Tag Archives: sf beer week

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@santeadairius Always in Death, 25th fret shredding, black farmhouse death stainless fermentation

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Well as 2014 creaked to a close, the final bottle from the SARA Cellar program was the caress of death. This was the swan song and a single bottle was issued to 2014 members before all these 2015 SARA cellar gentrifiers come in pushing up property values, ruining the rich cultural heritage of the invite only society, driving out the original residents. Let’s see how this tart DARK farmhouse performs, whether you can slam this at a Bauhaus concert or if you should save it for the next Joy Division show.

Time to play that cliche game LIST SOMETHING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE BEER PHOTO. always funny ervy tiem.

Time to play that cliche game LIST SOMETHING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE BEER PHOTO. always funny ervy tiem.

Capitulation, Santa Cruz, CA
Black Barrel aged Saison, 5.6% abv

That commercial rubdown:
Everything ends. This simple fact reminds us to make the most of the things, to breath deeply, to chase inspiration, to live and love with abandon. With this in mind, we offer you the final installment of SARA’s Cellar 2014. Always in Death. A tart, barrel-aged, dark farmhouse ale, this single barrel selection stood out from the rest, and is now yours to memorialize in solitude or with friends. Everything ends, always, in death.

Put on The Spill Canvas, pour a glass of Grenache and sink into deep contemplation with your Sartre tome, WE ARE DISCUSSING DEATH.

A: Well true to form, this is a dark dark farmhouse that leaves you looking circumspectly at the jet black inky depths, that foam challenging you to a slap boxing fight in the old barn. I usually don’t enjoy this style or really any sours predicated entiretly on a porter base, but this is admittedly a pretty beer due to the bone dry lack of sheeting or residual sugars. This is like Natalie Portman in Black Swan, you come for the white swan, you stay to see her get stabbed.

Pictured above: target dark saison demographic. Look for them at the next bottleshare.

Pictured above: target dark saison demographic. Look for them at the next bottleshare.

S: The nose on this is phenomenal and reminds me of a baller version of Tart of Darkness, with a turbo charger and cat back exhaust. You get merlot and currant, tart cherry, craisins, oak and light cocoa. The closer is a sort of red wine Dr. Pepper aspect that again, feels agile and doesn’t leave its dark husks and tannins laying all around the living room its like HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS.

T: The taste sheds the Tart of Darkness robe and the ebony form glistens beautifully across the palate. You get the malbec and blackberry, tartness, a faint cheesiness, and a lingering intensely dry closer. I can confidently add this to a list of two other dark farmhouses REALLY worthy of your attention, next to Civil Disobedience 4 and Guillermo Prunus. Yes CD8, Shadows of their Eyes, and Edith are intentionally left off of that list. Dark saisons usually dont do it for me, but this exhibits the red grape and hay profile in such an elegant way, its worth your attention even though you might not give a shit about the style.

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, i like my farmhouses DARK and DEEP, i have substance and depth, I OWN A COPY OF HARLAN ELLISON SHORT STORIES

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, i like my farmhouses DARK and DEEP, i have substance and depth, I OWN A COPY OF HARLAN ELLISON SHORT STORIES

M: This is dry and presents a bouquet of tart floral goodness, its this odd melange of dry bakers chocolate a flanders red and a straight up saison. At warmer temps it feels a bit acetic but never enters a realm that someone would really complain about, I am just that prick who watches Whiplash and complains that the syncopation isnt timed with the frames of the drums. Nitpicking garbage because shit, otherwise why even read this.

D: This is this and you can easily crush the entire 750 without getting dry rot. It never becomes cloying or warrants splitting a million ways. Thankfully this doesn’t have any stonefruit in it, so dipshits on the trade boards will continue punching one another in the dick over the same tired lacto blonde ales and leave this well alone.

This saison tastes like when the wolf cries to the black corn moon. You probably wont get it if you havent painted with the colors of the black wind.

This saison tastes like when the wolf cries to the black corn moon. You probably wont get it if you havent painted with the colors of the black wind.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.