Grapefruit Slam Ipa (Koochenvagner's Brewing Company)

 I have never heard of this brewery before, and to be honest when you first pick up the bottle it is not completely obvious who this beer is by. I have seen pictures and heard mention of this beer around the hopslam buzz this week. If you are not familiar with this buzz, is it like a tiny fly, a nat in your ear. I am just ready for it to go away. Something about the word project and grapefruit drew me to this beer plus the $9.99 price tag is the high end of retail for this beer. Stochasticity comes from the greek word to aim, so the project is aiming to make obvious choices in regards to what would be obvious to add to styles of beer? It is obvious to add grapefruit peel to this IPA, which is based on hop varieties from the great northwest. These hops from this area, Centennial, Chinook, and Magnum often best described as being big citrus, like a grape fruit. I hope the first project is well received so we can see what other obvious choices the brewers choose to execute. 

This beer was bottled 1/23/14, so it was a little over a month old. The nose is all citrus, with little to no floral hop presence.  The taste is dead on successful, big grapefruit in the back of my cheeks I can feel it. The underlying sweetness is nice, but the malt backbone is a little light. The bottle lists Koochenvagner's Brewing Company, Escondido, San Diego California as home. I tried to find more information about the brewery, but all signs point to this being a stone brewing company side project. The google search results don't turn up much, and the www.stochasticity.com website is very vague. There is really no more information on the beer on the Internet than there is one the bottle. Koochenvagers? Greg Koch? the aim is to make obvious beers? Stone makes a lot of IPA's, what makes this one any different? The 22 ounce format and the screen printed bottle seem to familiar. Is this what the hiatus is for? This new project? Stone brewing marketing experts, they keep there brand fresh. This beer must have been months in the making, especially getting label approval for a phony brewery. It was a fun journey, and I cannot wait for what else is to come out of this project. 

Top BA stouts bottle share

Surly Darkness 100/100 on BA

It was a share that seemed like it had been years in the making. The other half of the NOVA experiment and I share a cold, or sometimes room temperature beer after work occasionally. It would happen more often except he lives in Midlothian, south side, or the dirty if you will. I live barely a mile from our center of operation, BDC, or Tha Villa Park. Nathan does send me pictures of his beer mail, and we are constantly texting at work about various whales in the market. Things started to get heavy, and he mentioned he was collecting these beers for the most epic tasting. His dedication to chasing down all of these dark beauties is beyond what I could ever do. He spent a year mailing and negotiating for these beers far and wide. I had to get a little sip. 

We had kicked around dates for a while and finally, February first it was going down. The super bowl is the next day you say? This was our super bowl, plus Nathan was off the following Monday. It's amazing how when you finally get weekends off you manage to commit them so quickly to this and that. Well we started off with this Imperial Stout Trooper from New England brewing company, just a little 8.5% Russian imperial stout. When I got to his house we elected the best way to go through these beers was by level of intensity. We started in regular stouts, went through the coffees and ended up in the barrel aged insanity. The flavor of the first beer was perfect, the mouth feel and intensity of roasted grains put a solid baseline down for all that was to come.

The Abyss 100/96 on Beer Advocate

Then we got into beers I had only seen in pictures but never tried, the surley darkness, the speedway stout, and the abyss from deschutes. I had a chance to buy a speedway stout in New York but the price was insane and the dust was thick. I regret that decision to this day. Look at how dark the head on the abyss is compared to the previous beers. It was this intensity that spawned a little break for cigars. 

Black Tuesday 100/95 on Beer Advocate

I doubt I will have a chance to have most of these beers again, but the black Tuesday was probably one of the rarest we drank. The Bruery has a society, you pay dues, you get sick ass beer. This is one of those beers. Who gave it up for this tasting? I'm not sure but he was probably banished from California. I shouldn't make it sound like it was just two of us, there were four, thank god. I tried to call for back up once, and got denied. My mom dropped me off at said event. That is how serious I was about seeing this thing through and being safe.

BA plead the 5th 100/97 on Beer Advocate

Here is the money shot, the two OG's drunk as shit and still going. The picture doesn't show the true story. I had to tap out with in 30 minutes of this picture. These barrel aged plead the fifths rounds out my dark horse experience. We have been killing it selling their products for a little over a year, and I have drank nearly everything they make. I even have the aaron morse beard happening. My favorite stout remained bourbon county coffee but the abyss gave it a run for it's money. 

If I had stayed up and continued to drink the last beer it may have been fatal. 17 total stouts, and most of them at or above 10%. The last beer would have been my 700th check in on untapped. This was the aftermath the next morning. The marathon tasting went from 2P.M. to 2A.M. I don't think I will be going so hard if something like this pops up again. I have only had 3 beers since this sampling. I am getting to the point in my pursuit of beer where I need to take the cheap road. I really enjoy having beers with this guy, and he shares the same respect. The Biscotti Break share should be way easier, 4 beers?