ALL YE WHO ENTER VERMONT ABANDON HOPE: THEY DITCHED CIDERS FOR A DANTE WORTHY DESCENT INTO THE NINTH LEVEL OF RUSSIAN IMPERIAL HELL-A-STOUT

so my friends ryan and kelly urban came over tonight and we're being really cool and saying stuff that regular people wish they could say on a totally awesome day but they can't but we totally just mouth-off like it's nothing cause we're awesome even on mediocre days and stuff like that and whatever, man, yo.

then we decide to have dessert. so ryan and i drive over to the mart and talk about the UNDERWORLD films which are awesome if you love them. and then at the store all the blue bell pints, which are usually $3 a piece are $1 a piece, and me and ryan totally flip. so we buy four of them. i can't remember all the ones we bought cause we were so jazzed at the time that my memory was blitzed. 

then we got home and busted open some ice cream. then i popped the top on some otter creek russian imperial stout (10.6% ABV / 65 IBUs). the bottle boasts that otter creek brews their russian imperial with "double the malt and four times the hops of regular stouts, this ale offers a robust and intense flavor experience." all crafts breweries love to throw junk like that on their bottles: whether it lives up to the hype is another matter of tastes altogether. to find out, i poured myself and ryan a (room-temperature) draught in wine glasses, and then we started sniffing. 

the otter creek russian imperial stout pours oily black, darker than big-rig engine drool. the stuff allows zero light, a liquified spelunking expedition top-side and glass-tamed. it also pours thick, more like plasma than liquid. the head holds the darkest brown cap i have ever seen on a stout, more kin to a fudge brownie than most of the frothy-cappuccino tan heads i have normally seen. this beer screams the absence of hope.

ryan swears, right off the bat, that the stuff smells like olives - and green olives at that. oddly enough, his wife confirmed the aroma. i never noticed a single olive whiff in the whole batch. after a few more sniffs, ryan declared a significant molasses aroma, cooked and maybe smoky. in the meantime, i immediately smelled raisins and anise - and tons of both. this thing smelled like a licorice bomb with a burning fuse. there may have been hearty rummagings of fig and prune notes wolloshing about in there, as well. we both agreed that this aroma was huge and somewhat threatening.

the first sip, for both of us, was overwhelming and ash-trayish. all the possible complexities and enjoyment were burned out by an intense throat-bottomed alcohol burn. ryan suggested flavors of smoked gouda lingering in the aftertaste. i agreed, but maybe more out of concentration than actual taste-budderings. 

my overall verdict for otter creek russian imperial stout is that this may be a fantastic cellar beer. those uber-hops, as declared by the label, may need 3 or 4 years to mellow out. i'm sure that in time, seasoned in dark and discipline in someone's basement, this beer could eventually emerge as a beautifully enjoyable celebration stout. however, until then, this bottle is not worth the required $7. it did not even pair well or simmer its offensiveness next to cookies-n-cream ice cream. as a result, ryan and i both agreed that this beer tasted more like a punishment than a treat. otter creek russian imperial stout lived up to its bottle-printed claims (more than i could have expected) and left me feigning for a bright and fizzy pale ale: something on the lighter side, for heaven's sake. 

in the meantime, i'm chomping at the bits to break into the 2008 sam adam's longshot sixer, newly released in these parts. that review will come very soon. 

LATONYA STILL - CERTIFIED BEER SNOB - GIVES HER WORD ON CITRUSY IPAS AND RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUTS

this is my wife. that woman up there in the photo, yeah, she married me. she hasn't figured it out yet, so don't tell her. i've kept her fooled for this long. ooooowwww!

i've known latonya for 11 years. 10 of those years we've been good friends. 4.5 of those years we've been spouses. and, in all this time, my wife and i have viciously disagreed on a few things: neil young, long camping trips, guns, jason vorhees, and beer. i'm sure there are other things we have disagreed on as well, but these few pop into my mind immediately.

actually, we went on a 24 hour camping trip with our homechurch last year at easter, and now latonya's talking about cabins in the woods and building fires. also, for valentine's day, she took me to see the new FRIDAY THE 13th in the theater, on friday the 13th. it was magical. she only watched about 20 minutes of the film, but she claimed to have good time hearing me have a good time. she's hot.

nearly three years ago, the wife and i toured boulder brewing company in boulder, colorado. standing as friends of sir jason scott, who built the boulder beer website, we walked through the underbelly of my favorite brewery, dodging frozen and boiling pipes, holding handfuls of dry hops, served a table full of pitchers filled to the rim with free boulder beer. dan, the bigwig at boulder, left eight people and eight pitchers at the table saying, "whatever beer you leave gets poured down the drain." my wife single-handedly downed over half a pitcher of mojo IPA, announcing to everyone at high volumes by the third glass that the grapefruity flavor in the mojo was "freaking good, y'all." we split several six packs of mojo in our remaining kansas city days. 

last year, at a flogging molly concert, the wife and i met this really sweet couple near the pit who bought us cans of shiner bock. latonya drank her entire can. i tried to take the can from her, thinking she wouldn't like it. she held it strong, drank the whole thing down. later she said, "it was okay, kinda like drinking iced tea." even though it was shiner bock, i thought it was kinda hot. 

two weeks ago my friend josh rolled in from san diego with a growler of stone russian imperial stout. amazing stuff. creamy, mild, sweet where imperial stouts are usually bitter but still concrete where it needed to stand. the coffee and anise simmered into the background enough for a mellow dark chocolate sensation, and the 9.4% alcohol remained deeply secretive. josh and i realized the hidden message later, but only after the second glass. 

the growler sat on the table when latonya rolled into town from kansas city two days later. she asked what it was. i told her it was stone russian imperial stout. she said, "would i like it?" i thought about her love for chocolate, for coffee, for root beer that rings of anise, and i said, "actually, you might." she drank two full pints. 

then she asked if they sell this stuff around here. i said no. she asked if they sell anything like it. i poured her a glass of north coast old rasputin russian imperial stout. she sipped it, scrunched her face and said, "i like it, but the alcohol is a bit heavy." i kinda thrilled when she said that. just the night before, josh marion, felix landry and myself did a side-by-side tasting of stone russian imperial and north coast old rasputin, and we all labeled the stone drastically more mellow, and drinkable, primarily due to more chocolate and less alcohol burn. i still enjoy old rasputin, but it decidedly pales in comparison to stone. this was the opinion of me, josh, felix, and my wife - latonya: the sudden beer snob. 

the same day she did a side-by-side tasting of boulder's mojo IPA and o'dells IPA. she said that, for her, mojo was the superior IPA because the grapefruit overpowered the alcohol and floral flavors. in her opinion, the o'dells taste like some odd concoction of botanical flowers, mulched and fused into a therapeutic iced tea. also, she said she could taste the alcohol in the o'dells, which, obviously, is a turn off for this lady. so hot.

two days ago we hit up a flying saucer in austin. i asked the waitress to bring her a sample of left hand milk stout. she loved it. she bought a bottle tonight. she's sipping it right now out of a wine glass. i mean, this gal went from white wine to IPAs and imperial stouts, pole vaulting over lagers, pilsners, wheats, wittes, hefes, pale ales, porters, stouts, and bocks along the way. and she was able to say why. seriously, my wife is cooler than most of the dude's in this quaint texas town, including myself. keep your paltry shiner bocks, bros, i'll be sipping imperial stouts and grapefruity IPAs with my lady.  with my lady. after the valentine's vorhees' ticket, the week in the woods, and all these beer tastings, we might be sipping cheap domestics at neil young's parting show.

or not.

A BITTER MARCH DELIGHT

my buddy josh marion brought me some treasures back from his recent trip to san diego. one was a bomber of this here stone bitter chocolate oatmeal stout (9.2% abv). ummm, this beer is amazing. over the top but still manageable, like grandma listening to lamb of god unplugged. somethings need to be simmered down just a bit; however, stone does not simmer anything down: they simply make a few things more manageable for the frailty of human experience. i swear to buddha, if these boys made a mexican lager, the thing would flamenco dance around your chair and burn your bottom lip with its charry hot footwork. i'm just saying.

also, i like the bottle. 

here's the review josh and i posted on ratebeer.com. we'll just leave it at this. please know that words were hard to find. for three reasons: the beer is too good, the night is too late, the alcohol is too high. adios, amigo. 

this beer is stupid good. there’s no way around it. blacker than life before Jesus, with a cleveland browns ballcap to boot for a head. this thing smells like whoa. then it tastes like whoa. and then, when you go in again, more whoa. huge chocolate aroma and flavors. very dark, nearly burnt chocolate. my first impression was charred liquid fudge, but in a good way. the alcohol burn hit the back of the throat fairly hard in the first few sips, mellowed in the middle, then rears its hothead in any serious pause. yes, the alcohol bites here. but that’s okay. coffee and bleeding heart juice round out the edges making this as much of an afternoon treat as a midnight sleeping pill. i like it. my buddy here, in the flannel shirt, he likes it. we agree that, at times, the flavor is almost overpowering. while punching where it should punch and smoothing where it should smooth, sometimes it throws in a kick and belts me just below the tongue-belt. whoa. and wow. i said to my buddy josh here, just now and meaning it, "this is one of the more intense drinking experiences i’ve had." and it was. and it is. for about two more sips.