Tag Archives: PA kisses

2

@tiredhandsbeer Hophands, for when you done working at the dispensery and your hands be smelling all like sticky cones

|

Tired Hands week is wrapping up and we have seen all kinds of things in the interim, oyster stouts, saisons, pale ales, so how do we close this one out? We go to the old hoppy wheelhouse and consult a draft only classic: NOW TOGETHER IN ONE CONVENIENT PACKAGE. Some naysayers hate on the hoppy saison genre and say that it betrays the musk and nuanced Belgian profile. Other hop heads feel that the base of a saison is too substantial and interferes with the hop oil experience. FUCK BOTH OF THOSE GUYS. Today we are going cones deep into some fertile soil with a straight up hoppy American Pale Ale.

EDIT TO MY PRIOR POST: I did not review this shit previously, I am a drunk pre-diabetic idiot. The cage match was between Singel Hop and Regular FARMHANDS.

Oh shit, picking all these juniper berries and then wiping petrulli oil on myself, hands be all hoppy.

Oh shit, picking all these juniper berries and then wiping petrulli oil on myself, hands be all hoppy.

Tired Hands Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States
American Pale Ale (APA) | 5.20% ABV

A: The beer pours with nice carbonation albeit very little lacing, a turbid deep orange and almost amber color. The beer has generous big bubbles and eschews the microfine carbonation that you might anticipate in a bottle conditioned beer. It kinda reminds me of a mix of pineapple and orange juice with the yellow and orange blend look to it.

The interplay between the resin and the citrus aspects of this beer shows some serious fucking hop team work.

The interplay between the resin and the citrus aspects of this beer shows some serious fucking hop team work.

S: Holy hell, if Entropic was the gentle APA brother who spends time in his room working on interpretive dance, this is the jock asshole hop brother who rolls in an IROC Camaro and socks nerds. This is incredibly resinous and hits the familiar APA zones of pine, lupulin, orange zest i.e. the white part, there is a Jamba Juice wheatgrass aspect to this and closes with a citrus tangelo REREREREREEEEMIXXXX on the backend. There is a ton of feels packed into the smell, if you know what I mean.

T: This imparts more of the citrus than I was expecting from the nose but carries itself confidently through the halls of lupus gaiety. You get a pineapple and tangerine sweetness at the front which fades into a deeper pinecone and dry finish with the oils leaving you both satisfied but wanting another sip because that sweet citrus opener is a hard act to follow. It’s like when AFI opened for Blink 182 in the late 90’s and you were all like “what, how did this. wait.”

At a certain point, taking a simple beer like a pale ale to these heights is borderline obsessive.

At a certain point, taking a simple beer like a pale ale to these heights is borderline obsessive.

M: This is incredibly light and shines as an APA and does not toe that questionable ass genre crossing line like Zombie Dust does. This is hoppy to def with fishtanks in the Civic because Tired Hands pimped their ride with hop cones in the rims. I love the interplay between straight up water and intense hops, the malts are like an abused child getting transferred back and forth in custody battles. The real victim is your bitter zones, you can smoke one of these growlers with a quickness and wonder why your Fedex bills are so high. If that is a drawback, THEN SIGN ME UP.

D: This is not quite as drinkable as Entropic, but strong in different ways. I wouldn’t say this is one of the crowning achievements of the APA realm like Hoppy Birthday or Zombie Dust, but it maintains an exceptional character of residual hops, drinkability, and just straight up vibrant citrus tones that I have not had in any bottle pale ale, to say the absolute least. This is incredibly drinkable and makes me have so many sads that I can’t just go drain this on the regular like Beachwood Alphamaster or something local and amazing. This APA fills an amazing void in the world of resctum stretching stouts and acidic sours always raping your mouthhole. This APA is like a gentle hand holding sessions, blowing dandelions in a field, a light hoppy kiss on the cheek that anyone would be down for.

Drink pale ales once in a while, you dont need to be a tiny dicked bad ass all the time.

Drink pale ales once in a while, you dont need to be a tiny dicked bad ass all the time.

Narrative: Trent Kim had a problem that not many could associate with: his banter was too damn pleasant. He had seen several sociolinguists as a child and, during the testing phases he had affected them in such a genial way that they simply dismissed him as playful. It was a clear disability though, Trent had inadvertently coasted through elementary school accidentally coaxing all of his teachers and beguiling all officials with his Godlike gift of bonhomie. Once, when he was 14 Trent came home after driving his parents car to a liquor store, to purchase crack cocaine. He lowered his head in shame when his mother asked “TRENT WHERE DID YOU-” “I know mother, I know exactly what I did wrong, I can’t justify my actions and-” suddenly his mom began peeling a ripe orange and bit into it and exclaimed “oh WHATS A LITTLE CRACK COCAINE FOR A GROWING BOY! I can’t stay mad at you Trent!” The haggard companion in a vinyl skirt was both in awe, and clearly a cheap prostitute that Trent had plied into giving him a handjob for free. Being this likable would be his downfall someday, but for now Trent bit into an orange slice and tossed his back of crack on the kitchen counter.

0

East End Brewing Gratitude, This Barleywine is Gratuitously Good, Completely Excessive

|

I was always stymied by the rare offering. At the outset you have releases to the tune of 700ish bottles and everyone trades hard for these but then I heard it was NOT BARREL AGED. I was a skeptic until I had an epic barleywine showdown and it drilled other BA contenders and made the horrible Lift Bridge Commander look like a bottle of Zima. This beer rips open malt anuses and delivers a sweet panache that can’t be imitated:

The person in the background seemed a bit GRATUITOUS.

East End Brewing Company
Pennsylvania, United States
American Barleywine | 11.50% ABV

What you know about that blue wax 2009 vintage dog? Gripping two clips, sliding barleywine heaters in the 2 seater.

A: This has an amazing turbid aspect to it that is not unlike BA Old Backus barleywine. The sheeting is pretty modest and, for a 3 year old beer it maintained the carbonation in a legitimate manner. This is what Paul Wall would floss with in a CL mercedes, it is classy but not as overstated as 808 drums. Just look at that muddy baby, you want to pinch its cheeks and take a smooch.

Despite the lack of barrel aging, this beer is mature for its age.

S: This has an incredible waft to it, milk chocolate, chocolate milk, melted raisinettes, sweet brown sugar, and cream of wheat made with a sweet smooch. I love this beer and this might be the best non-BA Barleywine that I have ever had, srsly, it is that bomb, you don’t even need to cut the red or the yellow wire.

T: This has an incredible taste with a light caramel char, dark cherries, plums, some notes akin to a quad, but it still maintains that brown sugar profile that makes it unmistakably a fantastic barleywine. This may have started as an American barleywine but, after a few years the hops have really mellowed into just a light citrus that makes this beer incredible through and through.

Hey guys, tonight we are going to open a dank non-BA barleywine
Oh cool bro.

M: This is exceedingly thin for the style but, given the huge malt blasters firing on all 8 cylinders in the taste profile, the tires hit the pavement hard. The thin nature of this beer doesn’t mean that it isn’t a freak in the palate sheets and the abv is the sneaky camera man capturing the whole thing without your knowledge or consent.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable, especially with some age on it. I don’t know if you could pass this off on novice beer drinkers but anyone at the Hop head level or above would love the robust sticky sweet character of this beer and merk it mercilessly. You ever seen ABC’s groundbreaking drama “Switched at Birth?” no? Ok, then you are qualified to drink this amazing beer.

wale whale whalez. What rare ass barleywine are we enjoying today?

Narrative: Dwayne was the best employee at the EZ Lube in Sante Fe. Fram filters, synthetics, high mileage he knew it all. Sure it seemed like a pedestrian task, that is until the average person tried to do it themselves, suddenly that old SL500 wasn’t so useful sitting like a hunk of overpriced german steel in the driveway. One fortuitous day, Dwayne was on his way to work and noticed a plume of smoke on the horizon. “OH MY GOD.” He pulled up to the scene of the tragedy and saw them all just stopped there, dead in their tracks, the death rattle of heroes that had seen better days. “WHAT’S THE SITUATION HERE?!” he called to the police officers as he ran over to them. “Well they just started making a little tick and-” Dwayne ripped open the hood of each stalled car and found that each had been negligently filled with 10W-30, INSTEAD OF 10W-40. “Oh for the love of gargbhhh-” the mere scene made him vomit on the side of the road. He swiftly went to work on a quick flush and replaced the oil in record time. “Thanks kid, you really saved the day today, now we can go shut down that Stem Cell Research protest, you’re a real hero, you know that? Not us today, you Dwayne.” The cars glamed as the exhaust resonated through the strip mall. Dwayne was the best damn 20 minute hero that $8.25 per hour could buy. His side job at the caramel factory seemed downright pedestrian by contrast; he was a brilliant genius that people overlooked far too often.