Fulton Worthy Adversary. Russian Imperial Stout. ALC. 9.5 %.
"We're talking about unchecked aggression, here, Dude."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Forget it, Donny, you're out of your element!"
"Walter, the Chinaman who peed on my rug, I can't go give him a bill! So, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, the Chinaman is not the issue here, Dude, I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude! Across this line, you do not!---also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature, Asian-American, please." "Walter, this isn't a guy who built the railroads here, this is a guy…"
"What the Fuck are you talking---"
"Walter, he peed on my rug!"
"He peed on the dude's rug!"
"Donny, you're out of your element, Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!"
That's a great scene, but not the one I was looking for. Wait, how about this one.
"I could be sitting here with just pee stains on my rug---"
"Yeah---"
"But, no, man, I got, you know…"
"Fuckin' Germans. Nothing changes. Fucking Nazis."
"They were Nazis, Dude?"
"Oh, come on, Donny, they were threatening castration!"
"Uh-huh."
"Are we gonna split hairs here?"
"No."
"Am I wrong?"
"Well, he…"
"Man, they were Nihilists, man. They kept saying they believed in nothing. "
"Nihilists. Fuck me. I mean say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos. And also, let's not forget, let's NOT forget, that keeping wildlife, um, an amphibious rodent, for, um, domestic, within the city, that ain't legal, either."
"What, are you a fucking park ranger now?"
"No, I'm just trying to offer…"
"Who gives a shit about the fucking marmot?"
"We are sympathizing here, Dude."
"Fuck sympathy, I don't need your sympathy, man, I need my fucking Johnson!"
…wait, that's the wrong one, too.
I found it.
"…Sure, I used to do some tank battles. fighting in desert is ver-y different from fighting in canopy jungles. I mean, now, with foot soldiers,..(indecipherable), whereas this thing should, you know, be a piece of cake. I mean I had a M-16, not a tank. Me and Charlie, eyeball to eyeball. That fucking combat. The man in the black pajamas, Dude, …worthy fucking adversary."
"Who's in pajamas, Walter?"
"Shut the fuck up, Donny."
"Whereas what we have here….buncha fig eaters wearing towels on their heads trying to find reverse on a Soviet tank…this is not a worthy fucking adversary."
It never occurred to me when this beer was initially released that the name came from a line in Joel and Ethan Coen's 1997 classic "The Big Lebowski". It was one of the owners of Fulton who informed me of that after I asked where the name for one of their recent draft-only releases, The Ringer, came from. ("Walter, I'm sure there's a reason you brought along your dirty undies." "That's right, Dude, the weight. The ringer can not look empty.") They make it clearer on the bottle: "An unchecked aggression of dark flavors, this rich stout is about drawing a line in the sand."
This beer, too, when first loosed on the local beerscape, I found wanting. An unworthy adversary. I so wanted to like it, but couldn't find in it the things I deeply desire in an Imperial Stout. So, with this new bottling, from a new brewery, with new brewers, I'm taking new notes.
Utter blackness, complete opacity, with a tight cocoa-tinged head.
Aroma: plenty of dark malt works it's magic, and we're getting dark fruit, some raisin and fig, and such. Cocoa is coming on, coffee is here, and caramel. Plenty of sweet stuff, but not too much.
Taste: Bam! Big, thick, rich and vast. Chewy, viscous, and plump full of chocolate, coffee, and more of those dark fruits. Just enough bitterness to hold it all down. Stays on the palate, hangs hard in the mouth, dominates the senses. Full flavored, full bodied, intense and delicious. Some smoke pops in, some char, a little hit of tobacco.
While this isn't the biggest, the thickest, the richest RIS, it has what it takes, and it gets the job done. This bottle is a vast improvement over the initial keg offering. I'm going to have to pick up more of these to save before they go away.
One more thing:
No comments:
Post a Comment