Mole: 6.0 – The chocolate and chipotle add a good aspect to this otherwise basic, but well-done bourbon barrel aged beer. It does taste a bit like Mexican hot cocoa so if you’re into that – kudos.
Price Average: $11
Website: http://jacksabbybrewing.com/
Vertumnus: 7.5 – It’s an interesting ale outright but the Brett adds a component that kills some of the flavor. It tastes nice though and thankfully isn’t super overpowering by the Brett or dry-hopping.
Price Average: $8
Website: https://www.bandedhorn.com/
Yodeler: 4.0 – This is a clusterfuck of a beer. It’s a barleywine style, it’s aged in Laphroiag casks, and is bottled with that Brettanomyces. But what is it like to drink? It is just as much if not somehow more of a clusterfuck. Let me put this in the oddest, and yet truest way we can – we detect notes of beef jerky. No seriously at certain times this beer tastes like beef jerky. There’s a tartness aspect going on from the brett, that jerky likely from the cask lingers melding with the fruitier tastes, and above all it’s just a high octane noise factory. Let this be a test case, and referral for when we call beers out as not being complex and that’s bad – this is the other side of that curve. This is too complex and it ruins what could be the ‘beer’.
Price Average: $11
Website: http://www.strangerootsbeer.com/
Dark Star Dunkel: 6.0 – It doesn’t really have a ‘dark lager’ feel like you’d want with something akin to a schwarzbier, but it’s tasty. It has a sort of light cherry sweetness that works well with the rest of the beer (and isn’t tart)
Price Average: $11 for 4-Pack
Website: https://www.bigelmbeer.com/
Larry: 4.0 – The nature of the imperial giving more taste to the alcholic content is at least something to stymie the IPA bitter & hops. Sadly much like the one yesterday (and 2 more in the coming weeks) this will end up where it belongs – mixed with lemonade into a much nicer shandy.
Price Average: $13 for 12-Pack Sampler
Website: http://www.wachusettbrew.com
Green Monsta: 3.0 – No your eyes do not decieve, that is an IPA, and tomorrow there will be another. This review is starting badly, because as you know HBR buys things seemingly at random – however this ‘Pale Ale Sampler’ was actually code for IPA’S BITCHES. We’re sad now. Anyway the beer. Green Monster is another name for weed, which is what this tastes like – ugh.
Price Average: $13 for 12-Pack Sampler
Website: http://www.wachusettbrew.com
Jubilee: 8.0 – The way to describe this is like a tripel, but with sweetness. Or like a wild pale with a bit of sour. It’s light and very refreshing, and while it’s hard to gauge how much of that was the Champagne style wine yeast, but the result is something that has a lot going on, and is amazing to drink as well.
Price Average: $11
Website: http://www.victorybeer.com/
Barrel Aged Maple Scotch Ale: 6.5 – Now let’s get something clear – if you entered into this beer not expecting sweetness from being a barrel aged beer w/ maple and are turned off by that – you did this to you. That being said it does add some unique bits to a scotch ale, and isn’t cloyingly sugar. It’s not a very successful barrel age, but by virtue of being drinkable (although it heavy) is wonderful.
Price Average: $21
Website: https://sierranevada.com/
Atlantic APA: 1.0 – We can see why they call it Atlantic because this nearly tastes as bad as seawater. It’s lacking anything beyond that to even remotely call itself a beer. It actually makes you weep for the ignorant English people that they would think this is what an American Pale Ale is, it gives us a bad rap.
Price Average: $6
Website: https://www.brixtonbrewery.com/
A Little Crazy: 5.5 – This is a Belgian-style pale ale, and its main problem is that it really goes after part of the description. Notably the pale part of the ale, it really needs more of that Belgian-style gravitas to make the beer more than simply passable.
Price Average: $11 for 6-Pack
Website: https://revbrew.com/