Tag Archives: midwest beer

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@penrosebrewing Desirous, It’s a belgi- uh, it’s an IPA, er wait it’s a witbie- GOD DAMNIT JUST DRINK WHAT I GIVE YOU

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Alright, so let’s take another stab at those Penrose boys and see if Chicago is alive and well after the dystopian BCBS dipshits left no stone unturned in their quest for beers with a higher finishing gravity than this beer started with.

Sometimes when things are unclassifiable, it is a good thing because the occupy the respective realms so fully that you don’t care.  Other times it is like “golden lager amber saison on cloudberries, the fuck am I holding?” Despite all the crazy ass adjectives here, let’s parse this down, it is essentially a dry hopped belgian wit at its core, and it’s pretty tasty, so I give all this mixed marketing a pass if only for the sick ass holofoil-Charizard labels.

Every bottle is like that third card uncommon.  Target beer does not untap during your cellar upkeep phase.

Some days you just wanna put your Lane Bryant sweatpants on and watch a Gracepoint marathon. OH NO I MISSED THE NEW BLACKLIST

Some days you just wanna put your Lane Bryant sweatpants on and watch a Gracepoint marathon. OH NO I MISSED THE NEW BLACKLIST

Penrose, Chicago, Desirous

White belgian IPA midwest style 6.2%

A:  This comes out the gates looking like a tasty saison, clear wheat grist to the bill got my vas deferens all torrified with that turbid quality. I swear that glass is clean, basic tickers who buy glassware at Dave n Busters just roll that hard I suppose.  The carb is lively but takes a moment to get all pumped up, like those HGH gelcaps, mad swole, cutty striations.

S: The nose on this beer might be the best part because god damnit it is phenomenal.  You get a blast of clovey belgian esters akin to Dorothy or De Ranke XX and lingers with a touch of sweetness like cadied orange peel.  There is a nice resinous orange and tangerine aspect that opens up on the backend bringing it all together.

If you read DDB, the beer in your fridge should be the least of your personality defects

If you read DDB, the beer in your fridge should be the least of your personality defects

T:  Man, if this were essentially a hoppy saison I would be in hog heaven, instead the taste follows more akin to a hoppier Allagash White meets White Rascal, which isnt necessarily bad but the aspirations and aims at them platinum plaques fall just short.  There is a bready expansive aspect to this that lends a creamy mouthfeel and closes with a type of sticky orange and coriander.

M:  This is expansive and has a nice silky carb that coats and is drying at the same time in a sort of chamomile and early grey with citrus peel infusion.  Again, if this went all drying ala saison or more substantial ala hoppy tripel it would be awesome, it kinda falls in this middle penumbra where you aren’t sure if you can fap to it.  Not extreme enough to be deviant not standard enough to bring you to a succinct completion.

Your friends in undergrad will jock this beer so hard lakeside, complex craft and approachable. WHATS UR MAJOR BRO COME LIFTING

Your friends in undergrad will jock this beer so hard lakeside, complex craft and approachable. WHATS UR MAJOR BRO COME LIFTING

D:  This is highly drinkable and will hit the spot in warmer weather, but in the realm of belgian wits more people will want either a more aggressive brett L profile or an outright substantial aspect to it.  This is something from the days of the late 2000’s that will kill it at the BJCP level, but the type of DDb consumer might find this to be a serviceable and highly crushable afterthought in a realm that isn’t exactly competitive in the current marketplace.  It is like if someone brewed the worlds sickest ZWICKLEBIER: it is good that it is available, but the style itself doesnt get them hyper attenuated.

This is essentially what I imagine whenever there is a brewery only release in the midwest. PTO hours get cashed in so hard. Luckily this is a solid banger that you can crush without grinding your bedpost

This is essentially what I imagine whenever there is a brewery only release in the midwest. PTO hours get cashed in so hard. Luckily this is a solid banger that you can crush without grinding your bedpost

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Perennial Barrel Aged Sump Coffee Stout, Straight Double Yuban on the Canadian Mist Tip

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Even since that god damn Barrel Aged Abraxas dropped, people have been losing their shit over this brewery. They make some genuinely awesome beers and their berliners are too legit for any form of quitting. However, like anything else, the hype sometimes outpaces the product and people were stumbling over themselves to nab anything, it was like Sub Pop in the early 90’s putting out all these janky products and people were still buying the grunge shit. Anyway, here’s an overhyped coffee stout that some people have been getting creamer in their jeans over, let’s brew this brah:

The label is dark and metal, the beer is straight Nescafe RIS

The label is dark and metal, the beer is straight Nescafe RIS

Perennial Artisan Ales
Missouri, United States
American Double / Imperial Stout | 10.50% ABV

A: This pours out not unlike some black coffee with a deep slickness to it, nice khaki head on it that immediately peaces the fuck out. The coating is pretty lackluster and it looks like old Czar Jack in the wateriness department. It turns into a Vente drip almost instantly and chins are rested upon fists forthright.

That's pretty much what happened to me.

That’s pretty much what happened to me.

S: This has a huge acidic waft to it of gritty coffee beans the produces a harsh roast with an acrimonious finish. This is not like BCBCS where you are like “ah Tortuga, yeah lime kaffir lime, nice acidity” not like that at all, this just nose fucks you like you used way too much Seattle’s best in a drip batch. If you are stoked for some barrel treatment, keep moving because this has that BA Sexual Chocolate treatment, namely, no barrel waft at all. If you grasp at straws and let this warm up hoping for some vanilla, oak, or something redeeming: be prepared to smell barista musk and more gritty spent grounds.

T: This is coffee forward backward and undercarriaged. There really is nothing else but a huge roasty coffee haymaker that puts you on your ass and leaves you licking the drip brew off your teeth wondering about the chocolate malts, maybe a bit of complexity from the barrel? Too bad, you get cold coffee that gets you pretty dreezed fairly easily. It’s like you keep thinking Jenelle Evans will improve, but its the same one note offputting character that you have come to grimace at.

Thought I was about to be on some coffee radio Rahim shit, it was like Amy Grant small batch brew.

Thought I was about to be on some coffee radio Rahim shit, it was like Amy Grant small batch brew.

M: This is incredibly thin not unlike Eclipse, but wholly lacking in the barrel complexity. At least when you drink thin ass Eclipse you can nod and go “alright, nice mallow, nice vanilla and oak” but here you just shake your head looking into your tepid black coffee and see your fat double chins staring back up at you, wondering if you can ever get partial custody of your unappreciative children. The acidity just dries the gumline and sits on your teeth like a mocha frap poured into Stone IRS. You know how Kopi Speedway or Bourbon County coffee presents a substantial coffee profile that lingers buttressed by the malts underneath? Well this is like coffee first, stout second, a distant last place in this two person relay.

D: If you absolutely love South American coffees and highly acidic brews, and generally dislike stouts, you will anomalously love this coffee stout. I drank about 10 oz of this after committing it to the plumbing vortex of trader’s lament. It would be unfair to say that regular Ryan Bros. Speedway Stout is better than this, since personal tastes may vary, but please trade cautiously for this old roustabout. Well shoot, there goes my donation box from Perennial, go blackout and watch an iCarly marathon and start making some good life decisions.

"You probably just don't like coffee or stouts" solid arguments coming from Twitter on the reg.

“You probably just don’t like coffee or stouts” solid arguments coming from Twitter on the reg.

Narrative: Dwayne Wade just did not know what to do with himself in the post-season. He kicked the opulent white tiger rug in his gaudy Miami mansion and looked out his 18 foot floor to ceiling windows over the ocean villas. “Sometimes I feel like, maybe balling outrageous is only the tip of how ill D-Wade can bring it,” he thought to himself. He walked across the imported marble foyer and remembered a smoking hot Suicide Girl barista that he used to bone and nodded to himself, he would be the world’s most ballerest barista. Problem was, D-wade was too fucking big to fit in standard barista operations. His brash coordination was not the same employed in the brewing of small roast batches. Thrice he pounded the espresso machine and broke the handle while frothing the fuck out of some milk. He was skilled in many things, but he would ruin the fuck out of your morning cup of joe. Just before he was fired from “Grounded Buzz!” coffeeshop, Lebron James entered and purposely ordered a depth charge red eye, served as a press with a 2 min shot. D-wade had never faced a coffee dilemma like this since his period of prestigious academia at Marquette University. LeBron gave him a hulking thumbs up as he cast the green apron into the coffee station and slapped a female co-worker on her ass, spilling a substantial amount of Colombian fresh roast on the floor. Ballerest fucking barista ever, shittiest coffee ever.

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

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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

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.

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.

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

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.