Tag Archives: quad

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

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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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Charleville Vineyards And Microbrewery, Box of Chocolate, Mama Always Said Life Was Like a Box of Cliches

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I remember seeing this beer tearing up the billboard charts last year and I never quite understood what was going on. Ok so it is a quad, so there’s gonna be some pitted fruits and deep malts and, oh wait what? No it’s chocolate. So it’s a stout? No, it’s a quad. Yeah see, fucking confusing. Anyway, I finally traded for one and here are the results, NESTLE` your ass into this review.

See what I did there? CONTEXT IMAGES, hot chocolate on chocolate action. GOD DAMN IT IS SO META.

Charleville Vineyards And Microbrewery, Box of Chocolate, Quadruple, 10.5% abv

A: This seriously looks like Coca-Cola Classic. Next section. Ok fine, it has a mild wateriness that is black in the center and darker at the edges. The lacing is minimal and there’s a big watery profile going on with middle effervescence throughout. It doesn’t look like a quad, but that’s what the Temecula boys said before they broke their necks on those sick dune runs.

This beer is all good and fun with your friends but drinking it alone you just get hit by the caramel refuse truck.

S: There is some chocolate, but moreover I get a sticky sweetness more like maple syrup or burned caramel. I have definitely encountered more chocolatey monsters than this offering as far as noses go. August Gloop would be disappointed as all hell.

T: Ok there we go, even at a very chilly temp, the chocolate comes through and. . .that’s about it. You get a very mild caramel finish but it is seriously just a one note chocolate that fades into cocoa and caramel. I don’t to make a Rolo comparison because those are more sticky and decadent but this is a watery rolo, it has the chocolate going on, but if you’ve ever had Chocolate Rain, this will seem like the anemic artsy brother who is into interpretive dance chocolate. Not the hardcore 85% shit.

I was so jazzed for some decadent treat, and while the chocolate was still very present, I was all like-

M: This is incredibly watery and almost comes off closer to a porter in mouthfeel with less roasted malts. The sweetness gets a bit old after about 5 ounces and this is clearly meant to be shared. No one ever sits down to this much chocolate unless she’s single on 2/14 and there happens to be Lifetime marathon on. There is this lingering Dr. Pepper finish that makes me assert that this soda character is there through and through with the syrupy notes on the finish. But it’s like the busser fucked up and didn’t put the co2 mix right on the soda machine because it gives too much chocolate caramel and not enough xanthan gum.

D: I guess if you are at a 5th grade sleepover, this would be ideal. However, if you are bringing 10.5% craft beer to a sleepover with 10 year-olds, we have some other things to discuss. The more this warms, the thinner that the beer feels and the big old box of chocolate that I was expecting is turning more and more into a bag of Mr. Pibb concentrate. It doesn’t paint the walls with decadence, it just leaves a mild wateriness that sprays away with the gentlest of Shamwow treatments.

It is so much chocolate and burnt soda goodness, I can't handle this formidable bomber alone. Halp plz.

Narrative: The rain streaked small rivulets down the pane of Jericho’s hazy window. Phoenix never received this much rain and ever since he received that debilitating text message, it seemed to pour even harder. Jericho aka Faded J aka the Feeze had a budding hip hop career in the strictest sense of the word, a graft planting really. He tried unsuccessfully to learn Fruity Loops, then audio forge, then a simple Casio keyboard, until ultimately he decided that Arizona needed a pure lyricist. Notwithstanding the foregoing, his girlfriend dumped him after a staggering 5 months of these charades. “Jericho, your raps sound like change in a dryer and have the rhyme structure of an E.E. Cummings epic,” she would rail at him while he tapped out his sonnets on a Pringles can, crafting his magnum opus, 300 bars dissing a variety of movie theater chains for overcharging on concessions. “Your candy aint even sick, why you always, even, I mean, I am just here posted up chilling with my chick, not a bitch, but you know, like, Cookie Dough bites for like what, sometimes $4.50. . .well fuck that shit.” The local manager of the AMC autotuned the flows and received over 500,000 hits, at poor Faded J’s expense. Now he was sitting caressing the case of Cookie Bites that was sent to him in concession, the bitter chocolate underscoring the pain on his mediocre existence.

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Pannepot 2005 Grand Reserva, Because I Had So Many Amazing Memories of Nothing From 2005

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Oh well, another day and another top 100 beer, ho hum, just another day in the life of a gosh darn overseer.

This review is actually the ultra-baller 2005 Grand Reserve bottling of Pannepot, but oh well, you get the idea, ONLY MORE BALLER.

Pannepot 2005 Grand Reserva, Quad, 10% abv

A: deep chocolate brown with a slightly offwhite head that produces nice lacing. Not exceptional carbonation but it is the 2005 batch so complaints dont seem to be in order, henceforth, the beggars become the choosers.

I wasn't a huge fan of quads but, after you have some top tier shit, you want to catch em all.

S: This seems to be its weakest trait with the anticipated huge dark fruit bouquet being rather muted, more of just a general sweetness without pronounced notes, it’s like when I tried to learn Clarinet, you know the greatness was there, the notes were just a little fucked up.

T: The smell does not indicate the incredibly rich profile of this beer, deep roasted almond notes, burnt currant, s;ightly boozy character with minimal heat that is displaced by a nice finishing sweetness. The taste more than makes up for any other shortcomings, it’s a rich kiss from uncle quad and there’s serious boozy wincest.

I know I am experiencing something amazing but at the same time, I can't help but feel like a total piece of shit for not sharing.

M: the mouthfeel lingers for just enough time, but leaves you wanting more, like each song in the first 2 Ramones albums. The coating is just long enough to make an impression, but not long enough to be overwhelming. As far as quads go, this is pretty light on the maltiness and I think given the character of the fruit notes, it is better as a result

D: Most quads wear out their welcome either due to overpowering booziness or an expansive maltiness that takes over your palate and stomach like japanese kudzu. this is a great beer that you could substitute for any beer in its class and people would welcome the complex sweet notes and high abv. Give this to any Newcastle drinker and bankrupt your friends overnight.

Struise are in Europe but I pretty much imagine shit is popping off like this after hours

Narrative: This was easily the worst High School Reunion that Jacob mellors had ever been to, and he had seen his fair share. His obsession of crashing High School Reunions started simple enough, play the role of the muted Magic the Gathering player, the forgotten 4th chair trombone, lay low. It worked like clockwork, the open bar started flowing, old enemies regailing each other with carrer conquest exploits, soon Jacob, soon. His latent abilities went far beyond the scope of the pedestrian masses that he regailed. At the strike of each gala, 3 hours in, he would emerge as the forgotten socialite besting the former nerds in volairean wit, intimidating the portly former jocks with a panache and bravado that oozed confidence. It was this latent power that fed him at night, the knowledge that his unknown ability was his greatest asset. However, he could not drink so much that night as it was mid-november and class reunion season was in full swing.