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Talk about a beautiful coming of age story!

Hinterland Brewery of Green Bay celebrates its 21st birthday with 21 Anniversary Ale, a delicious “brewer’s blend of bourbon barrel-aged beers.” This is one of the brewery’s Out of the Woods Series presented in pint bottles.
The brewery website reveals this as two bourbon barrel-aged beers blended with an “unoaked” beer. This limited release ale made from a total of eight different malts weighs in at 9.4 percent.
Befitting that bruiser status, it comes on with a big boozy swagger. This is no poser, for underneath the ostentatious façade is a heart of darkness – chocolate, dark fruit, bourbon-soaked oaken bitterness and…what else is that? Spicy coffee?
Expect a full-frontal assault in your mouth. Also expect your lips to be sealed by the stickiness of this heavy hitter.
The brewery recommends pairing 21 Anniversary Ale with chocolate, cheesecake, steak, donuts and blue cheese. To me, that seems like a very odd meal – a little too heavy on the sweets. Sounds like a Chopped basket.
I had mine with sweet onion pizza, which was completely overwhelmed by the beer. No matter. Not many foods could stand up to this beer on steroids. Raisin pie, maybe? Teriyaki chicken thighs? Molasses cookies? Stewed prunes?
I recommend tracking this beer down before it’s all gone. In fact, get one for now and another for the future. And to your future self I say, you are welcome.

How do you follow that? I don’t know. Magic fridge, give me direction!

I reach in and pull out a Sweet Lady, a milk stout from O’so Brewing of Plover, Wis.

Great choice, Magic fridge!

She may be a Sweet Lady, but she is also very intense.

She is such a sweetie, but she has a very dark side.

Am I repeating myself?

She has that effect on you.

Giant chocolate flavor in this beer. The milk sugar that makes it a milk stout gives it a rich and creamy mouthfeel (man, I hate that word – must come up with something better to describe when a beer feels like liquid velvet in your mouth).
This is a lovely beer.

I’ll take another. Toot sweet!