Half Acre Brewing Co (2022)

I’ve had the Vanilla, 2x4 and regular on draft, and have had the Sunken Ghost in cans. Really big on the latter three of those (nothing against Vanilla, still very good)… with either Sunken Ghost of 2x4 as my favorites. Can’t wait to drink 2x4 in isolation, as I think I’ll enjoy it more when it’s not part of a flight of other big beers. Phenomenal pack.

Less excited about the Cherry flavor profile, but we’ll see.

 

Benthic complaint: overall I get almost NO barrel character from these beers. The super old one, Sunken Ghost, has a hint, but I would never guess the rest had rested in lumber.

The difference between Revolution's program and Half Acre's, in this regard, is stark and is one of the main reasons I prefer Deep Wood. The other major reason would be the lack of subtlety in the Benthic series; they kinda hit you over the head with a hammer a bit.

I do like Benthic, but it's not quite top tier for me.

Benthic compliment: The artwork BLOWS AWAY Revolution's stuff; the Deep Wood re-brand this year looks like second rate Dark Lord designs.

#coupletwotreehottakes

 

In some ways the new design is very cool, but in other ways it comes off gaudy and far too cartoonish to me with (perhaps) too much restraint (like, they didn't go far enough down that hole to make it as dark as what it feels like they are trying to go for).

TL;DR: I agree with you.

 

I don't know if there is a better way to characterize the difference between Rev and HA. Opened a DB Benthic the other night and it was still dominated by coconut.

Plus the glue, or the ink if you choose to believe that theory.

 

ISO box aroma reviews.

 

Always fascinating (truly, I'm not being facetious or patronizing) how palates differ.

I am not very sensitive to Coconut (i.e. it takes more for me to notice it than for someone else.), and when I drank my first DB Benthic in June or July, I didn't get that much coconut. Lots of cinnamon (for which I am pretty sensitive). Lots of barrel. I don't remember necessarily thinking that more coconut would make that combination of flavors better, but coconut was definitely not the dominant flavor for me. -And, certainly a decent amount of barrel character for me.

 

It’s easy to forget that Benthic (and catch hell ) aren’t the totality of HA barrel program. Thier barrel aged beers without adjuncts exhibit a lot of barrel character - obsidian throne , sickle through sable, soaked in shadow and Orin all come to mind. Overall, I’ve been pretty impressed with by HA’s range , but I think Benthic is trying to accomplish something very different than Deep wood.

 

Agreed. This is the post I didn't have the energy to make. But Sickle Through Sable has cocoa nibs though.

 

This is fair.

 

In every aspect of my professional life I have to be concise. As concise as (and includes) Academic literature (journal pubs). This forum is the one place I don't usually worry about it. -But, I have a tendency to ramble. The tl;dr thing was mostly a joke, because it could have all been summed up with 'i agree'. That type of thing is pretty on the nose for me, and is a running joke with my BiL.

 

This is true - I meant to refer to Benthic and Deep Woods rather than HA and Rev, but I got distracted.

 

Lol, I wish more academic journal articles were actually concise.

 

I wish more brewers would do cross brewery blends. Baller Stout with 4 different stouts blended in back in the day was a cool idea. Hasn’t really caught on, but a Benthic/Deep Woods Blend would be pretty epic.

 

I mean, you could just blend some cans on your own haha. That's what they do at the brewery, take various components to create various blends and decide which ones to can...

On the barrel note - I get plenty of barrel from the regular Benthic, it actually reminds me of this year's Deth quite a bit! Coconut's def restrained. On the 2x4 and other variants it's hard to tell the barrel apart from the adjuncts just because they add so much. But can you blame them? People will either complain about the barrel not being up front or the adjuncts not being prominent, it's a very fine line...

 

This exactly! Half Acre's barrel program has great variety. Obsidian throne was crazy good. Sickle Through Sable is also crazy good.

 

Sickle Through Sable is in the running for my best of 2022.

 

It's such a great beer!

 

so i’m a chocolate guy and i actually enjoyed land shook more than sable but both are excellent.

 

What's up?
Sickle through Sable was/is a great beer. It was a pleasure to have it on tap... uh... multiple times during my visit in late October.
But this beer release? This beer fucks. It's great; maybe my fave of the NELSON DDC variant releases.
Cheers!