0

Goose Island Bourbon County Vanilla Rye, It is Actually that Good. God Damn it.

DDB is no stranger to eating shovelfuls of molten crow.  Back when I was yapping off at the nanners before the BA Barleywine tasting, the midwest cleaned up and Great got the heisman right to the chest.  It’s fine to be wrong and tuck the acorn peen between the thighs.  In this instance being speculatively wrong has never felt so right: BCBVR is amazing.  I can’t backpedal or use artful qualifiers to wriggle out of this one.  It really is that good, lamentably.  Let’s get to it already and get this pageantry over with.

NUCLEATION!? This review is now completely worthless.

NUCLEATION!? This review is now completely worthless.

Imperial Stout, Chicago, 13.4% abv, whalezbro

Ok so what sets this apart from the previously, already good, BCBVS? Different beans to flick, different BALs to juggle.  Bourbon in the previous iteration and rye in the current one.  Let’s get to it.

A:  This has a thinner aspect than coffee and the other variants with less sheeting and less, more carb, and just overall seems livelier.  There is a degree of balance to what is typically intensely massive and just looks dead on in every aspect.

S:  The nose is rich and decadent with layers of waffle cone, vanilla milkshake, Whoppers, nougat and of course sticky vanilla.  This is not vanilla extract or Yankee Candle or Glade Plug In, legit WE ARE BAKING SNICKERDOODLES, vanilla.  It is frustratingly good, it’s difficult to take in the layers of smells concurrently with the gnashing of teeth.

I got Xannies in a Bourbon County bottle, I dont take them shits but you

I got Xannies in a Bourbon County bottle, I dont take them shits but you

T:  This is a touch thinner than regular BCBS but shines as a result.  Without hefty residual sugar flab, the bakery goes into full production with mounds bar, almond joy, rich chocolate notes, cake pops, and a lingering sweet vanilla finish.  IT never becomes too sweet for its own good and delivers without excess the promise of that bean.  It is an unquestionable improvement over regular and coffee BCBS, I prefer it to Propreeshitors, baconator or otherwise.

M:  The rye barrel takes this to places that made the original BCBVS seem uninteresting.  The spicy crackle from the rye helps to offset the sticky vanilla and seems to thin out the vanilla oils with a touch of balance adding nuance and depth to a beer that could have been like sticking your cock in a soft serve cone.  It is the thinnest of the BCBS treatments since Cherry Rye and just works so well with a light fusel heat and crackle along the gumline.  It is silky but never flabby, excellent carb and you keep hitting up the ATM to get more vanilla singles/fun tickets to rain on the stage.

PART OF THE FUN IS ATTENDING BLACK FRIDAY RELEASES WITH MY PALS IN CHICAGO

PART OF THE FUN IS ATTENDING BLACK FRIDAY RELEASES WITH MY PALS IN CHICAGO

D:  This is just an outright phenomenal beer and no amount of brow furrowing, or quoting distro numbers, or making fun of dipshits on the trade boards will change that fact.  I could try to whip up a 2 minute youtube masterpiece to bring myself to terms with this but, it is just simply too well done and widely available to the masses.  Sure there are other stouts that are better, but with a much steeper casting cost.  This wont tap your lands that hard, relative to the other top tier stouts. It would be absurd to tell a DDB reader to seek this out, but I would temper that sentiment with “within reason.”

A solid stout for the holidays, but don't crack your nuts landing it.

A solid stout for the holidays, but don’t crack your nuts landing it.

1

Jack’s Abby BA Framinghammer Triple Fucking Shootout: BA, Vanilla and Coffee. Pepper that Angus for the Lager Lovin.

Since I have been neglecting the fuck out of this trashheap of a website, I figure that some Jack’s Abby loving is in order, in the form of a tawdry threeway. Barrel aged Framinghammer is a slick little treat from those lager masters up in the frigid northeast. Just when I thought my beer boner was on full swole, they bust out two fleshlight treatments: vanilla and coffee. Cialis levels attained. To clarify, these were not aged in fleshlights, though. One can dream.

Here is the regular ass Framinghammer.  Just a world class beer, nothing to see here.

Here is the regular ass BA Framinghammer. Just a world class beer, nothing to see here.

Jack’s Abby Brewing
Massachusetts, United States
Baltic Porter | 10.00% ABV

The 2013 bottles were aged in Old Weller 107 bourbon barrels.

The beer is inversely better than my shitty picture, so it's really good. Vanilla balling.

The beer is inversely better than my shitty picture, so it’s really good. Vanilla balling.

Baltic Porter | 10.00% ABV
– Aged on vanilla beans, no fucking shit.

I love that HF stemware but I can't help but feeling like a premenopausal single mom clutching it.  Watching Nurse Jackie and Damages and shit.

I love that HF stemware but I can’t help but feeling like a premenopausal single mom clutching it. Watching Nurse Jackie and Damages and shit.

Baltic Porter | 10.00% ABV
Big, bold, black and barrel aged. A length conditioning period in bourbon barrels creates a silky smooth chocolatey mouth feel enhanced by the use of oats and brown sugar. Noticeable sweetness gets balanced by roasted malt and hop bitterness. Additional flavors include bourbon, vanilla, and oak. This one is aged on Barismo coffee strictly for the pre-teens and the roast haterzz.

A: I say this with the utmost sincerity: they look exactly the fucking same. Some would argue that the carb levels might be a bit different or the lacing has some mild variation but that guy probably reads Pitchfork media and fingers his pisshole when he gets home from his job at Lowe’s so fuck that guy. It is slick and nimble in its blackness, straight scared squid action with an inkiness that imparts a degree of wateriness in the splishy splashing. The carb is a single finger of mocha foam that subsides and gives way to some bottom fermenting beauty. This porter is distinctly porter with none of this “IS BBXXIV A STOUT” sort of bullshit thread creating nonsense. Porters por vida.

This isn't like the porters that you buy, mine have adjuncts and were inaccessible and aged in barrels so it's ok for me to have stretch marks.

This isn’t like the porters that you buy, mine have adjuncts and were inaccessible and aged in barrels so it’s ok for me to have stretch marks.

Smell

Barrel aged:
This beer has a fantastic waft to it with oak, caramel, milk chocolate, a silky Dove bar dipped in E&J, and a mallow foam stroking it in the corner. It is a 1970’s mashup of discoteque madness with porters doing cocoa rails off of unshaven bush. Very legit all around, but then the variants stepped in-

Vanilla:
This goes apeshit and gives you more vanilla than you are bargaining for. The effect is so pronounced that it almost comes across like vanilla frozen yogurt or some Coldstone Creamery madness. The regular had pronounced vanilla and this takes the bullhorn and starts pumping sticky sweet AWOL Nation shit up your nose that’s a bit too produced to be loved. Too sweet, too methodical.

Coffee:
Unlike the vanilla, this takes the base beer and massages the palm lightly, pressing a cup of joe in its hand and leaving some lipstick on the glass. This feels decadent and classy with a sharp roastiness that leans closer to the acidity profile found in the Black Cat series if you are one of those dudes who smells cups of coffee while buying your shitty Armani cologne. But for realtalk, this is the best smelling variant and doesn’t forgo the other aspects, the coffee works hand in hand with the baker’s chocolate, sticky brownie batter, and maintains that clean lager waft to it without any meddling esters in the mix.

Winrar: Coffee, easy game next question.

Give this to your trifling friends, watch their faces when you tell them it is a lager, post your stupid findings in a forum condescending on them in a passive aggressive way you pussy.

Give this to your trifling friends, watch their faces when you tell them it is a lager, post your stupid findings in a forum condescending on them in a passive aggressive way you pussy.

Taste

Barrel Aged Sweetits:
This has an amazing clean crispness that belies the expectations of some stouty mess running along your jawline. It opens with a cocoa aspect, some 85% cacao you impulse buy at Trader Joes, nice 4 Roses sort of sweetness in the finish that screams mallow and werther’s original with a light pat of coconut on the ass. Just fantastic.

Vanilla Facial:
This again just pushes all of the other aspects out of the spotlight and the base beer could not even beer barrel aged since the sticky cake batter just drops hot loads on everyone’s chest. It is just too much, too sweet, almost reminds me of a sticky oiliness in execution. Let me say all this with the qualifier that it is STILL BETTER than almost every BA porter that I have had, but these three just wreck buttholes in tandem so it’s hard to be forgiving.

Coffee Groping:
This has some of the same issues as vanilla, what with it pushing the espresso harder than a 7th grade weed dealer, pumping a hipster agenda. But god damn, you willingly comply because the product it is moving is so good. The beans and coffee merge with the seamless chocolate fondant wateriness of the base beer and it is a perfect fusion of RomCom and softcore coffee porn. You know the type.

WinRar: Gotta give it to Barrel Aged on this one.

Sometimes it doesn't matter which variant you pick, someone is getting fucking destroyed.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter which variant you pick, someone is getting fucking destroyed.

Moutherfeelings:

Again, all of these have the similar base of a swift brown water rafting trip (i.e. in Jalisco.) The toasted malts don’t hang around too long and the chocolate, almond, whipped mocha aspects all embrace the barrel lovingly. The coffee is a bit drier than the other two, but it makes you thirstier for something that is already exceptionally drinkable. The vanilla is a bit more sticky and if you shop at Lane Bryant, you could probably drink this while everyone else is at prom/getting hand jobs and you can smile in the mirror with your sweet khaki stained teeth and tell yourself that you have a good personality. But ultimately, the sticky sheeting and cling to the vanilla gets old fast, like that pesky 10th grader who wont stop texting you after you said you loved her. Fucking clingy.

Winrar: Coffee.

Drinkability:

It is tough to break these buys apart in this aspect because I could crush these like homeless people crush cans at a recycling center: all day and while covered in filth. The variants are a bit less drinkable overall because of stylistic hurdles, but they are still damn near session beers and drink like Edmund Fitzgerald that leads to DUI-city at 10% abv. Even the most closed vagina would embrace that clamshell hug for how drinkable these old chestnuts are.

Winrar: Barrel Aged version.

Overall winner, bossing your palate the fuck around, telling you what’s what:

The Coffee version pounded size 1 hipster men in their skinny livers, have them all redfaced talking about some shitty half finished memoire that they are finishing, the great american coming of age lager that most people with defined lats will trashcan and enjoy.

The coffee is amazing, so it wins.

NARRATIVE:

If you think I am typing a narrative for you ungrateful loftdwellers after laying down a solid 1200 words, you can push your testicles into your butthole.

I bet it does.

I bet it does.

0

Three Floyd’s Bourbon Barrel Vanilla Bean Aged Dark Lord, The Hnngs are substantial

Even while sweet and vanilla, this is still the darkest of lords.

Three Floyd’s Vanilla Aged Dark Lord, 15% abv Imperial Stout

A: The appearance is a deep murky dark brown with wispy light carbonation, but again, I didn’t obtain this in the most legitimate manner, so that likely has something to do with it. The booziness it huge and coats in clear angry strands.

S: There is an incredible vanilla sweetness like a fresh macaroon or vanilla frap. Amazing chocolate and coffee notes support the back end, there’s a waft of huge heat to this that stings the nostrils with a deep heat.

This picture is the complete opposite of Vanilla Dark Lord: smooth, hot, sweet, interesting.

T: The initial taste is incredibly sweet with intense vanilla. The vanilla integrates seamlessly and the sweetness isn’t cloying like the normal Darklord. It is a complete improvement on the old formula. Why in the world that they don’t bottle this is beyond me. There is an amazing coffee and burnt chocolate taste to this beer that just lingers on and on. It like a kiss from an eskimo, who somehow has coffee and chocolate with him.

M: The mouthfeel is like the old school Darklord with an intense heat to it, sticky coating, and lasting sweetness that inherits your mouth in fee simple. It isn’t going anywhere any time soon. This is a good thing since the bold mouthfeel is incredible and welcome just nestled in my molars. My dentist doesn’t approve but HE IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

You just wish every beer could be like this beer.

D: Oddly, for a crazy 15% abv stout, this is somehow drinkable. I wish that I had a huge serving of this amazing rare beer, but I dont have the means to perpetually land this crazy beast. I love the sweet heat of this and can only look at Vanilla Darklord as he speeds away with his hand pressed against the back window of the stationwagon as it speeds away, away from my tiny heart.

Narrative: I can’t even write a narrative because my maltboner is at full attenuation. This is insanely good and top 10 stout for sures.