This was supposed to be a five part series. Consisting of Sap, Haze, Doppelganger, Autumn, and Julius. But then like Disney buying Star Wars…. along came another, like a new movie to add to the series, I present you number six – the final, epic, saga ending beer review – of Intemperance.

Thats probably a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. This wasn’t intended, but we’re going to go with it. I don’t mind doing Tree House beer reviews, thats for sure. I could do them all the time, I’ll gladly accept any Tree House beer donations in lieu of reviews. No problem, no questions asked. (Who can turn down delicious wonderful near perfect beers anyway right?)

This is going to be different than the previous installments though. Whereas the others were IPAs (Double / regular) or a pale ale; this is the first dark brew I’ll be reviewing from Tree House. Intemperance is a Double Milk Stout. A fitting conclusion to the series. Epic? Maybe not. Ending to a massive saga on the scale of Episode IX? Probably not. A fantastic beer? Definitely! A good beer review? Hopefully so!

Just want to give a final shout out to D. Arndt for these fantastic beers. Tree House certainly never disappoints. Thanks Dan!

Beer: Intemperance
Brewery: Tree House Brewing Co.
Style – Stout – Imperial / Double Milk
ABV: 9.9%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Write-Up: Intemperance is an imperial milk stout brewed with cinnamon, vanilla cream, Christmas cookies, and a hint of chestnut. Throwing the kitchen sink of authentic holiday-themed ingredients at this beer results in a truly unique, exciting, nostalgic-tasting beverage that doesn’t take itself too seriously. As it warms you can truly pick out the flavor notes of its individual constituents. Put on some pajamas, start a fire, and let this beer take you into the night.

This is a perfect fireplace beer. Christmas Eve, all the kids presents wrapped and under the tree and finally getting to fall asleep to A Christmas Story playing on loop in the background.

Appearance is the darkest of dark black. Like the souls and hearts of….. ahh, gee, thats too dark for something so tasty, frivolous, and fun. I’ll fall back on my motor oil comparisons and Razor Ramone hair comparisons and jet fuel and other similar ones. This is too much fun drinking to go too too dark on the descriptors. There is a lovely light brown creamy head to this that just floats on the dark waters. Lacing runs down the glass as you drain this gorgeous beer.

Aroma is so much, such complexity, just so much to take in through the nose. Aroma for this is pure Christmas. Baking cookies, yule log, milk, eggnog, dark bready notes, ginger, hazelnut. Like someone made a Bath and Bodyworks candle out of Santa Clause’s cabin. Notes of cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut, ginger, molasses, chestnut, all swirl around with a roasted malt and grain bill with some nice earthy bread notes.

This is an amazingly smooth beer for a 9.9% stout. Its not annoyingly sweet or cloying. But it is dangerously smooth. The vanilla just gives it that added boost. You immediately taste like a child waking up Christmas morning after only getting one hour of sleep because you spent all night at your bedroom door waiting for Santa. This is dark and heavy, with a wonderful, full body and mouthfeel. But surprisingly you can sort of taste the high ABV but not fully feel the high ABV, and even then, its all levels of subtlety that get hidden amongst the complexities of the flavors. You get all of the flavors of Christmas cookie baking; vanilla, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, chestnut, hazelnut, and they all blend together with nothing overpowering anything else. Like a fine choreographed dance, everyone working together – every flavor working together – to build to a far bigger whole and better beer as a whole for it. There is no off putting flavors or aromas, no bad lingering aftertaste, just a great, well rounded, well created, well crafted, beautifully made and delicious beer. This could easily be a ‘final beer’ (before I go) type beer, and all would be content.

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.24 (as of 2.19.20)

Blog news:

This was meant to go up last night after work as a double-blog day, but that didn’t really come about. Yesterday was pretty busy, and after stopping at the library, and dinner with the kids, and everything after work, the night kind of slipped away. (The Flyers did crush last night, so there was that too.)

But yesterday was a big networking day for the blog. With breweries reaching out for us to do scheduled tours and interviews. Podcasts reaching out to us for interviews and discussions. All around a very busy day.

We also hit number 400 on Facebook. Our four hundredth like on Facebook was Rory Dibeler. We are now up to 410 and looking forward to number 500. We are also up to 128 followers on Twitter. So if you aren’t a follower on either platform, please do so. You can also follow us on Instagram, where we are looking to further our presence in the upcoming months.

As always, be sure to like and follow us. Check out some of our older articles and beer reviews and news stories. You can read up about openings and closings, brewery reviews, beer reviews, brewery events, and even some book reviews. We appreciate all the views, likes, comments, suggestions, and feedback.

Cheers all!

-B. Kline

Doppelgänger, the last of my series of Tree House beers to review, number five of the quintology…. ……or is it…. (dun dun dun!) Actually… no… in fact, its not going to be the last of the series, because I’ve also gotten to try Intemperance the other day, and I will be reviewing that as well, turning this quintology into a sexology? Septology? …Two trilogies? Yea, lets go with two trilogies… Sounds a lot less weird.

Also, yes, don’t worry about the picture. It is taken in the shower, and yes, that is somewhat relevant (or more to the point – I’m going to make it relevant), and no, don’t worry, there is no more pictures than that one. So you’re fine, and this is still SFW (safe for work).

This is a part of the backlog of beer reviews I’m finishing up now. Started this one on January 20th, 2020…. and now getting to finish it on February 12th, 2020. Sounds reasonable, not too bad, only a week’s worth shy of a month later. (Over a week actually, so I’m good.) Between getting all of the other blog posts ready, and the activities I’ve been up to with the blog, this has kind of taken a back corner. Just one of those I know *IS* going to get done, its just a matter of *WHEN* it gets done. And now is *WHEN*. Perfect. So, please, enjoy!

Sometimes we all just don’t feel well. Sometimes we all work a long day, annoyed at the world, over stressed out, and sadly, they still forbid throat punching at most works. (Unless you work for the UFC, and even then I think its pretty rude and hard to do.) So, whats the next best thing? Shower beers!

Turn on the hot water. Lay back in the shower, let the spray hit you, feel the steam rise and loosen your pores, crack open a delicious craft beer, and just slowly consume. Perhaps some music in the background, like whale songs or something. Some scented candles from Bath and Beyond…. the lights dimmed. Just relaxation.

Ok, maybe not all that is necessary. But what is necessary, is the beer, and the shower, and thats all I needed to feel better after a stressful day at work and getting over a cold. And Doppelgänger certainly did the trick. Number one, its a fantastic beer, number two the shower was nice and warm, and number three, it had just the right amount of ABV to melt away the annoyances of the world.

Let’s turn on the shower, crack open a Doppelganger and melt away our stress!

Beer: Doppelgänger
Brewery: Tree House Brewing Company
Style: IPA – Imperial / Double
ABV: 8.2%
IBU: 88
Untappd Write-Up: This beer is an imperial version of Alter Ego. It is intensely kettle and dry hopped to produce a pungent and flavorful Double IPA that is super pleasant to drink. It is simply and easily described as a juicy and dank citrus bomb.

The thing about drinking a shower beer is, you’re doing it straight from the can. No glasses, nothing pretty, its just straight drinking from the can, like (insert your deity or non-deity here) intended. For the sake of reviewing though, this does hamper things a wee bit – in so much that I can’t really be reviewing its appearance. I also don’t like doing reviews based off of other people’s pictures, for numerous reasons (could be fakes, their lighting, their beers might be aged or expired or oxidized, etc, etc, etc). Thus, I’m sorry to inform all of you that their won’t be an appearance segment to this review.

And therefore, moving on, this review will begin with the aroma. Even with my cold, even with the shower going, as soon as you crack the tab on this puppy you get the hop aroma in full force. Not sure what opened my pores and nostrils more, the steam or the amazing hop punch from this olfactory sensational brew. This gives you really a two-punch pow-pow of hop aroma right to the nose; first you get hit with a combo of mango and peach, and then you get crossed up with a right hook of citrus and pine. You get the real fruity notes right away and then you get zapped with the hop aromas. The citrus and pine pushes out that mango and peach and gives you a wonderfully layered treat for your nose.

Taste is incredible. Its juicy, its mango, its peach, its citrus, its pine, its hoppy, its powerful, its strong, its eye opening, its eye widening, its powerful, its heavy hitting, its amazing. Its a fantastic shower beer. …Ok, its a fantastic beer, period, in general. There is just so much to like with this beer. Not sure words are the best way to describe it, possibly just thumbs up is the best? I’ll try with words, but I think I’ll have to go against Shakespeare here (Brevity is the soul of wit…. thank goodness I’m witless). This is super juicy; like dank hoppy mango and peach juice with a citrusy zesty zip to it. This is a great mouthfeel to it, its heavy on the tongue but light as you drink, and there’s no cloying, no off putting nature to it, no grittyness or sediment. The mango and peach flavor tied in with the hop and zest to it is just a great and perfect combination with the carbonation. There is no extreme hop bite but you definitely get its presence, nothing too bitter, just everything in nice proportions. All in all this is just a fantastic beer, made fantastically well, and deserved of all the praise that is heaped on it. Great for a stress filled day in the shower (or out).

My Untappd Rating: ****.50
Global Untappd Rating: 4.48 (as of 2.12.20)

Well, this *WAS* going to be the last of my series of Tree House beers. But shocking conclusion twist! (M. Night Shamalyan style twist ending.) Thanks to my good friend D. Arndt who had gotten me the other Tree House beers of this series, the other night he generously let me have at a can of Intemperance, and woo booooooy was I hooked. So, there’s going to be a sixth to the series now!

For those of you keeping up with it all, the series thus far is: Sap, Autumn, Julius, Haze, and now this current one here – Doppelganger. It was great getting to try Intemperance because its a Stout, my first stout from Tree House, and it was great seeing them nail a different style than the New England IPAs. For the next few days I’m hoping to pump out 2-3 beer reviews a day, to get this backlog of beer reviews done. So bare with me, you’ll either get an overload of them, or a slow trickle, either way, they’ll get here. Hope you enjoy them!

Thanks for reading everyone, go grab a hot shower, a beer, and think of me….. (ok, maybe not think of me), and enjoy! Cheers!

-B. Kline