Fancy Pants Sunday: Stickmen Abricotdabra!

While technically not located in the sticks, Stickmen Brewing Company’s two brewhouses are just south of Portland Oregon, in the beer sticks compared to the city’s bustling beer mecca. In 2013, Stickmen owner and brewer Tim Schoenheit opened his 7-barrel system in Lake Oswego, a ritzy lake community definitely not in the sticks. His newer location, a 30-barrel system in Tualatin, might be more stick-ish, but it has an urban suburban feel with most residents owning their homes. . Maybe Schoenheit is a drummer. Or a baseball player. Or a hiker. Or a jouster. Anyway, Schoenheit skipped stick figures as brand artwork, probably because Stickmen is anything but simple, as Fancy Pants Sunday: Stickmen Abricotdabra! proves.

While IPAs anchored Stickmen’s early years, barrel-aged stouts, porters, and experimental sours are filling more and more tanks, including the boozy and tart Belgian tripel, Abricotdabra! (10.2%). The Belgian-style tripel sees barrel time on apricots for one year with Brettanomyces. It’s time well spent; you can’t swing a stick and not hit sharp apricot flavor. The heavy, barrel-rich tripel also offers notes of vanilla oakiness, earthiness, funk, and citrus fruit acidity.

Abricotdabra!?! Wait! Maybe Schoenheit is a wand-carrying wizard?

Well, he’s definitely a wizard with wood.

You fancy Stickmen Abricotdabra!