Back to the blog and rolling along with bock season! Thank you so much for bearing with me while I took February off; between our baby, Michelle working hard on a new project, and a new job I'm still settling into, it's getting tough to find space to write about beer. Taking February was the right call for me. 

Today, we're hitting the ground running on this cold yet still spring-like late-winter day with a beer that perfectly encapsulates the changing seasons, a style I eagerly anticipate the whole winter long. That's right; we're doing a bock.

I'll say here that I only have two bocks slated for review this month. A stroll through the shelves at my local bottle shop this afternoon showed that breweries are more focused on fad-like brews (which isn't a dig--I love fad beers!) than sticking with this tried and true seasonal. Luckily, one of the breweries adhering to this malty tradition is MadTree, who canned Guten Bock this year. Let's get to it.

Two things: 1) You really didn't think I'd let the entire month of January slip away without providing a proper post, did you? 2) Did I really go through all of 2022 without discussing a single MadTree beer on the blog?

Good for all of us, then, that I have a remedy for both those things. Here in the bleak, chilly late days of January, I'm turning to a MadTree classic to officially ring in 2023 for John Likes Beer. That's right, I'm drinking an aged bottle of Coffee & Vanilla Bourbon Barrel Aged Axis Mundi (Axis Mundi henceforth).

It's been more than a month since I've talked about MadTree. That's a bit of time for me; a spell I'll end today.

For years, I've yearned for a MadTree Christmas beer. Sure, they put out Thundersnow annually, which is a killer winter warmer that has the spices one might associate with a Christmas beer. They also did Luna Lux, a great white IPA. Yet, neither of these really scratched that Christmas itch for me. Chalk it up to the lack of Christmassy marketing for each brew. 

This year, though, MadTree's finally done it. They've put out an honest to goodness Christmas beer. This is exactly what I've been waiting for from them, and something I'm excited to crack into. Here it is: Holly Days.

We're here now, having traveled through the thick of Halloween's horrors to the holiday proper. You may be in the midst of fresh frights yourself, as ghost, goblins, and ghouls of all sorts call upon your door demanding treats in exchange for withholding tricks. Maybe now's a good time for you to dim your porch light for a bit and settle down with a beer. Or two, like I am.

Two? That's correct. Three years ago, MadTree retired The Great PumpCAN, it's pumpkinless pumpkin-flavored beer. While it still appeared on tap during its hiatus, it was absent from store shelves, the "CAN" of its name seemling forgotten. Until this year, when MadTree made my wish come true and resurrected its practice of canning the ale.

That still doesn't explain my two beers of the evening. See, I had squirreled away my final can of 2018's batch. Why? Well, I'd actually planned on aging this can anyway. But, once MadTree made it clear that the ale wouldn't be returning the for the foreseeable future, I vowed to keep hold of my can until PumpCAN's triumphant return. That return's happening now.

Summer's not over yet! While I've moved onto Oktoberfests and pumpkin ales in my personal, non-blog drinking life, I still have a summer series to bring to its conclusion. I have a couple more lo-cal beers to write about and just under a week to do it. Easy enough. Don't sweat that this is my first August post.

It's especially easy enough since after today I'll only have one left. And, speaking of easy, today's beer should be an easy-drinking one: MadTree's Ramble On. This is a beer that's been on the market for a while now, but I haven't given it a go. Let's see how it is.

It's mid-January now, somehow. Which is weird. But fine, I guess? We still have the majority of 2021 spread wide before us and, while the breweries that will have long since announced their lineup for the year, there's always wiggle room for special every now and then, right?

There are some rules I'll be abiding by for my choices: 

1) Each beverage on my list must be a beer

2) It needs to be a beer that's not currently available via distribution

3) It needs to be a beer whose distribution has been slumbering for at least a year (meaning that you won't see a Christmas beer that's only just returned to a brewery's vault)

4) No collaborations--while I wish some of my favorite collabs will be brewed again, I know that the odds of two or more entities working on a beer they've already done is slim to none

Now that you know how this'll be played, let's get to the list. These aren't in any particular order aside from how they came to mind. I'll give five beers I want to see hit distro and I'll tack a few extras on at the end that don't necessarily fit the criteria I've listed above. Because what's the point of rules if you can't break them?

This post is about a ghost. No, not an actual ghost. Those don't really exist. Instead, this post is about a ghost beer. It's a bit of a mental leap to get to that claim, so I'll walk you through it.

Around the time I was really started my craft beer journey, MadTree released barrel-aged variants of its The Great PumpCAN. Pumpkin beers and I didn't really see eye to eye at that time and the BA PumpCAN releases weren't even on my radar. It wasn't until I visited MadTree a few months after the release that I saw a poster for the beers and knew what I'd missed out on.

Now, let's pivot to talk about whales. I promise, this loops back around. A whale is a limited, rare, and highly sought-after beer. I've been lucky enough to enjoy a whale or two in my life. But, what's more important to me are my personal whales. These are beers that I'm after--still usually pretty rare--that might not necessarily be on someone else's whale list.

Beyond that, you have your white whales, your Moby Dicks, the ones that get away and, no matter how close you think you are to finally tracking them down, vanish. For five years that's what Bourbon Barrel Aged PumpCAN was to me (and it's what the rum barrel variant of it still is). Then, out of thin air, MadTree broke some beers out of their cellar last fall, BBA Pumpcan among them. My white whale had returned from the dead. A ghost, one that I managed to trap, one that's been haunting my cellar since.

Today, on All Hallow's Eve, I'm tearing into this ghost whale. Let's see if it lives up to the hype I've built around it.

Happy Labor Day! We're back at it again with a MadTree beer. This isn't exactly a new beer--I think (but I can't find any info to back this claim) that today's beer dropped in MadTree's taproom either last year or the year before. 

It is, however, new to the blog. See, this year MadTree canned it threw it into distribution. That means that I was able to track some down to drink from home. I ran out the day it hit the market to pick up a sixer. Now, I'm about to crack into my seventh can of it (meaning that, yes, I've had this before, as those of you who follow me on Instagram can probably tell). What is today's beer? Oh, it's Ziegler, MadTree's Oktoberfest lager.

If there was ever a beer I 100% intentionally aged, it's this. I mean, to be absolutely fair, I've intentionally aged a lot of beers over the last handful of years. But a beer aged in hopes that it'd drink better than it did fresh? Yeah, this is the only one in that category.

Lottie's just a fixture of this bottle shots now.

Since we're still under a Stay at Home order here in Ohio (or, I guess now it's a Keep Ohio Safe order?), I'm still chugging along with my Tales from the (now dwindling) Cellar series. In light of that, today's entry is a special offering from MadTree's venerable Funk Series: Sequoia's Gift. Let's get into it.

Today it's a balmy 79° here in my east-of-Cincinnati middle-of-nowhere. Michelle and I just got back from taking the puppy for a walk around the lake and I changed into a Hawaiian shirt--my go-to summer outfit--immediately afterward and am now sitting on my porch while working on this post. Sure, it's technically early-spring, but it's big summer vibes here. Who cares if the temperature's supposed to plummet next week?


Oh, yeah. That COVID-19 thing's still going around. This is still my tales from the cellar series. Yesterday, when I decided that I'd do a post today, Michelle was too busy working to throw a bottle into the fridge for me, so I did it myself. I reached into the cabinet--without looking--and grabbed a bottle. It wasn't until I opened the fridge today that I let myself see what it was: Madtree's 2017 vintage Levanto Oscuro, part of their Funk Series.

Memorial Day, as I heard on the news once in high school, is the start of summer. Is it the official start of it? No, not quite--that's still nearly a month off. But still, with all the cookouts and people heading to beaches today, summer might as well be here.

This is the last in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree released in January. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.


Here we are, that the last entry in MadTree's Local Blend series. Spring is finally here (I spent yesterday doing some yard work and planting my vegetable garden) and the sun is shining brightly outside my window. It's a beautiful morning, and I can't think of a better reason to break into this fourth can. So, without wasting more time, let's get to it: Local Blend Cleveland.

This is the third in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree released in January. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Today is as good a day for coffee as any. In fact, I've already had a mug. I've also had some tea, for what it's worth. It's cold and cloudy outside my living room window, which stinks because it's been 70˚ the last two days (albeit with a strong chance of tornadoes yesterday). So, I guess you could say that the today's cloudy 40˚ is unpleasant and unwelcome. Couple that with crummy sleep last night and, yeah. Coffee's called for.


However, since I've already had a fair amount of caffeine today, and since I have work tomorrow and definitely need to sleep tonight, I'd rather reach for something that tastes like coffee instead of the actual stuff itself. As such, it's a good day to turn to the next in MadTree's Local Blend series: Columbus, featuring coffee from Stauf's.

This is the second in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Boston Stoker isn't a coffee brand I've enjoyed before. Sure, I've seen bags of their blends around. And yeah, a few of my friends like their Facebook page--some of these are big coffee folks, leading me to believe that I'm in for a treat with Dayton Local Blend.


When MadTree dropped its Local Blend collaboration series last month, I was, to say the least, excited. I like MadTree, I like porters, and I like coffee beers. Why the hell wouldn't I be excited? Drinking the Cincinnati Local Blend the other day (see, each can in this collab four-pack represents a different Ohio city, and each features coffee from a company that calls that can's namesake home) only increased that excitement. So, let's go ahead and break into today's can.

This is the first in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. 

I've had Deeper Roots coffee before. For my birthday last year, which was, coincidentally, celebrated at MadTree, my brother gave me a bag of Deeper Roots' Community Blend. It's really good stuff, and I can't wait to find out what Deeper Roots coffee adds to a beer such as a porter.


You see, last month MadTree dropped Local Blend, a group of four porters brewed in collaboration with four coffee roasters around Ohio. Each can represents a different city: Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland. I'm impressed with the sheer scope of this collaboration series, and, after sitting on my cans since I grabbed them on January 5th, I'm finally breaking into them one-by-one here on the blog. The goal is to review them individually, see how they stack up against each other, and give the overall Local Blend series a rating.

So, here we go. MadTree's Local Blend. First up: Cincinnati - Deeper Roots Coffee.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving! Did you eat turkey yesterday? Tofurkey? Something else entirely? All right. That's cool. You celebrate the day the way you best see fit. I just hope you ate something.

Now, you probably know as well as I do that there're a few elephants lurking around this post. I'll address them now and get them out of the way.

Here's the first: It is not Thanksgiving. I told you that this post would be out on Thanksgiving, not the day after it. Well, I'm consistent I guess. Making promises and delivering a day late. Sorry about that, but hopefully you'll learn if this beer's good enough to pair with all your Thanksgiving leftovers (I always found the leftovers to be the best part of Thanksgiving dinner, anyway).

Here's the second: The FCC is still expected to pull the plug on net neutrality on December 14th (I'll keep talking about this until the FCC concedes or until I close down the blog due to being unable to pay to keep it up if Chairman Pai's motion passes). This is bad for everyone--if you like using the internet please go to GoFCCYourself.com, hit + Express, type "Restoring Internet Freedom" in the Name(s) of Filter(s) field, and tell The FCC what for.

What's your dream? No, seriously. Given the subject of today's post this is not only a truly terrible pun (although it is so I'll own that), it's also a legitimate question. See, for as long as I've been going to MadTree, I've known about Dreamsicle. It's their kölsch that tastes like an orange creamsicle. I remember the first time I had it--it was on my very first trip to their old taproom. I was blown away. That first sip was as good as this beer ever got and it hasn't wavered in quality since.

Dreamsicle has long been a staple of MadTree. And, for as long as it's been on draft, fans of the brewery have been clamoring to get it canned. You could say it was a dream of theirs.

Then, lo!, in April of last year MadTree posted this image on their social media pages. Cincinnati beer drinkers went wild. Finally, they'd be able to take this magic elixir home to sit on and share with friends and loved ones when they visited or when they were visited.

But, all too late, people noticed the exact date of that Dreamsicle post. April 1st. It was all an elaborate joke. Some people laughed it off. Some people got angry.

MadTree, however, delivers on their promises. Nearly a year and five months after the joke, cans of Dreamsicle were officially released. They came out last Thursday. I drove straight to the brewery after I got off work to nab a sixer. I came home and drank three cans that night (each can clocks in at 4.7% ABV so put those judging eyes away). I gave one to my roommate. I'm about to crack into the fifth can. I'll try to hold onto the last one of those six as long as I'm able.


So, as you can probably tell by now, today's beer is Dreamsicle. I've had it before. It's good. Now, let's get down to the brass tacks.

It's back! Well, it's been back for about a month now. But that doesn't matter to me or this post. And, I know, I know. Last year I said I wasn't going to write a post for Shade. And, last year I meant it. But, I as soon as MadTree announced the triumphant return of their gose-styled ale, my go-to summer brew (which was sometime in January or February, I think), I knew that I'd be breaking my word and writing a blog post about it. Things can change in a year, right?


Now this is where we find ourselves. Me, sitting the bed in my scorching hot bedroom; an opened, koozied can of Shade on the nightstand beside me; and you reading this on your computer or smart device or whatever, presumably you also have an open can of Shade near you. Well, at least, I hope that you do. Because I will say this now, before this post gets any further. Shade is good. And you owe it to yourself (no matter what you've done to deserve it) to track it down and drink it.

Today is a good day to be a beer geek.

Let me back up a bit. I know the gadget at the bottom of the page says I'm supposed to be talking about New Glarus' Octoberfest offering right now. I'll get around to that soon (hopefully sometime this week). But, I felt I should put that off because something came up.

What was the something? The release of MadTree's 2016 Funk Series at the Funk Day 2016 event. This is an experience that began this morning and is now over. Luckily, I got to check it out and  I'm writing this now to share it with you. You'll note that this isn't you standard John Likes Beer post--Purrl is absent from it and I'm drinking beer out of a glass. Like I said, I'll get back on track with my typical reviews soon enough. But, I try to be timely when I can. And this post is, if nothing else, timely.

Oh, boy. Here we go again. Another MadTree post? Yes. A thousand times yes.

I heard about Rubus Cacao around this time last year and thought: "A chocolate raspberry beer? No thanks." What a difference a year makes! When I saw the brewery's release schedule for this year, and discovered that they were canning the stout for the first time ever, I became unreasonably excited and made plans to attend the beer's release.


While they didn't have the stout on tap at the release, I did purchase a separate can (along with my to-go six-pack) to enjoy there. Apart from the rush of flavor, I didn't get much from it because of the sheer business of the taproom (so busy, in fact, that they sold out of Rubus cans). I'm looking forward to what I get from it from the quiet comfort of my beer-reviewing futon.