Between PIRATE BOMB, and BA MEXICAN CAKE SETS and BA ABRAXAS and BIGGELESWADE DERK LERD AND STONE’S NEW CINNAMON TOAST AFTERBIRTH PLACENTA EXTRAVAGANZA: we have been perineum deep in adjunct stouts. There is something about the allure of all them ingredients on the label that drive basic tickers absolutely banana sandwich. Today I try to sum up why n00bs and sundollar nippled basement dwellers LOVE THEM ADJUNTIFIED STOUTS:

1. THE ABV

Most people attempting to stretch their anuses in the beer game go micro -> hop head -> stouts -> big barrel aged beers -> and end up as the permavirgin lambic coveter you take pity on wearing a tribly scribbling in a Moleskin, shit people should never read. Those journals look like Kevin Spacey’s from Se7en. But in the middle of this degenerative reverse evolution, pussy tickers get it into their heads that a high abv is something difficult to pull off, and they are forged from the cauldron of Hephaestus just because they can slam a 13% abv beer. If you go to any basic bitch bottle share there will always be one dude talking about taking down HUUUUGE BEERS, his swampy armpits redolent with pasta water. Adjunct stouts serve up some high abv and that is anomalously a point of pride for people who don’t know shit. They eat it up.

2. THE COLOR, BRO

If you add chocolate or black patent malt to 168 degree water, you are a fucking genius and god among men. I know most people see you as a sugar water stirring fuckup who was dishonorably discharged from the Coast Guard, but you learned HOW TO MAKE WATER DARK AS FUCK. Basic tickers love this shit. They use tired ass adjectives and sheet it on the glass to get those furrowed foreskins pull taut. To their even more basic friends, its a sign of bragadocio when they get to pop wheelies with adjunct laden dark liquids. SOMEDAY YOULL GET ON THIS LEVEL MAN “OH WOW I DONT EVEN SEE HOW YOU CAN DRINK THAT, ALSO YOUR TEETH LOOK LIKE BAKED BEANS, WOW.”

3. Flavors Any Dipshit Could Identify

If you haven’t tried that many beers, life can be a dizzying mystery of tastes and smells. NO ONE CALL TELL ME WHAT I SUBJECTIVELY TASTE IS WRONG. Is usually what someone who is completely fucking wrong will say. The basic bitch ticker loves adjunct stouts because the label says it right there. It’s like life insurance for their shitty impressions, no one can tell them that vanilla is not in there BECAUSE IT SAYS VANILLA RIGHT THERE ON THE LABEL MOM, GOD TELL ME BEFORE YOU COME DOWN HERE TO DO LAUNDRY. FUCK. Also, adding a fuck ton of an identifiable flavor makes it so they don’t need to learn about things like yeast strains, fermenting temps, or any nuances monoculture aspects. THEY JUST GET TO POINT OUT THE FUKN CINNAMEN BRUH!!!!

4. Loose Familiarity with the Base Beer

Usually a barrel aged adjunct stout has some sibling that the local dipshit picked up at the local Binny’s. It makes them feel safe and secure knowing that not only will they have tepid observations BUT THEY GET TO MAKE OBVIOUS CONTRASTS AS WELL. While the regular stout was chocolate, the one filled with a shitload of Ancho Peppers TASTES LIKE ANCHO PEPPERS HOLY FUCK 100/100 BJCP SCORE. It is also this grounding in the pedestrian that makes these tickers want the EVEN RARERER VERSION SO MUCH MOARRRR. Sometimes the adjunct versions are even shittier, but that doesn’t matter. Just imagine the look on that Birmingham Homebrew Club’s faces when you roll up with the LIMITED VERSION of some shit they got at the grocery store. King among sleep apnea afflicted men, indeed.

5. U GET TO BE THE BIG MAN AT A BOTTLE SHAER

Most beers that you can drink by yourself don’t lend themselves exclusively to sharing it amongst your 13 closest degenerates. If someone asked me to split a Fantome Ete 13 ways I would LOL and show them where the Hennepin is located. However, if you have a 15% adjunct stout, it begs to be shared like a Burning Angel model. The guy whose personal life is in shambles get to feel special and relevant for a fleeting moment for pouring 1oz into a semi-stranger’s glass. Transitions lenses be fogging up hard when that cocoa version comes out, oh shit AND THE PEANUT BUTTER ONE TOO GUYS LETS ALWAYS INVITE THIS SOCIAL MAVEN.

6. Low Bottle Counts

Plenty of styles have low bottle counts, but who the fuck is trying to drink a SAISON AMIRITE? That’s barely a step above a hef. But when it comes to produce laden stouts, those bottle counts are gospel, regardless of what is inside of them. Often times, someone will tell you the bottle count before they even tell you what the fuck the beer is, as though that’s some MSRP necessary information. Again, we can chalk this up to two parts feelings of inadequacy and one part wanting to have the most tumescent beer pud while standing in line for, you guessed it, more fucking beer.

7. GOTTA COMPLETE THAT FUKN SETTTT

The compulsive behavior exhibited by the mid-tier beer nerd lends itself nicely to collecting: most nerds went from pogs, to pokemon, to magic the gathering, to fake numbers from women who were repulsed by them, to setlists from bands no one gives a shit about, until finally that completionist glow of having three slightly different versions of the same beer. Beyond just letting them rot in an Ohio basement, which is sick as fuck in itself, you also get to show them off when one of your 4 friends from the bowling league comes over. Tucked in glass cases like aborginal artifacts, too esoteric for the common guzzler to wrap his mind around. NO YOU FUKN IDIOT THAT ISN’T BOURBON BARREL …that’s the RYE BARREL. I await the day that the holofoil vvariant labels are released and shit gets really real in the field.

8. Become a Master of Comparing Shit No One Cares About

If you have 5 minutes to burn while sitting in your cell on death row, ask a beer nerd which variant he liked best from the 4 versions of the recent adjunct stout. I hope you brought a blankie and some snacks, that monologue will feel endlessly long, like chain smoking Salvia end on end. If you have ever heard one of these philippics you will know that cascading waves of “bourbon had more…but brandy was a touch sweeeter…we all agreed that tequila was too…oddly I loved the malort barrel…” just whipping through the air like a gawdy baton of wasted calories. It would be like if there was a Koren War for decadent dipshits and these people enlisted HARD on those one way missions. Then they return with some stories to tell, real gourmand shit that will chill your soul, you aint heard cardinal or ordinal lists like these before motherfucker, that goateed warrior HAS TASTED SOME THINGS YOU CANT EVEN IMAGINE.

9. FOMO Immunity

If a brewery releases a limited beer that most people miss out on, you can expect that shit to be alluded to a million times over as the benchmark of human progress and palate calibration. If you never tried Southampton Black Raspberry Lambic, then you don’t know SHIT and can’t comment on anything until you do. Take that paradigm and make it tenfold worse because stout aficionados are the absolute fucking worst in this regard. If you miss out on one of the 84 BOTTLES of Apple Brandy Huna, then, why should I even fucking listen to this person, it’s like he lives in a stinky cave and subsists off of hearts of palm. Ok you had CALI BRANDY but whoa whoa, easy buddy, the adults are talking about APPLE BRANDY, why don’t you return to your duplo blocks or whatever it is you put in your mouth. Ticking rare stouts gives you an immunization from anyone being able to ever reference something YOU MAY NOT HAVE TRIED. The shield also works as a weapon in case someone is pulling rank, you just cut their asses down to size by referencing OH YOU HAVENT HAD JUST RUM BARREL HUNA? ONLY THE DOUBLE BARREL ONE EVERY TRIED? OH WELL I CANT EXPECT YOU TO UNDERSTAND. Then disappear in a cloud of black malty smoke like Altair.

10. Insightful 1oz Blending by Drunk Assholes

If merely trying the beer wasn’t sufficient, be sure to instagram a bunch of pics of you and your 14 closest homies pouring nominal amounts from the bottom of the bottles to make THE ULTIMATE BLEND. Because then if people tried them individually, you can always piggy back on the ULTIMATE blend of adjunct stouts, to one up anyone. Basic bitch tickers love this because it makes them feel novel, like if Armand or Uli got into a severe car accident and acted like a complete asshole for the rest of his life. And the thought of being a part of that creative process is like Marcel Proust dipping his madeline into tea, a wave of bitch ticker memories wash over these pedestrian ass traders like a Remembrance of Things Past.

So there you have it. If you didn’t understand it before, now you see why the world of meaningless adjunct liquids is so meaningful to people who have little and predicate their self values upon 1%er limited consumables.