Last year was the embrace of Czech Dark Lagers or CDLs if youre in the wellness community. For a New Jersey brewery to come out swinging with this as one of their standouts, my attention was seized.

The brewery is named after an Emerson poem but it doesn’t drip in the trappings of that Vermont pastiche that may come to mind. These are crushable beers for people who don’t have #wanderlust in the bio or an airplane emoji. The brewery itself wants people to use it as a calm reading space which seems antithetical to industrial park big jenga and the Garden state itself.

The beer has this double helix of tight roast and tootsie roll malty sweetness. The carb is fantastic with a cling and heft to the lacing that runs counter to how soft and light the beer itself is. The predictable and basic demeanor of an Eras Tour fan, but clutching a Jean Stafford novel for a pop of uncommon complexity.

Roast is kept in check and this doesn’t veer into some porter or black IPA zone with bitterness. Sorry, Cascadian dark ale. I don’t need the Pacific Northwest coming at my with their sacred geometry tattoos and unviable business subsidized by generational money.

The average Asbury Park customer probably wont order this, but they are missing out. The weird merger of lager and wild ale emphasis doesn’t make sense on paper. It’s like dudes who love outlaw country, but also law enforcement, but also not being tread on. Levi Funk teaming up with Live Oak seems cool but would likely result in some hateful bottom-fermented chimera. This is just clean simple lines, no wildness involved.

The end result is a crushable lager with a pop of pumpernickel complexity to chain combo the sip to gulp ratio. It’s very good but falls below the Moonlights, but that’s a tall order for a brewery barely a year old. The good is merged with the forgettable. The rockabilly boyfriend meets his scarlet begonia gf and they are united by their love of buying pants that are too small.

It is tasteful bready muffintops all around.

Modern stouts are more caked up than a Pixar mom, but it wasn’t always this way. “Mexican” stouts were the darling of the mid-2010s allocation age. Starting with Huna, on to Mexican Cake, Bomb! On and on the spice must flow. When youre pulled by the hips to the edge of the bed and see that churro glistening, ancho chilis are ablaze.

Allocations create the perception of value, especially in the age before internet sales. The creaky joints of beer nerds in a DMV style line, chondromalacia pressing against those Brooks soles. Running shoes that have never been run in acquiring Mexican stouts for landlock dudes who have only been to Cancun on a cruise. These stouts offered an experience that had to be shared, throttled to limit supply. You could have your abuelita on draft but possession is nine tenths of a beer nerd’s self esteem.

Leaving with something validates the experience. You have that ancho chili dominion to try to recreate verisimilitude with friends of being at the brewery, and in serving the bottle, you are celebrated. It’s a weird transfer of hubris from creator to purchaser. Wren house has refined this experience in the modern era from Olmec to today.

No one stands in lines anymore and the quality of beer in general is better. The spice is more restrained, the cacao nibs structure rather than provide a Cocoa Puffs chalky dominance. Barrel now dries and provides a chaperone to the snickerdoodle underpinnings. Without the constraints of allocations, the beer itself has to stand on its own merits.

In an era where essentially everything is guaranteed, the era of limits were more precious. Opening a faded DL Muerte and trying to grasp the threads of an unwraveling sweater that kept your insides chocolatey warm like ganache is hard to explain.

Onsite pours only pours hold so much value because it causes the drinker to be accountable for the moment. With my time potentially allocated to less than 1pp, I hope others recognize that the true magic always lies in that next round, knowing this discrete draft is all you ever get.

In my review of “Sing,” I talked about the “Secret Boots” from Castlevania Symphony of the Night. These are an extremely obscure item most people never find. They don’t affect the game at all. When you equip the boots they stretch Alucard’s sprite to make him a single pixel taller.

There are short kings out there polishing a Red Wing mock toe waiting for the other Iron Ranger to drop. Sometimes a whimsical lack of utility, says more about the creator.

Second City Meadery certainly has a voice and a purpose. The fingerprints of accessibility undercut the Pips prestige but also present as more jocular than Schramms. They aren’t as bonkers as a Maniacal or a Sonorous but fit into this space of approachable, affordable, quality without being overly serious. I appreciate that.

This mead feels like an intentional Secret Boot into the realm of heft and jammy substance that will make the Superstition honeyboys get all Shia LaBeouf’ed. It is the heaviest meads I have had from SCM and clings harder than a Hinge date who finds out someone has generational wealth. He literally pays mooring fees, my honeypot is smackereled right now.

The berry salad of indicators are unhelpful to what most melomels will taste like. They all have raspberry or boysenberry. It’s as if the starting point of every mead is a bunch of those tiny hotel jars of Bonne Maman. Red and white crosshatched caps, mandatory. However this flips the old SCM castle on its head. There seems to be this intent to forsake the modest attenuation for a more concentrated tannic intensity.

I tend to like leaner vascularity in my berry bulges. This is bulking in a Lost Cause way without the intense pastry additives. I like the variety in the SCM catalog and welcome it. The rev limiter is still in place and it doesn’t GRENAD-ine the engine with some icarian attempt. The swallow is long and sticky while never falling in an ihop syrupy morass.

In embracing the Secret Boots, SCM shows the playful side of excess. Every mead claims to be 6’ tall on those honeycomb apps.

Please note I wrote this before being diagnosed with stage IV cancer.

In a weird superlative @nibrewing has crafted the most challenging beer of 2023. It isn’t outright accessible or prima facie delicious. It is palate gatekeeping, port gaslighting and oxidation girlbossing.

It is dead flat and intentionally oxidized. The stewed dark fruits have a Faustian pop of smoke and pipe tobacco. You chew on this and it goes from peach hookah back into muddled prune.

If you are the type to play games the The Witness and appreciate the obtuse struggle with a huge payoff then here you go. As a result you can’t really share this. It won’t do well at a tasting. You can’t solo it. And you can’t bring it anywhere: you must complete this yourself. Get gud.

It feels weird to characterize a beer as a palate skill check. But this requires a time investment and you need to let it unfold, Anomalisa in beer form.

Colorado is full of strange REI transplants and this is the result of their craven high altitude, economically disparate ski economies. Everyone is kissing and smoking.

When I went to Austin half the people swore I needed to visit @blueowlbrewing and the other half were equally vehement to skip this spot. That’s more intriguing than even a universally praised place. What could this sour-focused brewery be doing that is so divisive?

When I see a movie on rotten tomatoes that is 15% critics 85% audience score I’m immediately in. This brewery is basically that. It’s me I’m critics.

I understand why people enjoy this place. Bubbly, crisp, attenuated beers that don’t lean needlessly heavily on aseptic puree. If you have to go this route, it’s a super accessible lob pitch anyone can get a piece of. It shouldn’t not exist but I also don’t need to seek this out either.

Sometime around 2017 in taprooms you started seeing a lot of these casual adjacent tap handles to make all palates feel welcome. Ah good the fruited gose, you like soda right? Here you go. No? Ok how about this kettle sour I saw you drink orange wine at brunch once. It’s beer that is crushingly mediocre and fine and designed to service moving volume and pulling grenadine and bellini palates into the fold. It’s got the intense retention and produce waft, ripping the fishnets on the slutty mandarin oranges in the grocery store.

The craziest part is that the octoberfest is really well made so it’s not like these guys can’t brew. These beers are focused and this is just what they chose to invest all their ability points into. It’s a super specific build that isn’t for me and it’s impossible to paint with a wide brush for who will actually drink this without tumbling headfirst into dismissive beer gatekeeping. Beer is for everyone and this is beer that a lot of people enjoy, it’s just not for me.

I don’t wanna yuck someone else’s yum, if you mean to be drinking offerings like this, it’s a well done version of this realm. Some people love the sound of a theramin, palates gonna palate.

I went to Austin last week for a wedding. I’ve been to Austin four times and every time it was for a wedding. That city’s gdp must be 30% farmhouse nuptials, 22% breakfast tacos, 13% bat watching, and the remainder Patagonia micro fleece vests for tech bros.

I’ve been to Jester King and Live Oak and Saint Elmo, so time to hit up some reader suggestions.

People overwhelmingly suggested @lazarusbrewing In a weird bonus Cosimo is a SD transplant so I felt right at home. The sour program was fine. Walks on Water was a moderately deece ipa. Prodigal Pils on the side pull faucet was next level. You hear terrible beer writers dwell on this “sense of place” usually as a Dodge for criticizing quality. This legitimately has an unbearable lagerness of being. The humid spring air and the bustle of people on the wood back porch crushing lagers, no septum was left unpierced.

Alexander Pope said even enjoying a cup of tea needs a stratagem. This needs no planning. The whip and sustain of the carb with the delicate lithe middle body pulls the herbaceous thread of that fescue and raked foliage through the biscuit closer.

@zilkerbeer was right up the street and came highly recommended. Even the staff as Lazarus was like you have to try them. Their west coast ipa game was so classic and tasty. Marco is an old school throwback and the unlabanced charm of Crispy Cryo was resinous and unhinged.

Can’t wait for my fifth wedding so I can try Blue Owl.

I don’t even get excited anymore when an amazing new videogame or beer is announced. I just shake my head balefully knowing the damage it is about to do to my middle-aged life. Sometimes things catch me by surprise, things I didn’t even know I needed.

I had never heard of Taneum Creek Brewing and judging by the 4 whole check ins on Untappd, neither have most people. The bottles landed from Eastern Washington looking like a mix of Selin’s Grove and homebrewed Fair Isle. The shrugs were not insubstantial.

The marketing is clear, simple, laconic. Green glass and terse labels. Wait a second what’s this? A spelt saison, that is 3% abv. This is one of my favorite types of breweries: small runs of extremely non-profitable beers. When I poured this beer I understood immediately what Taneum Creek is all about. They are a beer time machine. The cans literally say “Cases: 14”

This beer speaks to me because it presents itself in such a direct, focused manner. The carbonation and retention is incredible and harkens from a time when we wanted 3+ volumes of co2 instead of convenient cans. They are from Cle Elum, WA and that town looks like a historical frontier village IRL. The beer reflects this. 2000 people, the most straightforward beers ever and in that stripped down model refreshment hits my back wall hard.

This has a watery body that lends itself to deep pulls, that wispy foamed milk cap for haptic lip feedback, the Anjou pear and literal hay structures a bucolic meets Opal apple swallow. If you enjoy the masterpiece that is Jester King Petit Prince or Blaugies, you will love this.

This feels like an arts and crafts gift, elegant homebrew in the least pejorative sense. Like when Thorpe used to send people tasty treats before Afterthought Brewing existed. The way BODE clothing feels hand-made and flawed, that degree of seams showing and upcycled rusticity is present here.

We live in a slick world of gas station boner pills and adaptive cruise control cars. Sipping something this intentionally backward makes me look forward to the future by embracing the farmhouse past.

This beer has a crushing 4.76 Untappd score and has been lighting up the trade boards but maybe it’s all these malty antidepressants that keep me from being aroused.

Cellarmaker threw the entire dictionary of hype casking at this, triple barrel Willett -> Thomas H Handy -> 10 Year “Pappy” barrels ::ahem:: But sometimes more is less. The Cellarmaker barleywines have been crushingly good one after another but this one takes things a step too far for me.

It’s weird to ask for nuance from the absolute highest end of excess in the beer world. I need some soft poetic DMs not just full frontal out of the gates. There’s no pageantry here, it’s immediately six pics sent in vanish mode with a little bomb just letting you know the erotic undercurrent.

Yes, it is good, but it’s not as good as the heights that Cellarmaker is capable of. Most other breweries this would be a revelation, here it feels like Kobe shooting nonstop reckless FG. It presents the dead wispy crackle of baleful complexity, body laying there hauntingly staring up at you in mahogany darkness. The “it’s fine” text that ruins your night with its succinct power. But the rolos and graham crackers are stopped at the sheer crushing waves of alcohol and fusel wafts.

You look at this cologne bottle and it seems like hardly enough, but a spritz of this Tom Ford “Parfum Du Shared Custody” and the caramel is overpowering with a few pumps.

Gertrude Stein had a dialectic approach to identity, self and other, autobiography and photography. This CM beer is clearly art but is presenting itself through the lens in which a massive angry barleywine wants to be perceived. In a weird tell don’t show way the heat and burning rye meets eucalyptus literally distills the experience. You’re dating a Depop girl and she’s literally talking about thrifting. It’s so on the nose that it feels like Werther’s rhinoplasty.

Don’t get me wrong, I drank it. The entire time my chest had a Skor bar xenomorph pressing its way out. Exhaling the vapors of a New Orleans dive bar, a real sternum roaster.

Ah spring is upon us. The crisp sweet air redolent with bluebell that middle manager bourbon chasers love to inhale before asking “BUT SERIOUSLY WHATS IN THE BACK.”

The BTAC line is truly an evergreen product, unlike treasury bonds or Silicon Bank stocks, they remain unopened, unrealized and perpetually sough by dudes with thinning hairlines who tuck Underarmor polos into Merona shorts.

Thomas Handy is the youngest, the “cheapest”, the least approachable, and most importantly, looks the least important on some Living Spaces cabinet in a Man Cave. This is a cask rye for a guy whose friend “lets him use his cabin.” It is a blast of Sunmaid Raisin Bread for the entitled couple who gives you a house tour and mutters “they helped with the down” and then loudly “BUT WE PAY THE MORTGAGE.”

This is that Marvin Gardens of the BTAC lineup, not god tier, but quite the deal for what you receive. This is also the first year they implemented the anti-theft chip under the tiny Sazerac house, so 9 years from now when someone opens this, you didn’t sell them some stepped on rye. New Cask City, naked bourbon bros in aprons reapplying foil toppers, white powder on their pale alabaster butt cheeks.

This is presents a haymaker of nutmeg, the obligatory Hot Tamales, and a kiss of fennel on the collarbone. At $700 a bottle it’s not worth it, but it comes the closest that BTAC ever does.

Pomology is a disciplined obsessed with the reconstruction of fruits and nuts. That consistent Thomas Handy raisinette character is tucked in this type of compulsive behavior. Every year, at huge cost, Honeybee, Jazz, Opal, and THH always make their way to market, only to be overlooked.

The bottle this year is extremely good and provides more marble bread and spice than I remember, but it’s always the Yoshi of BTAC. Taking Ozempic, slimming down, vying for the WLW and GTS shred, casky vascularity, that ropey rye aesthetic.

YOU DON’T SEE THESE EVERY DAY, he quipped as he takes THH out of your hands, back on the sad landlocked shelf, HERE ENJOY THE GOOD STUFF, pours you some Willett Pot Still, IF JESSICA KNEW WHAT I SPEND ON SPORTS CARD BOX BREAKS WE WOULDN’T BE SITTING HERE NOW-

I reviewed this beer back in 2015 and felt like traveling back to Maine to sip some Stephen King juices and see if this west coast gem holds up in the age of haze.

It more than holds up, it is absolutely stellar and an absolutely top tier example of the style. Some nay sayers feel this isn’t resinous enough, that it is too sweet, or it somehow is an embodiment of Midwest IPAs from a time past. This aint your daddies Oberon Ok.

You would be hard pressed to see this classified as English or even just plain old American IPA. For me it hits all those zones of pith, zest, foliage, and the peaceful petricor of early spring.

Carl Jung had this idea of the collective unconscious. These west coast IPAs are linked together and their ancestry through a shared set of experiences. This collective consciousness of hops gives meaning to the IPA world.

Sure we see the word grapefruit in label copy and roll our eyes so hard we become investment property owners. If that is the broad brush of alpha acid dynamics, the nuanced details keep my thighs aching. Lactic with the recognition of a past that was imperfect, but idealized. Delayed onset of muscle soreness gives you this blast from workouts ago that rattles your core in the present.

I still romanticize chasing bombers of hoppy crystal malt gems like the current offerings aren’t just repeated occurences of these archetypes. You just keep drinking IPAs and your discrimination goes up. On a long enough dating timeline you swipe until you reflect more about yourself in who you reject, than you who accept.

But somehow Maine Beer Co embraces our collective flaws. The risky 2am heart eyes reaction. The failure of purpose and sitting in your car in the driveway, not going in. The fantastic waves of cuties, meyer lemon, intense sweetness to the body like Bit O Honey, and this chick o stick meets Davidoff Coolwater. These scents and tastes linger within us, just hops in a boil waiting to be awakened.

Maine Beer Company has made Manchurian candidates of us all, hoppy sleeper cell agents horned up for that bitter eroticism that shakes the dust off the eros of our daily lives.