommended. Top tier, china white, not stepped on product.

WINRAR: THE BEER FORMERLY KNOWN AS LA TACHE AGED IN RUM BARRELS WITH WHITE PEACHES or “TBFKALTAIRBwWP” for short.

Prepare to not drink this beer. Fucking top tier AWA/Saison, whateveruwannacallit. It goes in hard. Multiple climaxes,

The Ale Apothecary
Oregon, United States
Style | ABV
American Wild Ale | ABV ?

WHY ARE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR SHIT:
First and foremost, I think La Tache got caught up in some petty wine litigation not unlike SUCABA, because now we have this disclaimer version. I can only speculate, but any way. The base beer was fucking awesome, then they RAR’ed it hard in rum barrels, then added the WHALEFRUIT: white peaches. I think this was a 230 bottle release with most of the bottles taken to the Second Annual Portland Wild Ale Festival. I think the AAclub members then got the chance to buy maybe one? If you areolas aren’t tingling then maybe you need to go back to drinking Colette.

This doesnt fit in AWA or Super Saisons, it just stunts hard as fuqqq

– God damn, if this is the Goldlocks paradigm, TBFKALTAIRBwWP just tears it up and is “JUSSSST RIIIITE.” If Sahalien pulled your hair too hard, but Spencer wouldn’t talk dirty to you, this is just the right amount of wrong. The balance is incredible between the juice, acidity, funk, barrel, and laughably hidden abv. The carbonation is the most retrained out of any AA offering thus far, the hue is a perfect deep orange, slightly murky, that orange and pineapple ester profile just banging, peach jolly ranchers falling in but dropping a 2/4 acidic beat, not a sticky sweetness. The nose has a muskiness, light funk that is dominated in equal parts by the acidity and juiciness which wasn’t metabolized by that high ass attenuative yeast strain. This is like if Fou Foune and b1 Persica were all tongue kissing and you are peeping through a painting with the eyes cut out. It’s that decadent and tawdry, but so fulfilling.

– The taste is fucking phenomenal top to bottom and I would be surprised if this isn’t within the realm of DDB top beers of 2014. I really can’t offer many descriptors for improvement aside from a slightly sweet cloying aspect at higher temps, light fusel presence in the low 60’s, and other nit picky shit. But in all honesty, the fruit interplay with the acidic tannic finish and caramel underpinnings of the rum barrel make for a peach jubilee that is both dry but assertive, juicy but gentle, you can take her to your parents but also pull her weave.

This is the real deal, through and through. Cannot recommend highly enough. Now I will never try this shit again because asshole DDB readers always ruin it for me on the ISO;FT boards.

Stone Brewing, Mikhail’s Odd, Bourbon Barrel Aged IRS with Ryan Bros Espresso, Giving BA Speedway a Run for its Beans

March 24, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Well it took years and years and years, but we finally have a legit Stone Barrel Aged IRS in a bottle: and both variants are fucking amazing. The abv is boosted, the mouthfeel is silkier, and they took all ratchet elements and made them more ratcheterer. Now I know you are reticent to believe old DDB after Friday’s palate bashing, but trust me on this one: California Coffee Stouts, this beer is ridiculous. I crossed my fingers, popped the most annoying cork in the world and prayed for no infection like those Planned Parenthood waiting room feels.

The Classic Fyodor tastes like a more aggressive version of my 2008 BA Stone IRS Review, which is to say it is fucking phenomenal.

Enough pandering, let’s get up in these guts and grind some of them beans.

Not only is this not infected, it is outrageously good in the platonic sense, good to the point of outrage at its existence. Them Forms.

Stone Brewing Company, Escondido
13.9% Abv (!)
38 ibus warrior hops in the boil, in the mash roasted barley and pale, amber and black malts, Ryan Bros coffee in the whirlpool

A: Just look at that bad bitch, this beer can pull a kickdoe and take the door like a malty black flashbang. The bottle is obnoxiously hard to open, the cork not only got stuck, but it broke under moderate force. At first I almost subbydeuced in my pants when I saw the substantial carb after being traumatized by the 2010 BA IRS debacle. There was no mistaking this shit though, shit looks viscous but not underattenuated, that Aristotelian Golden Mean in the Parabola and CW16 range, where you dont feel like a diabetic fuck (see: Huna) but you don’t feel like you are counting Weight Watchers Points (see: pre-2013 Eclipse/Czar Jack.) The mocha foam looks like a coffee drink prepared by one of those Suicide Girl looking baristas. Beer make you all nervous, you be buying cake pops and shit.

After dealing with missteps and knockoffs, Stone finally knocked it out of the park with its flagship offering.

S: God fucking damnit. Why does this have to be $20 a 500ml with a nose like that? This takes that BA Speedway model and ramps up the roast and acidity like cold brew batches from Stumptown, chocolate and kaffir lime leaf, roasted graham cracker, mallowfoam and milk chocolate. The s’more joke is lingering but the coffee dominates and prevents an overlying sweetness and adds to the balance.

T: The sharp abv lingers more a moment on the tongue but is a perfect compliment to the toasty acidity of the coffee. There is a drying twix/chocolate aspect that warms the bitter zones with a light hoppy touch and closes with that same espresso bean waft that was such a fucking deal in the base beer. Nothing changes here, this beer just took that Impreza base beer and amped shit up to that Subaru RS Rallycar levels. My natural comparison is Morning Delight as it comes across as more substantial than BA Speedway, and I am too pussy to lock down KBBS so I have to leave the imrpession as a coovee between those two. The barrel lingers along the gumline with an incredible vanilla that isn’t that Lipsmacker lip gloss/Coldstone Creamery shit, its like the tannic oaky vanilla you get from Angel’s Envy left at room temp.

Between the magnificent caramel and vanilla of the barrel lies a poised coffee maltness, ready to embrace you

M: This is lighter than the hefty Abyss and massive BT/Huna finishing gravity masters, but so much for the better. Honestly I am not surprised given the character of regular ass, delicious Stone IRS. The coffee and the barrel just lay in bed with you like an exotic Craigslist casual encounter and you have way more than you bargained for. This shocked the hell out of me given how completely shitty most of the QM series presentations are, let’s be realistic here. I am the furthest thing from a Stone fanboy and their saison game could not even be salvaged by Stillwater intervention; but this, this is some other worldly shit.

D: Here we are 650 words in and the bottle is almost gone, exceedingly crushable and the complete lack of the cloying sweetness on the closer is underscored in a helvetica font by the dryness of the bourbon barrel and coffee toastiness. Inevitably some poor dipshit will interject with “BCBW COFFEE COSTS LESS AND IS PROBABLY BETER.” In this instance yes, BCBCS is much more affordable, but it simply is not better as a vehicle for delivery of coffee and barrel character, because this beer is stripped down with them Sparco seats and coffee momo pedals. BCBCS is far more affordable but this beer is simply the better executed of the two. If you are a poor fuck without a Fedex account, tell yourself whatever gets you to sleep at night, I guess. The luxury is in its brashness, both beers are amazing and I love BCBCS, but this is a whole different game. Highly recommended.

This stout is more massive than it appears, take it in carefully.

Narrative: Mikhail Bulgakov rapped his state-issued fountain pen on the rich glaze on his imported poplar desk. The title sheet for his magnum opus, The Master and Margarita, lay unfinished and the onset of writers block lay across his limbs as he slumped into a supple lambskin loveseat. “It is not right, I need…something,” he remonstrated to himself as he rifled through his cabinets, seeking a generic bottle of rye whiskey issued by the local magistrate in gratitude for his recent work and gracious compliance with his stern ban. The silky sting of the rye made him long for a decadent malty treat, the kiss of a deep chocolate contraband, disallowed in the new Republic. “THAT IS IT, by God,” he feverishly sat at the compact Hammond 1B typewriter, fingers rapping out his masterpiece, urging aesthetic to the highest paradigm predicated on a single desire: to drink a fantastic stout free from governmental oppression. “Manuscripts don’t burn” in the same fashion that his desire for a creamy decadent libation burned in his heart. It would take decades to realize his dream, but the stark love of Russian Imperial Stouts and the dreams of free fermentation licenses powered the candid reality behind Margarita. The world was forever changed.

Flossmoor Station Wooden Hell, Getting that whaley wood, the best kind of alerection

March 23, 2014 | dontdrinkbeer

Boy, you make a joke that you paid $700.00 for a bottle of beer and people lose their shit. Thankfully, I didn’t actually drop 7 bills to get some wood like some MBC ballers, but it did involve a trade that would turn your resctum inside out like a skinned snake. At any rate, cracking those top 10 speedwalez takes some doing, as anyone with shitty priorities will attest. In full midwest form, I only had ~4 ounces of this, so if my review sucks shit, point me to someone who has recently skulled a bomber solo, and I will ask that person why he has no friends.

Anyway, let’s make some more erection jokes predicated on wood puns in today’s review

I kicked off the blind BA Barleeywine tasting with this and no fewer than 5 dipshits pointed out that I did not taste this blind.
Thank you for that.

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery
Illinois, United States
Style | ABV
English Barleywine | 9.50% ABV

A: Despite its age, this doesnt pour a muddy flacid lakewater, but it isn’t the picture of jubilant, pube-free youth either. The carb is gentle and wisps in light rings without much lacing to speak of. In goldilocks parlance, things are “just right.” It isn’t exactly radiant but there is a certain posture to it like sits somewhere between a quad and that deep almond brown with medium clarity that is inviting, but relatively thin looking for the style. If you have fuxxed with CW BBBW you’ll know that look tho.

Just because something is old doesn’t mean it can’t be relevant and refined.
inb4 Ftowne jokes.

S: This is easily my favorite part of this beer, the toffee, almond, creme brulee top, toasted caramel and vanilla just dance seamlessly. I was expecting an oxy sidecar, but it never came. Everyone high fives one another and press their hips together comparing cocks talking about cardboard and “THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN I TRIED IT ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS” but dick measuring aside, I don’t get that thrift store musk that everyone was jizzing their skinny jeans over. Trust me, later I had 2000 BA Leviathan, i know them oxies. The waft was awesome, no old comic books up in the mix.

T: The taste follows the nose pretty seamlessly albeit in a much more gentle fashion. Those kids in the mid to late 2000s must have had more nuanced palates, an appreciation for the balance and front porch lounging with boozy libations. I got toasted coconut, sugar daddies, a light touch of paper/oxy, and some mallowfoam. Again this is all within the scope of things being resonant and lightly executed. If you walk into this with a raging boner for a Mother of All Storms experience, you will probably clip your tip on the wooden doorway. Speaking of wood, this isn’t the barrel bomb or oaky monster the label would imply, and I think it is better as a result. Perhaps time mellowed it, but it was just and easy drinker that disappeared frustratingly fast.

“I ticked won of the raerest barelywines evar, y u jealus of my sick lifestyle LOL haters amirite?”

M: This is on the thinner side of the BABW spectrum but the dovetailing of the gentle flavors makes it seem reasonable. By way of contrast, GI BCBBW has a shitload of raisin, chocolate, fig packed into a similarly thin body so it feels off balanced as a result. I really enjoyed the slick clean finish and sustain of the caramel notes rings like your child when you lock him in the poolhouse for running on the deck. Those sweet dulcet notes of enduring heat.

D: this is exceptionally drinkable and perhaps is a touch past its prime, depending on cellaring conditions. This is the same shithead section where I recommend you seek it out and you tell me to bang my asshole with a curling iron. The give and take of malty tides rolling in, taking hundreds of dollars in its wake. So the operative question is “should I put together a FT: with v007, Fou Foune, Pulling Nails, DDG, and 2 De Garde Berliners + $$$$ to land this bottle?” That is up to how well your life is going I guess, I eat dinty moore in front of a CRT TV and sip whales because I have shitty priorities. You want to live like me? You want to be an internet badass with stretch marks and an inferiority complex?

Fine, then trade for Wooden Hell. Like I give a fuck.

This is one of those last level master ticks you seek out because you are too bitchmade to land M.

Narrative: William Cooper was last in a proud lineage of barrel craftsmen who, until recently, felt the sting of a world embracing stainless containers. That is, until the revolution of the dipshit homebrewer. Every day, while shaving staves down of pure oak, he would be disturbed with importuning phone calls requesting “RARE BARRELS FOR MY IMPERIAL BROWN AGED ON DATES FIRST USE PLEASE.” William would masterfully be shaping a hoop with care and need to set his work by the wayside for shortsighted assholes. In his remote Illinois workshop, Subarus and KIAs would pull up regularly with husky patrons coming to question him about inane aspects of his once-proud craft. “Well what I am really looking at is bung retention, I made an extract Belgian blonde and I want to add Yuzu to it and I need something with a tannic presence, I read that online” they would chime in while inspecting markings. The face palming would not be insubstantial when these mealtymouthed interlopers would examine stave rivets and begin an unsolicited diatribe about Pappy Van Winkle lots. “Please sir, I just, I don’t even know what you are talking about, this is a private workshop,” William would plead, “yeah I have been to plenty of private workshops in Vermont to inspect their processes, nothing but the best for my homebrew you know? Some people really lack class.” The barrel business was booming once again, to the dismay of every cooper in the entire world.

@thebruery Wineification, the First Full Legit Review on the Internet, Stompin on your grapes.

December 31, 2013 | dontdrinkbeer

Alright, if you are one of the 215 members in the Hoarder’s Society, there was already prejam on your tip for this malty banger. When you went to go pick up your bottles of Sour in the Rye Peaches and saw that “SYRAH BARREL BLACK TUESDAY” you know that pounding in your loins, it was real. This is a 2 per memebership release from the Bruery, no extra bottles sold, no stems no seeds no sticks. 2 fucking bottles. To be honest, I thought this was going to be a bucket of menopausal jizz. Imperial Tart of Darkness meets Lindley Park and some residual Kendall Jackson tannins.

I was dead fucking wrong. This might be the best beer that they made all year and it put me right in my fucking place when I opened it, at the Bruery itself no less. After I posted a brief write up on Friday, 17 ISOs went up overnight. Business as usual in the beer game, monkey see/monkey fucking offers Proprietors. Let’s stomp hard and elaborate on why this isn’t just Black Tuesday with Smuckers poured into it, prepare to be jelly tho.

Store this bottle away from your middle aged stepmom, she will drink this while watching Scandal. Such a waste.

The Bruery, Placentia
15.7% or some shit (markedly lower than BT)
California, Syrah Barrel Aged Black Tuesday

Commerical Hype:
The “wineification” of beer has been a constant topic of discussion these days, so why not just take a step further and blend the two? We took our Black Tuesday Imperial Stout and fermented it along with late harvest Syrah grapes from the vineyards of Los Olivos, from our good friends at both Fess Parker and Saarloos & Sons. We then aged this wine/beer hybrid in French Oak barrels, waiting for the perfect time to bottle it up. The flavor profile is remarkable. Notes of black cherry, vanilla, cinnamon, oak, aged balsamic, port wine and a sherry-like oxidation from the barrels. This beer is like nothing that you have ever tried before.

A: This beer looks nothing short of awe-inspiring. I hate delving into the old Lisa Frank handbook to describe swatches of magenta and deep purples, but this is robey as fuck. There is a plum and dark violet at the edges with light purple foam mixed with a dark roasty center as black as Jude Law’s soul. It clearly picked up an assload of tannins from the barrel and looks like a Cab/Stout hybrid, fucking beautiful ebony queen.

Maroney is 18 now, and this beer is mature enough for her palate.

S: The waft on this beer is more wine than stout and presents a unique tannic, jammy dryness with a touch of milk chocolate and tootsie roll smashed together. The wine and cocoa cascade over one another like dudes wrestling in a Castro bathhouse. There is a complete dryness to this and oak presence that keeps sticky old BT in check and dials back the sugars in a huge way. If you were one of the complete pussy naysayers who likes to trammel out that old “DIABETTTUSSS” joke you heard in 2012 that is still relevant to you, no beetus to be found. Srs.

Alright, before this shit blows up go toss up your tired ass FT: King Henry offer. Schemes and dreams.

T: There are dry cab forward notes of currant and blackberry at the outset, middle oak tannic presence like a Seasmoke pinot, light jamminess, thin execution with very little residual sugar presence, the underpinning black tuesday presents a nuanced profile with roast, char, chocolate cherry cordial and a sort of cacao clean finish to the palate. Was not expecting this, very exceptional. I can’t really think of any jokes to pepper this bitch up, it’s just fucking good and I was expecting far less. Shame on me for being an acorn penis.

M: As noted several times above, this is fucking dry but closes with a chocolate and wine stickiness. It is almost more wine than beer in many aspects, and again, it’s not like anything you have ever tried, I shared my only bottle so allow me to step off the hype train. ttot It’s like open mouth kissing a high school freshman and shes all into Nutella sandwiches and you are a creepy early 40s asshole drinking a dry cab, that interplay of lewd activity marries the two in an imperfect union of borderline felonius activity.

D: If you thought old curmudgeonus DDB was uncaring, I shared my only bottle of this with a person I had never met before, from Chicago no less. Old Pow87 loved it and you will too. I guess I shouldn’t be too fucking surprised that one of the four exclusive bottles is amazing when you pay $700 to join a beer club, I just didn’t think it would be this good. If AgentZero were still alive he would give this a resounding 4.1, which is essentially a perfect score. It’s a really good beer, and you probably can stop drinking those same fucking BCBS variants for once and try something new. My 2014 prediction is 19 dipshits in an Ohio backyard will drink this in 31 degree temperature and all agree that DDB was wrong and that no wine or chocolate came through from their meniscus pours. And the world keeps on turning. Happy 2014, suck on your own tits.

This beer is strange, but you secretly get off on it.

Narrative: Marcel Jevouire was a chocolatier with a tawdry, dark fetish. By day he was dipping strawberries and making chocolate ganauche, but when evening set he would pull out his box of spent wine cork and inhale deeply. That sticky grape, his cruel mistress of the night got his dick so hard even kittens claws couldn’t scratch it. The chocolate world was fine for children and pedestrian interests, but it was the wine world at night that got his barrels pumping hard. It was an adult pairing and an interplay of two worlds that only the most decadent Parisian could comprehend. Sometimes he would see a patron looking over chocolate truffles with a corked vintage peeking from their parcel, the tip gleaning that purple through the green glass would make his nipples erect through his mixing apron. Some would disapprove, but it was his own dark world of dry grapes and wet dreams.

@3Floyds Alpha Kong, Most Tickers are Beta on that Diddy Level, Time to Go Straight Alpha

December 10, 2013 | dontdrinkbeer

What were you doing in 2007? Probably looking at specs for the first iPhone, optimizing your shitty MySpace page, maybe pressing CDR copies for your generic post-hardcore band that you forced your friends to listen to. Meanwhile, this bottle was waiting, waiting for you to stop being a complete pussy. By most accounts, this bottle is extinct. It is reviews like this that alienate the fuck out of my casual readerbase and ensure that they stay fuck away and let the adults have a discussion, while they drink Ten FIDY or whatever normal people drink these days.

This is a beast, a monster. This beer puts the pussy in a sarcophagus. I know, on paper it is like “Alright, a Belgian Strong Ale from 2007, this sounds like a fucking horrible idea.” Stay with me now. This goes beyond busting malty wheelies for the sake of rareness, it is revisiting a page from that FFF pedigree from days pays. Time to show the betas what being alpha is all about. On a beer site. About sugar water.

Kong be flexing, gripping on white women, putting Alpha Klaus in his place. Classic.

Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
Indiana, United States

Belgian Strong Pale Ale | 15.00% ABV

A: BPA clocking in at 15%? This sounds like the best idea since Hess brewed that 12% abv pale ale. The carb on this geriatric gem is minimal and pours out with this golden viscosity just sheeting for days and leaving that clear sheen on the glass like tears on Drake’s face. The honey glows this dulcet amber and pangs of ambrosial sweetness. It kinda looks like aged regular ass Behemoth does with some years on it, but a surprisingly attractive beer.

Oh great, please, show me more pics of your cases of Zombie Dust. No please, tell us how rare it is. We will wait, oh I see you have some Pride and Joy too, surely this will be an inspiring narrative.

S: The olfactory profile on this is a bizarre mishmash moshpit of titties being groped, plums, a weird cherry quad aspect, but then honey/mild oxy paper/and a crazy floral finish to it. It reminds me of a blend of tripel and quad in execution and the slightest agitation gets it to stand up wicked pissed, tossing esters to and fro like shurikens.

T: This is a sticky syrupy bomb that has a similar slickness and saccharine opener in line with huge wheatwines like SYXX and 2012 White Chocolate. The belgian candi sugar is up in the mix, there is a tart lemon bar pastry stuck in the middle, the swallow kicks up jammy fig and bruised peaches as the whole mob runs down your gullet trashing shit like Monsanto protesters. It is a riot, the unbeatable high, the whole experience, despite 6 year in the bottle to learn its lesson and mellow out, has not learned a fucking thing. This is the type of asshole who would pants the yard duty teacher. This beer says fuck Benzino and still gets the cover of the Source. The alcohol waft is present but integrated surprisingly well. None of the oxy on the nose is present here, or it might have gotten the merciless shit kicked out of it by the foregoing mob.

Two reviews in two days? DDB IS ON A ROLL. Or I am sucking my own dick. brb

M: Again, this is sticky icky honey, put that sugar on my tongue. This coats massively like the fair-skinned version of Dark Lord, back in the days when Dark Lord was relevant beyond duping new traders into brewery only release offloading. For all the hell that critics love to drop on Southern Tier, this is a far most viscous beetus bomb than their Backburner series, but it also is a lot more nuanced and delicious. The abv warms but doesn’t come across in a fusel waft upon exhale, it just sits there stamping hands and allowing entry into the malty gangbang into your mouth.

D: This is not exceptionally drinkable, less so when it starts to get warm and open up. You ever have one of those friends who fucking starts crying every time you guys get really hammered? Serve him this. The SRM is deceptive as shit and then you can take all the Vine videos you want while he talks about how hard it is to make a woman climax. It is ironic that an old beer that is supposed to make you feel Alpha ends up making you feel beta as fuck. Drinking 800 calories in a single bottle: not alpha. Hypertension is only alpha if you got it from doing too many drugs or being a WWE veteran or something. Sticky sweet potations: not alpha, unless you are in a rap video, then enjoy all the Prosecco you want, I guess. This beer makes you feel like a pussy, but in a good way, that “needlepoint next to the hearth” sort of way. I am ok with that that kinda vajeen.

Show that 2013 ticker this bottle, let’s see him talk about Backyard Rye after you own the fuck out of him.

Narrative: Alphonous Konig had trained religiously for the upcoming North American Alpha Male championships and nothing would rob him of the title this year. His torn negligee tank top dragged blithely over this shredded deltoids, furrowed like wanting pumpkins. He had memorized decades of NASCAR trivia and could even call other contestants out if they had a limited understanding of rebuilding carbeurators. He purged his home of every single pillow in preparation of the event and deleted every person out of his phone with a BMI higher than 10. He didn’t need those negative influences in his life, even if his mom did call him constantly. It wouldn’t kill her to work on those obliques. After completing an advanced course in Club and Lounge Rhetoric, he felt fully equipped to demean and manipulate women into his graces. Alphonous lost last year when it was revealed that he once agreed to a couples costume, to the judge’s dismay. This year his hulking frame and vascularity would demonstrate his loud mouthed, uncompromising, short sighted, demeaning, HGH driven egomaniacal self, with top honors.

@westbrookbeer Mexican Cake 4 Way Battle Royale, Columbian Lumberjack Rules; Ladders and Cagematch Setup

November 20, 2013 | dontdrinkbeer

Alright, if you follow this site regularly on twitter/instagram/facebook/WP/etc. you are probably stout brown in the face after seeing a relentless 5 pics on Monday of MC shit. Apologies in advance, I think of poor Etan, I think he subscribes to every one. Anyway, I don’t feel like dropping a solid 2000 word deuce and belaboring the point on this one so I will just be lazy as two lesbians in a Sharper Image massage chair and just post some thoughts and we can lay this whole Mexy dispute to rest.

Without further ado, let’s find out about Mexican Cake: from South Carolina, a state that probably couldn’t advocate worse treatment of Mexican people.

Invariably some dipshit will complain 1) NOT THE SAME 4 GLASSES or 2) YOU DIDNT DRINK ALL 88oz. Criticism fail.

Before I go any further, yes, I know that there is a draft-only “COFFEE CAKE” but I couldn’t give a fuck less about that after mowing through 4 variants, so content yourself with this for now. This beer doesn’t need any more fucking adjuncts. Speaking of which, if you have a Coffee Abaraxas, hit me up.

FIRST UP: Regular Ass Mexican Cake, No Barrel Treatment, Not Rare, Psh only cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and fresh habanero peppers. Do you even adjunct bro?

The Scrappy Doo to Huna’s Scooby.

These all look essentially the same and exhibit the same base olfactory profile what with the birthday cake sweetness from the vanilla, this horchata/mole thing going on with the cinnamon and habanero peppers, with a solid chocolatey closer. This is not the same old thin song and dance that North Carolina rolls out and I think the enhanced racism from South Carolina adds some depth to the body of this beer. You can taste the conservative faith-based attenuation. The mouthfeel is mid-range and coats similar to Parabola and Damon. You don’t get the Huna and Abyss 1.045 FG sweetness, but it is better in that regard. The problem that arises is that there are just too many fucking adjuncts going on. It’s like when you go to an entry-level improv show and its 7 different dipshits all shouting punchlines and nothing coherent comes together. The chocolate aspects serve as an MC to keep the other assholes in check and it is a very good representation of the chili stout style.

Verdict: This is the “worst” of the 4, but that is hardly fair with no barrel treatment complexity or depth. This shines in brightness to the chilis and likely would pair with food best. The most accessible and def worth seeking out.

THIRD PLACE: Apple Brandy Barrel Mexican Cake, AB Huna be giving tickers all these unreasonable expectations

Apple Brandy!? OH SHIT LIKE LAIRD’S HUNA- No. Very far from that, in fact.

I will admit, I came into this expecting this to be the best, not fucking third place. The thing that I failed to consider was: 1) this beer is far thinner than Huna 2) those malts are needed to bounce the vanilla and cinnamon and cocoa and rock candy and skittles in the brew and finally 3) apple brandy treatment is really. fucking. sweet. I don’t mean that in a mid-90’s rrrrradical rollblader way, I mean sweet like packets of Stevia rubbed on the tip of your cock. The barrel comes out the gates with sticky sweet apple pie filling, home run pies coated in cake batter, and then a strange heat that just does not meld with the sweet profile. Add the relatively thin base to parade all of the foregoing out upon and it’s a bit underwhelming.

Verdict: This trades at an ape shit level and I don’t see it improving over time. Those solid 5 ratings from tickers in the first week make me wonder if people awash in Terrapin are where I should be accepting my beer reviews from. I can’t recommend trading a fucking DDG/DBD/DDB/BDD/OPP for one of these.

RUNNER UP: Red Wine Barrel Mexican Cake, Put on those Lane Bryant stretch pants on and go full on divorcee mode. Bonus points if you bought this bottle with alimony funds

Mmm put on those jammies and Cougar Town and just nest with this one

I expected this to taste like a Smuckers trainwreck and potentially be worse than the base beer, but I was wrong as two Arizona State co-eds in an algebra class. This is really fucking phenomenal and the red wine underpinning is an adjunct flavor that actually FEELS LIKE IT BELONGS THERE. This doesn’t continue to push your o-ring with sweet or weird savory, it provides a tart aspect that cuts through the other din like a high hat through a metal solo. This is actually the driest of the bunch too and the fruit character somehow just works with all of the chili and cinnamon tingling. This would be hands down first place if the final variant weren’t just fucking phenomenal. I really recommend trying to lock down the “least desirable” variant, awesome offering.

Verdict: certainly worth seeking out and a vast improvement over the apple brandy. Let’s be honest, most of these “ERMAGERD MEXICAN CAKEEEEE” tastings like like 11 khaki-teethed assholes in a backyard each getting nuances from their tired 1oz pour. “OH YEAH I GET ALL 5 of the adjuncts in the bottom of this dirty glass, GONNA DROP A HOT 5/5 on UNTAPPD BRB NO ONE TALK TO ME.” Seek this one out, does not disappoint.

WINRAR: Jack Daniels Barrel Mexican Cake is the Best Variant, I know, I am surprised as you are. Fuck.

Inb4 “JACK IS NOT BOURBON I READ THIS ONLINE ARTICLE AND NOW I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT CHARCOAL FILTERING THANKS MAXIM”

HOW COULD THIS HAPEN. I know, I too had the memories of painful JD Eclipse in my mind, the dead bodies huddle in piles, palates destroyed, when I opened this banger. This is not only the best variant, it is straight up better than Rum, CA Brandy and Whiskey variants of Huna. THINK ABOUT THAT SHIT. This is a real goldilocks scenario because the JD adds a great caramel aspect to assist the cinnamon/vanilla, the oak is just sweet enough to give a depth to the sweet cocoa, the dryness is enough to pair with the chili and the whole thing feels amazing, like when you clean your Fleshlight for the first time. This is mindblowingly good and shockingly, the easiest to acquire, all stretched buttholes considered. Thanks again KG for this one.

Verdict: this beer is phenomenal and one of the best stouts that I had this year AND I FUCKING DRANK BOTH NARWHAL AND SUEDE SO THINK ABOUT THAT ONE OK. But really, this was exceptional and well worth a rebrew, unlike EBT ass Apple Brandy, lookin for handouts.

So there were have it, wait what? Narrative? Go fuck yourself. We are at 1200 words already. Here’s some memes, drop them in where ever you want, I am finished with this shit:

refill bottles of MC variants and smash them at a tasting. beerloser heart attacks ensue.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy permavirgin schedule to read my review of some sugarwater.

I SAW THE MC VARIANTS ON DDB AND WANTED TO LAND ONE WITH THIS HALIA-

HAPPY H(ALE)OWEEN, Time for a Top Rated Quad: St. Bernardus 12, for the Pagan Ritual Haters

October 31, 2012 | dontdrinkbeer

Here’s a top 100 beer that has gone unreviewed for far too long. On a larger point, I have neglected the shit out of quads lately, I usually view them as a halfway house between the sweet English Barleywines and the deep dark succor of Imperial stouts, but they are a beast all unto themselves, worthy of reverence and cool reflection. Even if you have disputes with the monastic roots and don’t see the point of pious reflection and fasting to honor whatever deity that you see fit for whatever ritual rooted in pagan fealty that you happen to believe or cast cool skepticism over, you at least have to respect parsing phrases and independent clauses. And beer.

Sure I could have dropped that $8.99 to show you the 33cl bottle, but is your fucking Google finger broken? Here is what it looks like in draft you lazy ingrates.

Brouwerij St. Bernardus NV
Watou, Belgium
Quadrupel (Quad) | 10.00% ABV

A: Nice deep almost milky caramel countenance, solid lacing, tiny tiny microscopic bubbles that linger long after you drink and a mirror shine to it without any middle carbonation to speak of.

Quads this big and delicious will put your palate in overrustle, use your limit break already.

S: You can hear the groans from the anticipationists a mile away, guess what it smells like? Yes, deep boozy figs, raisins, dates, and a nice malty back bone. If it didn’t, would it really be an exceptional Quad? Maybe but do rhetorical questions still perform well in a global economy? We shall see.

T: This has a nice syrupy quality that is abated by the tiny bubbles that pump up the palate mildly. I don’t want to take deep swallows of this by any means but, it is a great beer to sip on if only a 10oz pour were provided. I don’t want to say that you can’t opt for the old 3 Liter chestnut that we have all seen, however, I will opine that you have demons that you are chasing that the public remains aware of.

You can’t photoshop a quad, no matter how hard you try, it is a tough style to pass off, dating site or otherwise.

M: Again, this has a decent coating lying somewhere between the crazy OG of an imperial stout, that hates you, and a loving DIPA that lingers for a bit too long after dinner parties. This is perfect if you want to brandish a huge corked masterpiece and impress a “boss” languidly. “CORKS IN BEER WELL I NEVER!” the Applebees hostess exclaims as a cork rickochets against a picture of a a tube filled with ice cream.

D: This, somehow, is incredibly drinkable. On paper it seems like a swimming pool in the front yard: things all out of place, problems abound; however this just works. It seems like someone dropped off their idiot savant cousin who decided not to drop a duke in my sink and instead arranged everything amiably. As thick and alcoholic as this is, I still feel this is an everyman[sic woman] beer that is simply delicious.

When you get a trappist ale this drinkable with a solid 10% left hook, someone is gonna be getting some smooches and knuckle sandwiches.

Narrative: “GOD DAMNIT IT, EVERY holiday” “Hey Steve, lower your voice” “OK, every holiday party he does this” Their eyes surveyed the Christmas party and noted several women at the beckon call of a single aged man with a clear graying cul de sac. “HOW DOES HE DO IT!” Steve exclaimed in exasperation. “Come on man, he wears a bold orange robe to parties, talks to women like he’s been drinking 12% beer all day and all night, and performs mild miracles; how do you not love him?” The two watched from their sulking position as old Abby 12 pulled a bottle of Svedka from his robe sleeve. “OK COME ON THAT ISNT EVEN GOOD VODKA!” Both guffawed in disbelief as he chastely rebuffed a woman’s advances and deftly cited passages from the book of Ruth. “RUTH! COME ON WHO KNOWS RUTH!” Steven bemoaned.

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