So this one now:

So there's like an elephant about to charge out of that bottle!!!! Everyone run!!!!  Groan.  So, I've run out of ideas.  I have to say that I'm a little low energy tonight, but I went to city beer so I figure I better squirt one post out.  For you, yes you, the one reading this right now.  You 10 years in the future, wondering what beer used to taste like before the social conservatives zombies took over.  So, without further ado. blah.

Pretty good stuff, potent for sure.  Heavy on the citrus notes on the middle of the  taste, some lighter hop character at the initial tasting.  You know I'm not getting a lot of malt character here. sigh, I think I'll just drink it now.  If you see this one at $5.99 it's probably worth it, there, a fucking review.

Shit I wish I was more motivated to write something.  Gordon, show me some ambivalence. 

Dear Nighttime Self:

I am writing about what happened last night.  You knew we had a plan.  We were going to sit this Pliny the Elder side by side with the Blind Pig IPA that you bought from the source and you were going to write a post praising both beers and insulting the hippies that make them, BUT NO.  Somewhere along the lines you felt it prudent to drink the Blind Pig IPA while watching Japanese cartoons and mumbling to yourself that you could find another one tomorrow (today). Well, guess what past self? you didn't and you won't, er I didn't and I couldn't. Regardless, we're now only stuck with this one delicious beer to write about, and you're going to bed drunk to the point where you probably couldn't even have appreciated the smooth lighter flavors of the Blind Pig vs. this bolder hoppier cousin (I'd say brother, but this has a brother.)  This truly well balanced IPA deserved, neigh! needed to be juxtaposed side by side with the standard IPA.  It should have been special, it would have been journalistic beer tasting excellence, it should have at least illuminated the minor differences between a regular and double IPA, and now that dream is smashed into a thousand pieces, much like that cookie you dropped on the floor last night.  Moving forward, please stick to the plan and get late-night drunk on the four year old amaretto behind the wine bottles in the cupboard should you feel the urge to keep drinking at midnight. 

UPDATE: 

Dear Past Self: 

Go fuck yourself.  That beer was watered down and lacked character.  You should be thrilled that I saved that nonsense from you and you got to discretely savor your Pliny the Elder without adulterating it with some stupid porker beer.   Moving forward, buy more beer while you're out in the afternoon, this Amaretto is terrible. 

Man these 70 hour work weeks really cut into a man's blogging time, which is a shame because it really revs up my desire to kill myself drink beer.  To accomplish these this goals simultaneously I purchased this:

A brandy barrel aged dark beer that--wait for it--is made with real fruit and vanilla beans.  Hooray! I've been meaning to expand my palette beyond IPAs and NyQuil and this seemed like a good opportunity.  I really should have read the label though (famous not last words) as the first sip made me think that this beer was something perpetrated by the good people at Capri Sun, "look, it's in bottles now!"

The label says that this is aged, well, at least 25% of it was aged, in brandy barrels.  Let me tell you, they probably got some fruity ass barrels, I mean these barrels must think Richard Simmons needs more color in his outfits! (I just hi-fived myself) This beer is sweet in the literal sense.  Which begs the question, should I have aged the other 75% of it? (ba dum tsssshit, he's heating up)  It should come with instructions. Like, was I supposed to age it, or was the aging by the brewer enough.  Given what little I know about the breweries home in Concord, CA--that it is home to the UFC gym--I can only assume that it's my fault for not aging it under penalty of leg lock (he's on fire!)  Yeah...that has to be the case because the flavor is quite overpowering and could use mellowing by age.

It's like a strawberry and a vanilla bean started a brewery making Belgian ales, and they stumbled upon a decent recipe for a dark ale and, in their celebration of such a discovery, they both fell into the mash tun, drowned and then their fruity bodies decomposed into the wort. That wort would have been discovered by some sweetness-blind Englishman who thought it would be a swell idea to bottle it, and here we are.

...drinking pause...

I looked up Cru (yes, two paragraphs too late) and it "is often used to indicate a specifically named and legally defined vineyard or ensemble of vineyards and the vines 'which grow on [such] a reputed terroir; by extention of good quality.'"  Apparently it can also denote a "limited production of a special or higher quality beer."  I think that these guys may have not bothered to look that last one up and stuck with the fruity definition. 

Another "gem" from the archives!

Outside of sounding like a track listing to a jam band's re-released six disc compilation, this is a good beer.  First off, they dip the tip in wax, meaning it's fancy:

That's the LSU v. 'Bama game in the background.  I decided to celebrate a potentially great football game between a tiger and a force of nature (?) by drinking a beer logoed with a bloated frog, I'll assume the frog is poisonous to make it cooler.  Here's what is looks like without the wax top:

UPDATE: this game is bullfrog shit, thank god there's a beer in front of my beer drinking hole.

And what a beer!  Lots of citrus notes, heavy on the grapefruit without being overly bitter.  The label claims there's "way too much malt," but that's a lie, like all labels (no way that delicious paint had lead in it.)  The malt is finely balanced with the rest of what's going on. This beer is light too, deceptively so considering its 105 IBUs and 8.4% alcohol content.  Fuck this posting, I'm going to go enjoy it, so you should.

Gordon? 

Ugh, I'm sorry one follower (Andy), I've been working a ton lately and I haven't been able to post much. Yes, I've been able to drink a lot, but it's usually pounding a bottle or two of generic beer while crying and taking my pre-shower shit.

I put in my 8 hours today (mostly staring at porn on my cell phone and wondering why I couldn't get anything done), and I wanted some beer on the way home; well, to drink when I got home.  I drove by my favorite smelly punk beer bar so I could pick up something brewed by a man with questionably ironic tattoos and no business sense, but a love of hops.  Lo and behold, people in Oakland really like to party by Jack London Square on Saturdays, and I couldn't find a parking spot to soil the bar with my yuppie-come-farty vibes. 

So in a fit of rage I drove home and stopped by the the hole in the wall mom-and-pop video store that sells beer.  Most of the labels on the beers in the case had fallen off and disintegrated from old age, and I was ready to resign myself to purchasing a mystery drink and, in all likelihood, sickness.  When I saw this:

(not Coors Light)

Imagine my surprise!  So I paid the overweight bearded lady at the counter and thanked her for the foresight that a snob like me would one day come into her store and want something that her and her ilk probably didn't drink.  I hope to enjoy this beer, because I'm not welcome back at mom-and-pop's. 

And I do!

The Evil Cousin is loaded with what I perceive as earthy hops (lots of them according to the label), and some citrus flavors.  The malt character is light even after I took Beermutt for a walk and let the bottom half of the glass warm up. Interestingly enough I also caught a bit of savoriness once I got back...wtf?  Eh, I'm not going to hold that against 'em, it could be that at 8%, I'm drunk and everything tastes like bacon.  Speaking of people who like bacon, Gordon?