Always Going to Tired Hands but Never Often Enough

With all the happenings in my life, I don't get to Tired Hands as often as I'd like. Honestly, I'd love to go once a week which will never happen but still, I can wish. This time I planned the visit partially since it was the week of my birthday plus I had a bottle I needed to pick up and it was overstaying its welcome in their cellar.

When I got there I started with Wisdom Teeth, the fourth in their solera series.

Solera is a blending technique in which you take previous versions of a beer (or wine where it's more common) and blend it with a fresh batch, giving that new batch complexity. As I said, it's way more common in certain wines, but breweries are starting to use it as well. For example, The Bruery's Anniversary beers (Bois, Cuir, etc) use solera. I'll admit, I didn't like Galapagos, the second version, that much but I enjoyed Entropic a lot and now this new one. Nice musty nose with a little bitterness. Felt like a lot of brett influence. Body had the dryness you'd expect from something highly influenced by brett, but a little bitterness and some slight citrus kept it from being too watery. I know I won't get to try every version of this series (I already missed three), but I look forward to it continuing and seeing how things change. Of course, they hop each version differently so that changes things regardless but it's still interesting.

After that I went with a double IPA, Wiggle Wurm. I mean, I kind of feel like it's required to try their double IPAs whenever I can since they are usually so good.

First, this beer was ridiculously clear. You can almost see completely through it! Colin (Magic Man if you only know his nickname) said it had gotten much clearer than when it was first brewed which is interesting. Amazingly, it smelled almost exactly like passion fruit or mango. Super fruity and always amazing when breweries can get those flavors from the hops. Medium body on it gave it a nice mouthfeel. The body's flavor was almost melon-like with some light vanilla bitterness in the finish. Just another delicious IPA from Tired Hands. Also crazy that it was 9% as you would not have known by drinking it.

Another great visit with two more great beers. On a personal note, it's weird to think that the next time I visit here I'll have a son. As always, can't wait to go back. Glad it's only an easy train ride away since it'll be harder moving forward time wise. Oh and here's a pic of Jean and Colin with Jean cleaning the line for their new hand pump. Going to be fun to see what they do with that!