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Flossmoor Station Wooden Hell, Getting that whaley wood, the best kind of alerection

Boy, you make a joke that you paid $700.00 for a bottle of beer and people lose their shit. Thankfully, I didn’t actually drop 7 bills to get some wood like some MBC ballers, but it did involve a trade that would turn your resctum inside out like a skinned snake. At any rate, cracking those top 10 speedwalez takes some doing, as anyone with shitty priorities will attest. In full midwest form, I only had ~4 ounces of this, so if my review sucks shit, point me to someone who has recently skulled a bomber solo, and I will ask that person why he has no friends.

Anyway, let’s make some more erection jokes predicated on wood puns in today’s review

I kicked off the blind BA Barleeywine tasting with this and no fewer than 5 dipshits pointed out that I did not taste this blind. Thank you for that.

I kicked off the blind BA Barleeywine tasting with this and no fewer than 5 dipshits pointed out that I did not taste this blind.
Thank you for that.

Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery
Illinois, United States
Style | ABV
English Barleywine | 9.50% ABV

A: Despite its age, this doesnt pour a muddy flacid lakewater, but it isn’t the picture of jubilant, pube-free youth either. The carb is gentle and wisps in light rings without much lacing to speak of. In goldilocks parlance, things are “just right.” It isn’t exactly radiant but there is a certain posture to it like sits somewhere between a quad and that deep almond brown with medium clarity that is inviting, but relatively thin looking for the style. If you have fuxxed with CW BBBW you’ll know that look tho.

Just because something is old doesn't mean it can't be relevant and refined. inb4 Ftowne jokes.

Just because something is old doesn’t mean it can’t be relevant and refined.
inb4 Ftowne jokes.

S: This is easily my favorite part of this beer, the toffee, almond, creme brulee top, toasted caramel and vanilla just dance seamlessly. I was expecting an oxy sidecar, but it never came. Everyone high fives one another and press their hips together comparing cocks talking about cardboard and “THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN I TRIED IT ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS” but dick measuring aside, I don’t get that thrift store musk that everyone was jizzing their skinny jeans over. Trust me, later I had 2000 BA Leviathan, i know them oxies. The waft was awesome, no old comic books up in the mix.

T: The taste follows the nose pretty seamlessly albeit in a much more gentle fashion. Those kids in the mid to late 2000s must have had more nuanced palates, an appreciation for the balance and front porch lounging with boozy libations. I got toasted coconut, sugar daddies, a light touch of paper/oxy, and some mallowfoam. Again this is all within the scope of things being resonant and lightly executed. If you walk into this with a raging boner for a Mother of All Storms experience, you will probably clip your tip on the wooden doorway. Speaking of wood, this isn’t the barrel bomb or oaky monster the label would imply, and I think it is better as a result. Perhaps time mellowed it, but it was just and easy drinker that disappeared frustratingly fast.

"I ticked won of the raerest barelywines evar, y u jealus of my sick lifestyle LOL haters amirite?"

“I ticked won of the raerest barelywines evar, y u jealus of my sick lifestyle LOL haters amirite?”

M: This is on the thinner side of the BABW spectrum but the dovetailing of the gentle flavors makes it seem reasonable. By way of contrast, GI BCBBW has a shitload of raisin, chocolate, fig packed into a similarly thin body so it feels off balanced as a result. I really enjoyed the slick clean finish and sustain of the caramel notes rings like your child when you lock him in the poolhouse for running on the deck. Those sweet dulcet notes of enduring heat.

D: this is exceptionally drinkable and perhaps is a touch past its prime, depending on cellaring conditions. This is the same shithead section where I recommend you seek it out and you tell me to bang my asshole with a curling iron. The give and take of malty tides rolling in, taking hundreds of dollars in its wake. So the operative question is “should I put together a FT: with v007, Fou Foune, Pulling Nails, DDG, and 2 De Garde Berliners + $$$$ to land this bottle?” That is up to how well your life is going I guess, I eat dinty moore in front of a CRT TV and sip whales because I have shitty priorities. You want to live like me? You want to be an internet badass with stretch marks and an inferiority complex?

Fine, then trade for Wooden Hell. Like I give a fuck.

This is one of those last level master ticks you seek out because you are too bitchmade to land M.

This is one of those last level master ticks you seek out because you are too bitchmade to land M.

Narrative: William Cooper was last in a proud lineage of barrel craftsmen who, until recently, felt the sting of a world embracing stainless containers. That is, until the revolution of the dipshit homebrewer. Every day, while shaving staves down of pure oak, he would be disturbed with importuning phone calls requesting “RARE BARRELS FOR MY IMPERIAL BROWN AGED ON DATES FIRST USE PLEASE.” William would masterfully be shaping a hoop with care and need to set his work by the wayside for shortsighted assholes. In his remote Illinois workshop, Subarus and KIAs would pull up regularly with husky patrons coming to question him about inane aspects of his once-proud craft. “Well what I am really looking at is bung retention, I made an extract Belgian blonde and I want to add Yuzu to it and I need something with a tannic presence, I read that online” they would chime in while inspecting markings. The face palming would not be insubstantial when these mealtymouthed interlopers would examine stave rivets and begin an unsolicited diatribe about Pappy Van Winkle lots. “Please sir, I just, I don’t even know what you are talking about, this is a private workshop,” William would plead, “yeah I have been to plenty of private workshops in Vermont to inspect their processes, nothing but the best for my homebrew you know? Some people really lack class.” The barrel business was booming once again, to the dismay of every cooper in the entire world.

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Hair of the Dog Adam from the Wood, Fred was Nice, BUT NOW WE ARE TALKING SERIOUS WOOD

Adam from the motherfucking Wood. Not regular Adam. Not Cherry Adam, just gangster ass AftW. This is one of those long standing top 100 beers than I had been meaning to trade for off and on for over 9 months, but now shit is getting real and it is time to see if this little 12 ounce heater from Oregon is going to bring the pain in today’s review.

Adam gives beer nerds wood as well. Poplar and pine.

AftW
Hair of the Dog Brewing Company / Brewery and Tasting Room
Oregon, United States
Old Ale | 12.00% ABV

This is Adam aged in American Oak barrels. First released in 2000, and released again in November 2011 in 12oz bottles. This 12% beer has lots of the typical HOTD aromas: Caramel, brown sugar, tons of raisin and tobacco. Fig, date, and plum fruitiness in that order. This has a fairly strong earthy vinousness as well as oak vanilla. Alcohol: 12% by volume.

This is a complex beer that satisfies your basest desires. Wood, bourbon, fast food.

A: This is not a particularly beautiful beer; let’s just get that out of the way right from the top. I mean look at it. It is murky like melted fudge, there’s hardly any carbonation and the sheeting just coats like sticky caramel. I remember when I opened Matt and I was like “wait. What is hapen.” This is the same thing here. I can safely say that Hair of the Dog has slayed beer nerds on the quality of the aroma and taste of their beers, engaging in the Kuhnhenn style of guerilla warfare with regards to appearance. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

S: This is incredible and the olfactory is pumping out siege tanks. This beer opens up with caramel, marshmallow, Zero bar, light chocolate, a lil campfire roastiness in there and closes with a HUGE bourbon kick like kisses from your aunt on Flag day.

T: This is incredibly complex and changes from one beer to a completely different beer as it warms. I feel redundant listing all the terms that HotD themselves listed but, for reals, you get dark fruits like an imperial quad, dates, plums, just fucking read up there. I will add that the oak and bourbon is overwhelming, like Donkey Kong smashing you in the head with a barrel. Kong so hard.

My face be all like dis when I opened this beer. Lemon knows what is up.

M: This is both hugely sticky like a foam party and incredibly boozy, like a foam party. I enjoy this beer at almost room temperature because it suddenly imparts this complex bouquet like a caramel liqueur. You ever get a girl’s number and then there’s a lingering sense of guilt because you know that you aren’t attracted to Albanian women at all? Well that is how this beer operates, you get that bourbon and then it just overstays its welcome, eating up all your Bugles, changing your DVR settings and shit.

D: This is not drinkable. I will just say it. I will not say that this is not something i did not enjoy, read above, I really liked it. I don’t think Hair of the Dog will get their jimmies rustled when I say that I don’t need any larger formats of this beer. I get it. This isn’t some Ayn Rand novel where you need the notes drilled at you over and over in larger than life representations. Caramel, figs, plums, sleep. That’s how Adam rolls when he is swinging wood.

This is a big, complex beer. People fear complex things.

Narrative: “we should do this more ofTEN!” you open up your posture and lean hesitantly back “oh yeah…i know why dont we, yeah we should!” a slight wavering in your voice. This was all going so well, but God does she grate on your nerves relentlessly. “I’ve got this thing next month and you know, the week is always hectic” you look down at your shoes, the lies in the air palpable in a thick mist that she seems impervious to. The bourbon smells impart a cloud like a Eugene O’Neill novel. “well totally, I will work around you, I will call you tomorrow ok? 2 pm?” You can’t believe you are still standing in the entryway of this apartment complex, this could not end soon enough, yet it started so pleasantly. Maybe it was the way she smacked her food, told the same story 6 times with slight variations, smacked her gum, or asked you prying personal questions. “Yeah no 2pm is rough, pretty much all times are tough, so hey I gotta do this thing but…keep in touch k?…” You lick your gumline and taste her caramel lip gloss. What a strange choice. You rock back on your heels and slink towards your car. “Sure, well I will touch back and we’ll work something out” For all your will, for all her shortcomings, you know in 6 months, your curiousity will return and you will inevitably come back to her. The exotic sweetness, with all its lack of grace, beckons.