Saturday Brew Review: Thirteenth Hour
When traveling through the galaxy, it’s of supreme importance to be on the lookout for liminal spaces. If you’re not paying attention while cruisin’ through hyperspace — maybe you’re rockin’ too hard to some Load-era Metallica or you’re caught up in a high-stakes game of Sabacc or perhaps you’ve fallen asleep at the wheel — you may very well hit a pocket of liminality. If this happens, chances’re that you’re going to be lost for awhile.
More innocuous than thinnies but less defined than wormholes, these cloudbursts of purple dark matter will warp the perceptions of everyone in your starcruiser. Sophomore slumps will sound like masterpieces. Cash-grabs will look like art. Dog food will taste like delectable cuisine. Hell, I’ve even heard tales of reckless space-pirates tongue-kissin’ their dogs and grabbin’ fat fistfuls of their sisters’ doughy fannies.
It ain’t pretty.
However, every now and then an individual that coasts through a violet gamma-shadow will be better for it. In these rare instances, the pilgrim does not incur the Wrath of In-Between, but is actually fortunate enough to go beyond the beyond. In this transcendent moment, possibilities are not only more apparent, but well within reach. Despite being in a tiny little vessel, hermetically sealed and layered beyond reason so as to ward off solar radiation, the exo-planetary commuter is capable of turning off mental inhibitors so as to live beyond life.
Tonight, my vessel has skidded right through an extradimensional fold. And I’m not mad or concerned. `Cause the fact of the matter is that I’m rockin’ in the Thirteenth Hour.
Hoping to learn more about the existential epiphany-rays that I’ve been soaring through, I visited the Samuel Adams website. I figured that if anyone would be able to guide me through a temporal anomaly, it’d be my favorite brewery. After all, they’re the motherfuckers responsible for more than a few hours that I’ve lost over the years. Anyways, this what they had to say about Thirteenth Hour:
Samuel Adams Thirteenth Hour is a complex blend of 13 ingredients. We use seven different specialty malts to give the beer its smooth, rich and roasty maltiness. These traditional flavors of a full-bodied stout have a slight sweetness that is balanced by the unexpected flavors of Kosmic Mother Funk (KMF). KMF gives the beer a layer of complexity and flavor with hints of oak, peppery spice, dark fruit, and a hint of acidity.
Kosmic Mother Funk is an ale that we age in large oak tuns for over 12 months. The beer in the oak vessels undergoes a secondary fermentation to give the beer a rich tropical fruit note and some sourness. The beer is also bottle conditioned which creates another fermentation giving the beer an extra smooth and balanced flavor.
It appears as though the cosmic abnormality I’m breaking through in FTL has manifested as a beer. A fucking BREW! Had it been a giant marshmallow man or an anthropomorphic tampon, I would’ve shirked. But brews are what I take care of best!
Thirteenth Hour poured into my drankin’ glass as a hue that dilettantes would call black. So yeah, I think it’s black. There were also some deep maroon shades, but I didn’t feel like losin’ another light bulb in the name of running this space phenomenon-cum-beer through the color spectrum. There was also a creamy head, tan in color, to this liquid mind-revolution. By all accounts, I liked what I was seein’!
When I put my snout up to this killer of brain-cells, there were two things that I detected. The first recognizable olfactory sensation was that of oak. Strong oak. It was almost as though this shit had been aged in a oak barrels. Hrm. What I also smelt were the wonderfully wispy vapors of alcohol. Perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that the liminal-junction was asserting itself as a beer with an ABV of 9%. I’m not completely sure, but I am slightly certain that I could smell the doom of my inhibitions.
Time to drank.
When the Thirteenth Hour first hit my tongue, all I could taste was oakiness. In fact, I even began visually-inspecting and sniffing the cork to make sure that bits of it hadn’t disintegrated right into the liquid mind-stunner. But alas, the cork was fully intact. Upon further tastings, I began to unravel the various flavor-layers of this brew. The more I drank, the more I started to ascertain that fruit was a key member of this beer’s royal parliament. With that being said, the fruitiness present had an evil side to it, as though the cherries popping on my tongue may actually be poisonous.
In other words, it’s more Kurt Darkholme than Kurt Wagner.
So what else is there to say about my post-temporal, ultra-spatial beer drinkin’ experience? I’m not too sure. Maybe just the fact that the carbonation wasn’t totally unreasonable. There were enough bubbles to keep me interested throughout the duration of an entire 9.4 fluid ounces. And at no point did I feel overwhelmed. But to be fair, I suppose that if one is overwhelmed by the presence of carbon dioxide in a beer, there’re more serious issues to work through first.
I don’t regret hitting the hyperdrive button twice tonight. I slid into the space between spaces and was able to try on a brand new mindset-hat. Having lived through the Thirteenth Hour, I can say that I am better for it. Hell, I could even give the whole experience a letter grade. So, I will…
A-