Tag Archives: sd beer

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Saint Archer Tusk and Grain 2, Cutting Up Rails of Coco White, Flaky White Bags of Mounds

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In terms of “craft beer” all of those post-acquisition breweries are easy targets for DDB.  I have the support of grassroots consumers, cicerones, and other brewers to beat up on the quasi-corporate offerings and everyone has a fun time.  The problem with beating up on this Saint Archer beer: it’s really fucking tasty.  That really puts a wrench in the gears, I have all these yukyuks prewritten and they turn out this delicious coconut blast of Almond Joy shells that hit my chest like rock salt.

That is no fun.  Big craft shouldn’t be making compelling offerings, that makes my job way harder.  Alright fine, time to load these guys down with some frustratingly-earned praise: Tusk and Grain 2.

TG1

With all of this Floridian frenzy for Snowed In, Last Snow, Snow bunny, offwhite Snow, Nascar Snow, et al, you know other people were gonna ride that prop train.  The issue with most coconut bangers: they either cost too fucking much or are inaccessible to the point of almost not being worth it.

This is damn near as good as Coconut Resolute, but knowing this is Saint Archer you will probably be able to scoop this up at AMPM with a rollerdog

TG2

The body is a touch less viscous than Prop 13 or Snowed In, but has more sheeting than Coconut Resolute.  The good news is, the oiliness from those white flakes are not ratcheted back at all, it is absurdly coconut in a “bae is conditioning her hair” sort of way.  It offers up waves of whipped fudge, Almond joy, and almost Yankee Candle levels of quintessential coconut.  There is a certain sweet waxiness from the lipids on the finish that I ain’t even mad at.

The water profile is a touch too hard and it finishes too clean for what could have been a lingering focus on the barrel character, a pitfall that Sante Adairius falls into.  The barrel character is muted simply due to the absurd fleshy coconut profile, a similar trap that Coconut Eclipse fell into. When considered as a whole, this is a very good beer and is head and shoulders above the “pretty okay” Tusk and Grain 1.  I have no idea what this costs, but that odd “psuedo bomber” 16oz bottle is an optical illusion that fucked with my liver expectations.

If you want highly drinkable, sweetly greasy, Hawaiian Tropic handjob romps down the candy aisle, then here you go.  I would not skip this one if you see it at retail and this is even worth firing up the Fedexbux for, it was irritatingly delicious and derailed all my predictable punchlines.

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Veritas 015 is Big Willey Style, Got @LostAbbey on that I Am Legend Tip

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Lost Abbey has around a 40% kill/death ration with the Veritas line, more than enough to keep you in the majors.  For every whaley V004 we receive, there’s always some oddball V009 stuttering and playing with a Leapfrog book.  By now people just treat the Veritas series like dropping a hot acid round in the revolver and spinning the chamber, because when it pays off it pays off hard.  This is one such instance where you not only don’t get lit up like Veritas 011, but this enters the ranks of the best Veritaseses ever created.

Let’s cut up this fruit AWA and get our Rachel Ray on in today’s review. Knife work gettin you promoted up from line.

Rolling up Big Willie Style of the Sour Game V15 I AM LEGEND

Rolling up Big Willie Style of the Sour Game V15 I AM LEGEND

Lost Abbey, San Marcos, North County Toolboxland Churchillsburg, CA

6.5% abv, American Lambic Wild Ale with Fruit, AmeriFoune

This beer showcases exactly what Lost Abbey does best: making the best fucking sour blonde ales in the game.  Whenever you hear them shutting the club down with some DDG or Cable Car joints, it is never centered around some sour dark ale or barrel aged barleywine. Lost Abbey blonde sours pay fat dividends like that unsplit Berkshire Hathaway stock.

When I heard the specs on this beer it sounded like an even more fruited version of Spontaneous Cheer, my micropeen was primed for a tart road trip.  The beer pours more radiant and bright than Spontaneous Cheer and looks outright radioactive in the glass, frothy carb bursting forth lacing the glass with intense pop rocks crackles, an appearance strangely similar to Duck Duck in many ways, or Cable Car 2013.  You get the jist, I dont need to draw it out for you like the plot of Sense8.

This beer get funky just like D.O.C. do

This beer get funky just like D.O.C. do

The nose is cut kumquats, highly acidic, unripe tangerines, honeydew, there’s a wheaty sort of grist to it that almost reminds me of a mineral character, with a fully lacto finisher to it that is almost too sour for my gentle nose holes. This isn’t as apeshit as Veritas 10 in acidic fruit, but this is def a serious american wild Desert Eagle with that oaky kickback.

The taste is straight sub-saharan dryness, the cankersores about to be budding if you dont have some water on hand from those receding cells getting bombed on with dehydrating goodness.  The only thing keeping this from being some insane ph-bomb is the presence of fruit as it warms.  The magnetic tangerine and clementine are buttressed by peach and apricot, it’s every shade of citrus Life Saver in the roll, oaky, puckering and intensely satisfying. There’s a sort of cheesy marmalade aspect that gives a bit back from the armed tastebud robbery that it commits in the process.  It’s like a roguish bandit that puts a carnation in a girl’s lapel after robbing the tongue stagecoach. THANKS FOR THE FRUIT VERITAS UR A GOOD GUY.

Overall, this doesn’t have the stumbling blocks of other american sours that attempt to hazard this level of intensity and has a certain degree of panache that keeps it from being a one dimensional acidic asthma attack. This should be well up on the top of your want list despite the cost of entry because unlike most stupid ass DDB reviews, this is one time where I can’t be like “JUST BUY DERP D’OR FROM CROOKED STAVE” or pointing to some Belgian analogue.  I had this the same day as Fou and both are stellar and completely different.

OH WE ON THAT PAGANI VERITAS SWERVE? Hode up, lemmie get to a save point.

OH WE ON THAT PAGANI VERITAS SWERVE? Hode up, lemmie get to a save point.

Before you ask, yes, this is way different from Stone Bu, Imperial Peach Bu, Bu Banger, Bu Bae, Jew Bu, or whatever 47 different stonefruit berliners are released this month. While those might be easier to land, this doesn’t have much in common with many of the De Garde fruited offerings, and no it doesn’t taste similar to Fen Tao, due to the ratcheted up acidity. No disrespect to any of the foregoing, this just isn’t quite on the same scene, blowing seaweed green out that Pagani sunroof, cutting up them pitted bricks on the passenger side.

Seek it out, and be sure to offer up X-Mas Bomb or some shit so we can have some LULz in the process.

Here’s a handy Veritas chart of jankrank scaled from most trifling to next level shit:

V009 – most jank

V001- second most jank

V002- trifling

V011- moderately trifling 

V013- pretty deece

V008 – pretty legit with time sans tea

V010- tasty fun times

V014- damn I’m sweating 

V007- Shit is getting real

V0012- no jank, all body high

V006- it’s kickin in, I feel it

V004- can’t handle the club right now

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@councilbrewing Beatitude Set ROUND ONE: Mango, Pineapple, Blueberry, no boils, no stems no seeds no sticks

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God damnit I am sick of getting messages about this shit already.  Instead of doing a full on cagematch with these, I figured an FAQ format would be better to address these bottles since people have SO. MANY. FUCKING. questions.  Let’s just get into the meat and start braising this osso bucco.

Only three of these are out right now, the other three to follow shortly. Fire up your Dominos pizza app and get in the chill zone

Only three of these are out right now, the other three to follow shortly. Fire up your Dominos pizza app and get in the chill zone

Council Brewing

Fruited American Biere Du Pays with Monocultures Added, 3.8% abv

Mango, Pineapple, Blueberry

I am lazy as fuck, which one is the best so I can supplement my self esteem with a completionist verve, but then not have to try them all?

That’s a strange question, but I will allow it.  I thought mango was the best, followed by pineapple and blueberry following last as the most predictable in execution.  The mango and pineapple have this effervescent quality that crackles with vibrant acidity and hard mineral character like baller ass perrier variants.  The acidity isnt purely lactic nor is it needlessly excoriating.  These are endlessly crushable, to a fault really.  I wanted to take fatter pulls to embrace the paper thin body and bone dry resonance.  It finishes crisp like biting into an Anjou pear and doesn’t linger.  You could destroy the whole set on a weeknight and not need a GI referral in the morning, if we are being completely honest.  The blueberry while having the same appeal of the two, missed the mark in terms of original execution and was more of a table beer version of JK Colour Five, still good but like sex after 9 years of marriage, utterly predictable the positions it puts you in.

What were the releases figures on this first set so I can lowball as hard as possible?

There were 270ish bottles of each variant sold on a silent release during a weekday that sold out in 3 hours.  Two per person were allowed after the 3 per person was getting drilled on like an offshore BP platform.  $14 each. If you want to look like a profiteering asshole, offer up like a single Vanilla Rye for the whole set, I dont give a shit.

Third place, but still a tasty treat.

Third place, but still a tasty treat.

Why Am I So Poor?  Why Do I feel like $14 is Expensive for a 750ml bottle?

You may have been afflicted with DeGardiditis wherein you now feel like any 750ml that costs more than $6 is a complete rip off.  Or you may think you have some homebrewing experience and you immediately point your greasy roll of nickels finger at the 3.8% abv and start mumering “erhm production cosshttts” or something.  This isn’t a second runnings beer, it’s not just a dupont strain and some capri suns squeezed into the brite tank.  I don’t know why you are so miserly, if 14$ is too much for you, maybe take up cloud/bird watching or one of the innumerably cheaper hobbies.

The Carb Looks a Little Low In These Pictures, I Like to Assume Shit-

Those pours were from draft and sat for a few minutes while we talked, you know, that thing you used to do before logging in badges on Untappd like an obsessive self documenting alcoholic.  Those days.  People have told me the carb on the bottles is legit.

This was my favorite, but most people like pineapple more. WHAT DOES OLD DDB KNOW N E WAYZ

This was my favorite, but most people like pineapple more. WHAT DOES OLD DDB KNOW N E WAYZ

What Does the label say, I am bad at Googling, pls.

“Beatitude is the French word for bliss which is what we float away on whenever we enjoy this specially brewed beer. Although this Tart Saison is brewed in the historical Wallonian tradition of other low gravity, tart farmhouse ales, the magic happens when our house blend of Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Saison yeast throw an out-of-this-world party in our fermenters. Aged  on various fruits and bottled with precision and care – this yields a beer with a lacto forward nose, an intensely tart fruit flavor, a doughy complexity from our no-boil process, and takes the word “refreshing” to a whole new level.”  There you go.

When Do The Next Three Deviants Come Out So I Can Do Some Demonstrative Shit Like Opening All Six in My Backyard to Impress My Yu Gi Oh Friends?
Probably in like four weeks, I have no idea.  I have sand dollar nipples and a wordpress site, the fuck do I know.

Hey I read everything you wrote but I am still going to message you and ask for your REAL OPINION is that ok would that be good for you DDB?

I fucking hate this so much.

A pour of that size is not long for this world.

A pour of that size is not long for this world.

My Friend is a certified beer server and he said because of the ABV these are actually berliners

That wasn’t a question but please, just shut the fuck up.  You have no idea what you are talking about.  Let’s get this out of the way: these do not taste like saisons.  Sure they have a low abv and are fruited but these are not berliners either.  Look at the yeast strains, how in the fuck could you consider these berliners? Due to the no boil (they bring the temp up to 180 degrees, they dont just shake it in a sack with some DME) this has some residual grist to the swallow but again, its hard to pick out because these are POST MENOPAUSAL OSTEOPEROSIS BONE DRY. My best characterization would be “American Fruited Biere Du Pays with monocultures added” which I can only assume will be a GABF category next year.

I usually just read to the bottom of the things you say and look at the pictures, so should i get these seriously tho?

If you can only get one, most people like Pineapple the most, and yes you really should try it.  There is not a clear analogue in my mind for someone doing things in quite this way and its not fair to really compare them to De Garde beers across the board either.  These are really fucking tasty and OH NO YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO SHARE THEM TWELVE WAYS. Holy fuck imagine drinking a whole 3.8% 750ml to yourself, wow 2015 is a bold new year.