David Kline

9.2

One of the last of this year’s pumpkin offerings. Often I give them a year to mature, but this one is earmarked for early retirement.

Southern Tier Brewing Co Maple Warlock Imperial Pumpkin Stout

Brown-black dark Chocolate color. Palm marrow, cappuccino head. The Wedge lacing holds the wall until Timelapse roadkill rumble reduces to spotted beetle back. Maple nose shows chocolate, then Turkish coffee and coffee liqueur and s’mores. Palate is burnt caramel, black strap molasses, baking chocolate, chicory, and dried violets. Touch of graphite. Finish is sweet maple syrup and ginger.

#southerntier
#SouthernTierBrewing #SouthernTierMapleWarlock #MapleWarlock #Warlock #MapleWarlockImperialPumpkin #ImperialPumpkinStout #ImperialStout #STBCBeer #NYbeer
— 6 months ago

with Courtney

Cassidy Dolan

9.7

Caramel, maple, nutty and sweet aroma with an even sweeter taste. Sings a sweet song on your tongue as it crescendos with a lovely finish. Great sipping wine. — 2 years ago

Sipping Fine Wine

9.0

Deep Ruby color with aromas of juicy red fruits, smoky cedar and floral spice. On the palate flavors of cherry and raspberry with toasty oak notes and cinnamon spice. Full-bodied, fine tannins, medium+ finish ending with fruit toasty-smoky oak and an earthy spice character. Nice! Pair this with maple glazed pork chop! — 3 years ago

Fabian Kühlhorn

9.1

Super volatile nose with notes of paint thinner, creme de cassis, aged cherries in liqueur, oxdized in a way that reminds me of bandol sweet wines with walnuts and maple syrup almost. The palate is dry, with high alcohol, but also a balancing acidity. Red fruit and some leather, pine forest and tart cherry skin. Long finish, very contemplative wine. From 100+ yo Carignan vineyard co-planted with local varieties. Two years in old barrels. — 5 years ago

Matt Sterr

9.2

Eggos and maple syrup. — 5 years ago

Michael Chelus

9.0

Cherry, cranberry, rhubarb, maple, vanilla, raspberry and oak. Good structure and soft tannins. — 7 years ago

Zach Kouwe

9.0

Via Brooklyn Wine Exchange: Hardy Wallace is a bit of a superstar in the "New California" wine scene. He began his wine career in Atlanta, publishing a blog on the subject called Dirty South Wines. In 2009, he won a high-profile contest held by Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma, called "A Really Goode Job." Hardy beat out 2,000 other applicants for this stunt-job, acting as a sort of social media/pr coordinator for the winery. Upon completion of his six-month contract, he went to work for several legendary winemakers in the valley, including Cathy Corison (Chappellet, Corison) and Ehren Jordan (Turley, Failla). During this time, Hardy and his wife Kate also partnered with friends Matt and Amy Richardson to form a small label called Dirty & Rowdy Family Winery. For their first vintage, they purchased one ton of Mourvredre, the semi-obscure Provencal and Spanish variety that is rarely seen outside the context of a red blend in California.

Knowing that Dirty & Rowdy could distinguish itself in a ocean of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvigon with this curious and brawny grape, Hardy & Co. quickly bet the farm on Mourvedre, as a vehicle to express different styles of winemaking as well as the terroir of multiple regions within California. Flash-forward to current day, where Dirty & Rowdy has become the king of California Mourvedre, bottling multiple cuvees each year that sell out almost immediately.

Dirty & Rowdy is a well-known emblem of the domestic natural wine scene as well. Hardy buys almost exclusively from organic growers, and doesn't filter, acidify, or alter his wines in anyway. Sulfur use is extremely low, and the overall philosophy is to be as hands-off as possible.

That is until 2017. The fact that Dirty & Rowdy has a wine to present at all for this vintage is a miracle. Flashback to mid-July last year. The growing season wasn't going all that well. Tremendous heat spikes created growth problems at almost all the vineyards Hardy sources grapes from. It's hard enough to monitor vine issues on one vineyard, let alone almost a dozen parcles scattered around six counties stretching from the Central Coast all the way out to the Sierra Foothills. A case of shingles went from bad to worse, spreading to his eyes. Hardy completely lost his vision for three days. Kate's brother Angus, a ski instructor and artist from Aspen, drove out to lend a hand with the impending harvest. On his way out, he was involved in single-car crash along a treacherous stretch of interstate and tragically lost his life.

Then the fires started.

Hardy and Kate, like many other producers who make wines in communal "crush" facilities located in urban areas around Sonoma and Napa, had hoped to ride out the fires and continue their wine production. The fires spread rapidly and threatened both their house and their winery, located in Petaluma. They left their wine in the midst of alcoholic fermentation, one of the most crucial and stressful times of the year for a winemaker even in the best of situations. When they were able to return eight days later, the winery was luckily undamaged. The wine, however, didn't fare so well. most vats had experienced "stuck fermentation," meaning that the native yeast died before eating all the sugar. Hardy, like most forward-thinking American winemakers, is a firm believer in natural fermentation. This no-brainer aspect to his wine was now an virtual impossibility. Plus, the vats contained high levels of volatile acidity or "VA," which creates an unfavorable "nail polish" quality in wine. A little bit of VA can give lift and energy to wine. Too much, however, renders the wine undrinkable.

At this point, Hardy thought to sell all the wine off in bulk for pennies on the dollar. Or perhaps create a second label to distance himself from what was surely going to be an atypical wine. Instead, he decided to combine almost every vat of his Mourvedre for the vintage (including lots of his most expensive fruit), and go into the "Unfamliar" territory of interventionist winemaker. Stuck lots were restarted using a variety of methods. When the wines finally fermented to dryness, he borrowed a "reverse osmosis" filtration system, perhaps the most modern of all the modern wine doohickeys. This contraption allowed Hardy to literally suck out the volatile acidity to bring it down to a pleasing level, as well as moderate and stabilize the alcohol. Then he filtered the wine. Basically, he did all the things he never thought he would ever want to do to wine.

The resulting wine is something that we have never seen before, both from Dirty & Rowdy and the Mourvedre grape, in general. Much of the wine fermented carbonically in tank, so the expression is much closer in style to Beaujolais than Bandol. It is so light on its feet, in fact, that Hardy believes this wine could take a serious chill. (Hence the reason we are trying to get you to try a California Mourvedre in the middle of a sweltering summer!) The tannins are pretty much non-existent, and the fruit is pretty and pure. There is a lovely little purple flower note in the middle of the wine, and a hint of smokiness on the finish (smoke taint from the fires? Or is this just some sort of phantom association because of the context? Either way, it adds depth and personality to this gorgeous wine.)

Since their "Annus Horribilis" of 2017, order and peace has been restored in Hardy & Kate's life. Their daughter Maple turns two in a few days. They celebrated the free-spirited life of their brother with scores of his friends and ski students at Aspen Mountain's opening day last November. The motto of the celebration, "Live Like Angus," has inspired hundreds and hundreds of beautiful social media posts. And this year's Spring release of Dirty & Rowdy wines from earlier vintages has quickly sold out around the country, gobbled up by ravenous collectors, restaurants, and retailers (like this one.)

But to Hardy, this "Unfamiliar" wine, which doesn't fit stylistically or financially into the rest of the D&R portfolio, will always represent something completely different: The best of a unthinkably bad situation. "It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get that wine into bottle," Hardy wrote to us, just this morning. "Fortunately, it is fresh, delicious, soulful and somewhat of a Phoenix Rising from 2017. Though it is our least expensive wine ever, it is the wine I am most proud of." — 8 years ago

David Kline

9.3

Fat Orange Cat Cat-O-Lantern
Imperial Brown Ale

Coffee black belly; Latte summit. Bag-o-bones lacing includes crocodile skulls Alosaurus spines, falcons and equine bits. Fades to black fast. Rich coffee-mocha nose has chicory and chit scent chunks and chips. Burnt brownie and brown sugars. Coffee continues on the palate with cinnamon and nutmeg and a green streak of allspice with maple. Deep and raisin-y. Chocolate and chili!

#FatOrangeCatBreCo #FatOrangeCat #CTbeer #ImperialBrownAle #CatOLantern #twelvepercent #oakaged #barrel #brownale #beer #bier #biere #birra #cerveza — 9 months ago

Norman

9.3

I bought this years ago for my dad since its “made” in San Carlos. He told me he liked his Jack Daniel’s better… Given dad’s gone and mom doesn’t drink bourbon I’m drinking it now and enjoying it! It’s got some power, mainly on the front of tongue/lips. Finish goes for a while and the flavors are nice. Light wood and sweetness. Cheers Dad! Btw the price on this thing now (not at all what I paid) would have sent him through the roof. — a year ago

Matt Schwartz

9.0

Caramel, sugar cane, maple syrup and vanilla — 2 years ago

Severn G

9.3

2000 | Red Blend
(65% Cabernet Sauvignon / 28% Merlot / 7% Petit Verdot)
Château Lagrange
Grand Cru Classé (3ème), Left Bank
Bordeaux; Médoc, St-Julien, France
(93-94; Drink 2030-40)

Ripe black currant, damp leather, pencil lead, raspberry-fig bar; Dried black cherry, chocolate espresso cake, faint vanilla. Decanted 10H.

Paired with long braised (local, Columbia Co. NY ❤️) lamb shanks, charred carrots w/ maple glaze and garden mashed potatoes. A great 2023 Easter dinner, BDX is the best pairing for lamb, of many preparation styles.
(We're finding that the cats also enjoy a savory lamb dish. 😉) — 3 years ago

Kirk F

8.9

Missing baseball! Crossing our fingers our favorite breweries can weather this damn pandemic. Omni is right here in Maple Grove MN. Check it out! — 6 years ago

David Kline

9.0

Pumpkin prominent, as are cinnamon, cardamom and allspice. Cedar Plank, toasted corn and roasted gourd. Unctuous mouthfeel that is rich. Maple syrup, brown sugar and malt, golden raisin, creamy pumpkin, chai latte, with a little pepper spicing up the finish. #pumpkinbeer #pumpkinale #shipyard #smashedpumpkin #shipyardbrewery #pumpkin #seasonalbeer #beer — 8 years ago

with Courtney

David Kline

9.5

Fat Orange Cat Cautionary Tail Pumpkin Ale. North Haven, CT

Brown and flinty orange body has a coffee with cream head that loosely rises. Drawn and quartered lacing has bubble eyed ghosts and barn owl faces in an appropriate nod. Warm and cozy comfort spices rise from sweet potatoes, maple syrup, brown sugar and butter cauldrons, while spider eyes blink and pop on a wisp of fog as stringy as Spanish moss. The head is gone like the last gasp of an autumn tree, and the gourd ascends. Cinnamon sticks and nutmeg creak in the vestiges of twilight. Only darkness now. Roasted pecan, burnt brown sugar, toffee and treacle, crowned by a full moon scoop of vanilla cream.

#FatOrangeCat #fatorangecatbrewco ##FatOrangeCstCautionaryTail #CautionaryTailPumpkinAle #PumpkinAle #pumpkinbeer #CTbeer #ale #beer #bier #biere #birra #cerveza — 10 months ago

Bruce Dunbar

8.9

Rose in October? Rose with ‘age’? Yes and yes, especially when it’s in the mid-70s in New York and it’s the ‘21 Bedrock Ode to Lulu. This wine gives you plenty of Bandol for the buck, based on old vine Mourvedre from premier vineyards. With another year in bottle, it was darker hued, subtler and perhaps even a bit sturdier than on initial release. A great wine for what feels like an endless summer. UPDATE 7/25 — last of my ‘21s still vibrant, more fruit and minerals, less floral. Stood up to a spicy shrimp dish and a soy/maple syrup marinaded skirt steak. Delicious on a beautiful July 4th outdoors. — 2 years ago

Sipping Fine Wine

9.1

Deep Ruby color with aromas of red fruits, smoky cedar and floral spice. On the palate flavors of cherry and ripe raspberry with toasty notes and cinnamon spice. Full-bodied, fine tannins, medium+ finish ending with fruit toasty-smoky oak and an earthy spice character. Nice! Pair this with maple crusted pork chop! — 3 years ago

Joe Estrada

9.7

In Afrinkaans, Baie Dankie means Thank You Very Much. Thanks to @Brad Saarloos & @Greg Saarloos And Crew for this white blend. Paired with a Double Smoked Ham w/Maple Syrup Glaze 🤤 — 5 years ago

Tuckeru Tucker

9.7

Charney shared with me June 12th. Ahhmazing wine.....what a treat! — 6 years ago

Kirk F

9.2

Hometown brew from Maple Grove, MN. Outstanding take on a NE style IPA. Best to stop at 1! 🍺 — 7 years ago

Chris

9.5

Nice bourbon barrel aged beer, rich and syrupy like a stout, hides the 12% alcohol well — 9 years ago