The Inside the NBA crew is rarely afraid to give their unfiltered opinions about the NBA, and that at times can get them in some hot water with the league’s stars.
Shaq and Charles Barkley in particular have found themselves in tiffs with various players around the league, most famously Chuck and Draymond Green, who have gone from feuding to co-workers who heap praise on each other. Shaq’s most frequent punching bags have been big men, as the Hall of Famer is quick to offer his critiques of the center position and demand that the big fellas around the league dominate in the way he did.
On Thursday, Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers played in the early game on TNT and after an interview with Embiid by Allie LaForce, Shaq decided to take some time to compliment the big man for always taking that criticism in stride and using it to fuel his fire to be better and dominate. In doing so, Shaq took aim at Ben Simmons, who he refused to mention by name, simply calling him “the other guy” and ripping him for being a “crybaby” and sitting out the season amid a trade request rather than taking the critiques from last postseason and letting them motivate him to improve his game this summer.
The entire situation in Philadelphia has always been exasperated by the very different personalities of the bombastic Embiid and much quieter Simmons, and this case it’s no different. Not everyone takes criticism the same way, and Embiid’s incredibly blunt and vocal style of leadership sits in stark contrast to Simmons, who seems to not exactly enjoy such a spotlight — particularly when it comes to highlighting his mistakes.
Embiid himself has seemingly taken it on himself to try and prove that he wasn’t singling out Simmons last year, regularly calling out his teammates as they sit next to him at pressers for not shooting enough or not being aggressive enough — and then making a point to praise them when they follow through.
Simmons, even when not playing, manages to be a lightning rod for takes, and it’s safe to say Shaq is not a fan right now.
Grimes used the new year to officially kick off the rollout for her upcoming album Book 1. The upcoming project will be her first full-length release since 2020’s Miss_Anthropocene. So far, she’s released presumed lead single, “Player Of Games,” which arrived as what appeared to be her version of a breakup song after she and her ex (and father of her child) Elon Musk went their separate ways. More recently, Grimes released “Shinigami Eyes” which seemed to be the latest single from Book 1, but thanks to a new announcement, we now know that “Shinigami Eyes” will appear on a different project.
According to Pitchfork, the new song will appear on Grimes’ upcoming EP, Fairies C*m First. A release date for the project has not been confirmed yet, but it has been described as a “prelude” to Book 1 which signals that the EP should arrive before Grimes’ upcoming album.
During a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Grimes spoke about Book 1 and what can be expected from it. “I made a bunch of stuff and I just want to make a bunch more stuff,” she said. “There’s just more kind of sonic, conceptual ideas that I think need to get done to make everything make more sense. And we kind of have two album covers and it seems like a waste to throw on one of them away.”
Actor Ezra Miller, who plays Barry Allen’s Flash in the DC Extended Universe, posted a video on Instagram on Thursday evening directed towards hate group Ku Klux Klan. “This is a message for the Beulaville chapter of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan,” they said. “Hello, first of all. How are y’all doing? It’s me. Look, if y’all wanna die, I suggest just killing yourselves with your own guns, OK? Otherwise, keep doing exactly what you’re doing right now — and you know what I’m talking about — and then, you know, we’ll do it for you if that’s really what you want. OK, talk to you soon, OK? Byeee!”
It’s unclear what prompted the video.
On the Instagram post, Miller, who also appears in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, wrote, “Please disseminate (gross!) this video to all those whom it may concern. This is not a joke and even though I do recognize myself to be a clown please trust me and take this seriously. Let’s save some live now ok babies? Love you like woah.”
You can watch the video below.
Miller will next appear in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (April 15) and The Flash (November 4); they will also play young Salvador Dalí in Dalíland.
On Thursday night, the Inside the NBA crew announced the 10 starters for February’s All-Star Game in Cleveland, and there weren’t that many surprises since we knew what the fan voting looked like as of a week ago. While the fans only account for 50 percent of the vote now, nothing changed from last week’s fan voting tally, with LeBron James and Kevin Durant earning captain spots for the second straight year.
The biggest eyebrow raising selection was Andrew Wiggins holding onto the West’s third frontcourt starting spot, taking it over Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green, and Karl-Anthony Towns. The only other spots that figured to be up for debate were for the second backcourt spots behind Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan, respectively, and ultimately those went to a pair of the league’s up-and-coming stars at the point guard spot.
Ja Morant will make his first All-Star appearance and do so as a starter this season, while Trae Young will make his second All-Star start, as he edged out Zach LaVine for the honor. On the TNT broadcast, Charles Barkley immediately began stumping for LaVine as being deserving of the spot given the Bulls’ record compared to the Hawks in 12th in the East. Young was watching that, as this year the league had the All-Star results delivered in a briefcase to the TNT studio rather than alerting teams to the results early, and had a response for Barkley in his tweet thanking the fans for the honor.
Truly Blessed !! Thank you to the Fans ALWAYS LOVE !! 2X!!
Naturally, they quickly got that up on the broadcast and Chuck didn’t back down from his stance about LaVine deserving the starting spot, while Shaq and Ernie simply enjoyed Trae taking a crack at the Chuckster.
Damon Albarn earned some well-deserved criticism earlier this week after he questioned Taylor Swift’s songwriting during an interview in the Los Angeles Times. The Blur singer, who later apologized for his words, said that Swift “doesn’t write her own songs.” Shortly after the interview was released, Swift responded to his comments. “@DamonAlbarn I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this,” she wrote in a tweet. “I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really f—ed up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.”
Days after Swift issued this response, Dolly Parton took a moment to share her thoughts on the matter during an interview with HollywoodLife. “I don’t care what other people say about my songs,” she said. “But with Taylor, she’s a great writer — with or without anybody.” Parton added that “when you co-write a song, you work just as hard. Sometimes you work harder with a co-writer because you want to be sure to do your part.”
“I really get rubbed wrong sometimes when people mistreat the artist. I don’t like that,” Parton continued before praising Swift and calling her “magnificent.” “I think she’s done great,” she added. “And that’s one of the things I admire about her because she’s never sold herself. She’s never felt like she’s had to sell her body. She’s always had good taste in how she’s presented herself and with her songs. And she’s very creative and very, very, very smart in the marketing of her life.” Parton concluded, “She knows who she is and what she wants. And I’m the same way. I’m going to fight if it goes against what I feel is not right for me.”
You can read Parton’s full interview with HollywoodLifehere.
Generally speaking, bourbon hits a sweet spot around ten years old. It’s sort of a demarcation point between the cheaper, small-batch, bottled-in-bond stuff and the single barrels, unicorns, and super old stuff (think 20-plus years). Bourbon whiskeys around ten years old (or maybe a couple of years older) are a little more expensive, a little more refined, and a little more extra but they’re not always harder to find.
In fact, great ten, 12, and even 15-year expressions are readily available.
To that end, I’m tasting ten bourbon whiskeys blind that are at least ten years old. Then, I’m going to rank those bourbons based on taste alone. While ten years is the baseline, there are a couple of bourbons on this list that hit 12 to 16 years too, and I threw on one bourbon that’s a blend of 12 and 16-year-old barrels to see how it stands up.
Our lineup today includes:
Knob Creek 12 Year
Redemption High-Rye Bourbon 10 Year
Blue Run 13 Year Winter Batch
Copper Tongue 16 Year
Four Roses Small Batch Limited Edition 2021 (a blend of 12 to 16-yo bourbons)
This opens with clear notes of cherry, dark chocolate, winter spices, and a hint of menthol. The palate leans into a red berry crumble with a hint of chili flake spice, salted caramels covered in dark chocolate, and a spicy/sweet note that leads towards a wet cattail stem and soft brandied cherries dipped in silky dark chocolate sauce.
Taste 2
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
There are hints of soft vanilla and honey tempered by old toffee candies and a big leathery underbelly. The palate has notes of espresso bean oils, a hint of bacon fat, and a few cranks off of a black pepper mill that’s balanced by vanilla pudding topped with Cherries Jubilee with a hint of brandy and spice. The mid-palate leads towards a dry wicker chair next to a dusting of lemon pepper.
Taste 3
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This is a straight-up classic on the nose with hints of rich vanilla next to buttery caramel, old yet soft oak, and a touch of orchard fruit. The taste is all about that vanilla with a creamy softness next to an old leather tobacco pouch stuffed into an old cedar box. There’s a nice wintry spice mildness near the finish that leads towards pure silk and a hint of savory green herbs.
Taste 4
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this one has this mix of health food store bran and multivitamins (hello, Dickel) that leads towards raw sourdough pancake batter with a touch of butter cornbread, cinnamon-apple toast, and leather tobacco. The palate has a soft and creamy eggnog vibe and spice countered by a cellar full of cobwebs and bowing beams and sticky tobacco notes that lead back to the health food store and a vanilla protein powder.
Taste 5
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This opens with a southern biscuit that’s just been popped out of a Pilsbury tube with a hint of honey and butter next to vanilla pods, red berries, and a mint by way of cedar on the nose. The taste is pure silk with a spicy plum jam next to orange oils, dark chocolate, and a wet reed-filled mid-palate. The finish dries out with some dried mint before clove and nutmeg-laced dark chocolate takes over.
Taste 6
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Well, here’s the other Dickel. The nose on this is almost identical to taste 4 with that pancake batter and multivitamin most prominent but then there’s more a cherry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream vibe that has echos of apple tobacco. The palate has a Cherry Coke that turns into a red Flinstone’s Multivitamin before bourbon-soaked cedar planks, vanilla cream, and a cherry tobacco drive the taste towards the finish. A note of dry cedar and cellar funk round off the end.
Taste 7
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Dark stone fruits mingle with vanilla beans, applewood, cinnamon and clove spiciness, and a good rush of worn leather on the nose. The palate is pure sticky toffee pudding with plenty of toffee sauce, dates, and spice next to candied orange peels and cherries with a hint of an old cedar tobacco box rounding everything out. There’s a Graham cracker vibe that leads almond shells, dry firewood, and a hint of apple fritters on the end.
Taste 8
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
There’s that raw pancake batter note again. This time it’s tempered by mulled red wine with plenty of spice and orange next to a vanilla pudding and light mint wax. The taste has a mix of marzipan next to dark chocolate and real maple syrup. The finish adds some cherry to that dark chocolate and layers in woody birch water on the end.
Taste 9
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Dark yet soft cherry, worn leather, dried orange peels, rich toffee, cedar, and fresh sage mix on the nose. The palate has rich marzipan mingling with silky dark chocolate, candied almonds, fresh honey, more of that dark cherry, and a spicy holiday cake. A light cedar note kicks in and leads towards almost sticky cherry tobacco with more of that holiday cake and a light touch of dry reeds all countered by a velvety light touch that’s just … fantastic.
Taste 10
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Soft wood and worn leather mix with dark berry compote, a touch of dark spice, and a hint of maple syrup on the nose. That maple syrup drives the palate towards soft and creamy eggnog spices, a hint of espresso, and a distant echo of cherry cotton candy. Berry brambles arrive (stems and all) with a spiced vanilla cream floating on a creamy espresso with a dry grass and dry marzipan-laced tobacco leaf end.
Part 2: The Ranking
Zach Johnston
9. Redemption 10 Year Barrel Proof High Rye Bourbon — Taste 2
Redemption has a knack for sourcing some of the best barrels from MGP in Indiana. This multi-award-winning bourbon starts off with a base mash bill of 60 percent corn, 36 percent rye, and four percent barley. After ten years of maturation, the barrels are expertly vatted to make a highly sippable bourbon experience. That marriage of bourbons then goes into the bottle, uncut and unfiltered.
Bottom Line:
This is where things get hard … already. This was pretty freaking good. It was interesting. But something had to be last and there was a pretty big gap between this and number one, two, and three. However, the gap between this and numbers eight through four is pretty much paper-thin.
This release from Diageo’s Orphan Barrel program is from Cascade Hollow Distilling Co., better known as George Dickel. The juice is a marrying of two 16-year-old bourbon barrels that were hand-selected by Dickel Master Distiller Nicole Austin. The ABV is very low for a “barrel-proof” bourbon, which is what makes this an interesting bottle.
Bottom Line:
I really didn’t know where to put these Dickels on the list. I really dig that they are so damn unique. But I think that uniqueness wasn’t quite enough to stand up to the deeper notes in some of the other bottles in the blind taste today.
The juice in this bottle is from single barrels, aged 15 years or more, and the proof varies accordingly (sometimes it’s cut with water, too). The whiskey showcases Dickel’s vast warehouses and the gems they have hidden deep on those ricks.
Bottom Line:
Since these two Dickels are so, so similar (in profile and age), I really couldn’t see not having them ranked as a tie. They’re both unique and, well, new tasting, which I really dig.
On another day, I could see one of these winning for those one-of-a-kind notes.
This is sourced from Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee bourbons. The hand-selected barrels are sent to New York where they’re blended in small batches (no more than five barrels), proofed with New York limestone mine water, and bottled. What you’re paying for here is the exactness of a whiskey blender finding great barrels and knowing how to marry them to make something bigger and better.
Bottom Line:
This ranked a little lower mostly because it sort of petered out late in the taste. Otherwise, it’s a solid pour that I 100 percent want to go back to as an on the rocks sipper.
This sourced juice (from an undisclosed Kentucky distillery) was hand-picked by Jim Rutledge and the Blue Run team for its brilliance. Rutledge, who brought Four Roses back into the mainstream, really dug in to find some of the best barrels still available in this higher age range to create this bourbon.
Bottom Line:
This, again, was pretty great. The only reason it’s slightly lower today is that it was only classic and not that little bit extra like the next few on the list.
5. 2021 Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch — Taste 5
This year’s LE Small Batch is a blend of four bourbons. Four Roses is renowned for its ten distinct recipes with two mash bills and five yeast strains. This whiskey marries four of those recipes with two from Mash B (very high rye) and two from Mash Bill E (high rye). The yeasts at play are “delicate fruit,” “spice essence,” and “floral essence.” The barrels ranged from 12 to 16 years old, making this a fairly old bourbon, all things considered.
Bottom Line:
This was another one that could have been anywhere from eighth to first on this list. There’s not a single fault in this juice.
This is classic Beam whiskey with a low-ish rye mash bill of 77 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. The juice is then left alone in the Beam warehouses for 12 long years. The barrels are chosen according to a specific taste and married to create this higher-proof expression.
Bottom Line:
This was so easy and straightforward. This was another of the drams I truly wanted to go back to. Not because it was overly complex or challenging, but becasue it was exactly the opposite while still being very well built and damn tasty.
3. Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond 11 Year — Taste 7
The juice in this decanter is an eleven-year-old bourbon pulled from barrels in Warehouse EE. The wheated bourbon was loaded into the rickhouse back in the spring of 2010 and left alone until 2021. The whiskey was then vatted and proofed down to the bottled-in-bond proof of 50 percent or 100 proof, as per federal law.
Bottom Line:
This is just so damn tasty. Honestly, this could have been tied for second or first had the first place dram not hit so damn hard today.
The juice in this bottle is a little under wraps. Michter’s is currently distilling and aging their own whiskey, but this is still sourced. The actual barrels sourced for these single barrel expressions tend to be at least ten years old with some rumored to be closer to 15 years old (depending on the barrel’s quality, naturally). Either way, the juice goes through Michter’s bespoke filtration process before a touch of Kentucky’s iconic soft limestone water is added, bringing the bourbon down to a very crushable 94.4 proof.
Bottom Line:
This is the bottle I would have put money on me picking as my number one. In fact, I told myself that what did hit number one must be this. I was mistaken.
All of that aside, this was pretty much perfection.
This might be one of the most beloved (and still accessible) bottles from Buffalo Trace. This juice is made from their very low rye mash bill. The whiskey is then matured for at least ten years in various parts of the warehouse. The final mix comes down to barrels that hit just the right notes to make them “Eagle Rare.” Finally, this one is proofed down to a fairly low 90 proof.
Bottom Line:
Nothing came close to this today. It was like a safe port in a tumultuous storm.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
It’s probably not a surprise, if you follow my whiskey writing, that I picked Michter’s and Eagle Rare in the top slots in this blind taste test. I do drink a lot of those brands’ whiskeys and go on and on about them. But you know what? That’s because they’re some of the best out there right now. If you can find any of the three bottles at the top of this list, you’ll be in good hands.
As for the rest, there was so little distance between them quality-wise. Another day, another lineup, and any one of these bottles could have ended up on top. But not today.
I think the big outlier today was the two Dickel expressions (Dickel 15 Year and Copper Tongue). They’re so damn unique and tasty while really offering something different and new. I’m struggling with where to place those entries in the grand scheme of things. One thing I can say is that they’re really starting to grow on me and I’m starting to look for flavor profiles that aren’t afraid of breaking the mold, just like those two do.
The 2022 NBA All-Star Game is less than a month away, as the festivities in Cleveland are lined up for February 20 (pushed back a week from usual now that the Super Bowl is a week later with the NFL’s new 18-game schedule).
Over the next few weeks, we’ll learn what players will be making the pilgrimage to northeast Ohio to participate in the various events, from the revamped Rising Stars Game to the Saturday night competitions to the game itself on Sunday. Thursday brought word of the first 10 players who will be heading to Cleveland as the All-Star starters (albeit with at least one likely to be replaced due to injury).
The Inside the NBA crew unveiled the starters (delivered in a fancy locked briefcase to ensure no leaks) on Thursday night and there were few surprises. As a reminder, the starters are determined by the fan vote (50 percent), player vote (25 percent), and media vote (25 percent). We’ve gotten weekly fan voting updates throughout the process, so we were aware of who was in the drivers seat for spots, and there only seemed like one position of real question, with Andrew Wiggins holding the third West frontcourt spot with the fans.
Along with the questions about the final West frontcourt spot behind LeBron James and Nikola Jokic, there was some intrigue regarding potential first-time All-Stars landing spots, namely Ja Morant.
EAST
Kevin Durant (captain)
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Joel Embiid
DeMar DeRozan
Trae Young
WEST
LeBron James (captain)
Nikola Jokic
Andrew Wiggins
Stephen Curry
Ja Morant
Wiggins remained in that third frontcourt spot the fans had him in, as the West frontcourt picture beyond Jokic and James was muddied by injuries to the usual suspects (Anthony Davis, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Draymond Green, etc.) and Wiggins’ career-year on one of the league’s best teams earned him the nod.
Wiggins is joined by fellow first-time All-Star Morant, who has jumped into not just All-Star position but a starting spot with his play this season. Young, meanwhile, earns a second starting nod (after missing out on the All-Star Game last year). The backcourts in both conferences are loaded with talent and securing a spot from the fan/player/media vote is important because there will undoubtedly be a player or two from each conference who felt they belonged as All-Stars this year who will miss out when the reserves are announced.
The Golden Girls icon Betty White passed away on the last day of 2021, a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. It’s impossible to sum up all of her achievements in an hour-long special — outside of her Emmy-winning TV work, she was also an animal advocate — but NBC will do its best, with some help from the president.
Celebrating Betty White: America’s Golden Girl will include tributes from President Joe Biden (who called White a “cultural icon” who “brought a smile to the lips of generations of Americans”), Drew Barrymore, Valerie Bertinelli, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ted Danson, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Goldie Hawn, Vicki Lawrence, Jane Leeves, Jay Leno, Anthony Mackie, Wendie Malick, Joel McHale, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart, Mary Steenburgen, and more (like Ryan Reynolds?).
“Co-stars, friends, admirers and those who shared special moments with White recount their favorite memories and reveal untold stories to commemorate the life and legacy of the trailblazing television star,” NBC said in a press release. “The telecast will include clips and never-before-seen footage that best capture White’s irreverent tone, spirit and impeccable comedic timing that are a hallmark of her decades-long career.”
Celebrating Betty White: America’s Golden Girl airs on NBC on Monday, January 31, and will be available the next day on Peacock.
Indie and alt-pop fans are very familiar with the woman that Pitt, 58, is supposedly seeing. Reports from British tabloid The Sun have linked the pair as a couple, citing the fact that Li lives only a three minutes drive from Pitt as how they’ve been able to keep the new romance under wraps. But a source at People insists that they’re just part of the same group of friends, hanging out in a crew that includes Alia Shawkat.
Today, The Daily Mail chimed in on the subjecting, noting that the popular Instagram blog Deux Moi also addressed it and said the pair are only friends. If you want to brush up on your Lykke Li knowledge just in case, please check out her incredible 2014 album I Never Learn, or even 2018’s So Sad So Sexy. Early fans swear by Wounded Rhymes in 2011, or even her debut, Youth Novel from 2008, but I personally believe her latest album is her best.
Beer is a very wide category. Sure, IPAs, lagers, and stouts dominate the conversation in many ways. But for as long as people have been making beer, they’ve been putting everything under the sun into their kettles to make it taste different and, hopefully, really f*cking good.
Today we’re going to take a deep dive into the odd world of brewing. Or rather the world of brewing odd beers, using ingredients like prairie oysters, squid ink, and super hot peppers, just to name a few. To help you expand your palate with out-of-bounds, experimental, and throwback brews, we asked craft beer experts to tell us the strangest beers they’ve ever tried. Check their answers below and try to track a few of these outliers down for yourself.
The beer that sticks out to me — though I’m not sure how “weird” it is –would be Samuel Adams Utopias. It was the first beer I had that really pushed the boundaries of what I thought beer was at the time. It comes in at 28 percent ABV and is served only slightly chilled, so it drinks more like sherry than a beer.
It’s really something special to have been able to try.
A group of us from the brewery were at the Great American Beer Fest in Denver back in 2014 when we won our Gold Medal for Pop’s Porter, and we tried Wynkoop Brewery’s Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout. I mean, you want to talk about strange, put some Rocky Mountain Oysters in, and you got strange.
I do have to say that it’s a great tasting stout. I personally did not pick up any crazy flavors in the beer that I can recall.
One Barrel Curry Crusher
One Barrel
Garth E. Beyer, certified Cicerone® and owner and founder of Garth’s Brew Bar in Madison, Wisconsin
ABV: 6.5%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
The absolute strangest beer I’ve had was called Curry Crusher. It was a one-off batch from a brewery in Madison, WI. Stylistically, it was a brown ale that they infused with curry, sriracha, and a hint of coconut. It was a heavy savory flavor with hints of turmeric and coconut sweetness. If you love curry, then you’d enjoy consuming this beer.
This beer was a total love or hate beer. There was no in-between as it literally tasted like a curry take-out dinner turned into beer.
Weldwerks Spaghetti Gose
Weldwerks
ABV: 4.8%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
Who in their right minds would try to make a spaghetti beer? At the Great American Beer Festival in 2018, I waited in line at the WeldWerks booth to finally try some of their beer. Their IPAs were amazing, but the Spaghetti Gose really caught my eye for being just plain wacky. It was clean and smooth with flavors of ripe tomato and basil.
The strangest part was that it was actually refreshing and enjoyable.
Big Alice Nothin To It
Big Alice
Dave Lopez, co-managing partner at Gun Hill Brewing in Bronx, New York
ABV: 6.5%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
The all-time strangest beer might actually be a beer we made with Big Alice Brewing called Nothin To It. The beer was a gruit, so it contained no hops. We used chamomile, lemon balm, white sage, lavender, coriander, mugwort, juniper berries, elecampane, rosemary, and then some fruit purees. The chamomile, lavender, rosemary, and coriander really came through, so it was unlike anything else I’d ever had.
Normally, I would never order a gruit, so it was definitely over the top for me.
Ithaca Hot and Sour
Ithaca Beer
Joe Connolly, director of Springdale Beer Co. in Framingham, Massachusetts
ABV: 7%
Average Price: No longer available
Why This Beer?
One of my most vivid Extreme Beer Fest memories was of Ithaca Beer Co’s Hot and Sour, a sour ale aged in a Tabasco barrel. Isn’t it strange that Tabasco is, and has always been, barrel-aged?! Anyhow. Hot and sour are not two flavors that coexist very quietly, so this had to be one of the loudest beers I’ve ever had.
Flying Dog Colonel Mustard IPA
Flying Dog
Cooper Asay, head of quality at BrewDog USA in Columbus, Ohio
ABV: 7%
Average Price: No longer Available
Why This Beer?
Flying Dog made a mustard IPA. Fruity and spicy hops with savory mustard notes were interesting, but I’m probably enjoying only one. Sadly, they don’t make this very strange beer anymore. Maybe they’ll bring it back someday.
Twisted Pine Ghost Face Killah
Twisted Pine
Aaron Uhl, owner of Uhl’s Brewing in Boulder, Colorado
Ghost Face Killah by Twisted Pine is hard to beat when it comes to strange beers. What flavors made it so strange? Don’t get me wrong. I love peppers, spicy and the like. My first sip and I was sold. How much spice can one endure? I was willing to find out.
I’ve certainly had some strange brews over the years, but one that springs to mind is the Chapeau Banana, a banana lambic beer from Belgium. The combination of the sourness from the base, lambic-style, and the banana flavoring clashed for me in a big way. The irony is that I love the banana characteristics found in German-style wheat beers, but not with this sour/funky lambic.
It’s not classically ‘strange’ but it uses a strange process in production. While it’s a smoky beer, it’s not a smoked beer. What they do is that they use the yeast from their smoked beers in a helles-style lager. There are absolutely no smoked malts in the recipe, but it still has a light smoky note from the yeast that is used in the other beers and the boiling of the malts in the same kettles that boil their smoked beers. It’s a really interesting process that they started in the last ten years or so, which is a relatively modern invention for a very old brewery.
Jade Mountain Brewery in Aurora, Colorado made Player 456, a Squid Ink Gose. The aroma of it was accurately described by their team as “briny”, the squid ink gave it an off-black color with a bright white head, and when drank the flavor profile was that of a great gose.
Writer’s Pick: Sheetz Project Hop Dog
Sheetz
ABV: 5.5%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
Back in the spring of 2020, Sheetz, a convenience store chain known for its over-the-top beer collaborations, paired with Neshaminy Creek Brewing to drop a beer that had a very strange ingredient: hot dogs. This citrusy, floral, highly crushable IPA was dry-hopped with Centennial and Nuggets hops and gets its name from the addition of Sheetz hot dogs added to the brew kettle.
Writer’s Pick: Evil Twin Midtown DEW
Evil Twin
ABV: 6%
Average Price: Limited Availability
Why This Beer?
Take one look at this beer’s can and you can guess why it’s on this list of strange brews. Brewed with milk sugar and actual Mountain Dew Syrup, it’s loaded with nostalgia, lemon, lime, and tropical fruit flavors. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but it totally does.
It tastes much better than the time we mixed Mountain Dew and vodka. That’s for sure.
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