New Beer Sunday (week 508)

Found this at Yankee Spirits in Attleboro, with it's incredible selections of beer. Although it claims to be a beer from Martha's Vineyard, it's actually contract brewed at Mercury Brewing in Ipswich, MA. This ale created a creamy head when poured, that sustained itself while I drank it, with some nice lacing. My initial taste reaction was one of good balance between caramel-tinged sweetness and a leafy vegetable flavor. So perhaps they really did add grape leaves from the vineyard as they claim on the bottle. The finish had a subtle bitterness. I have to admit I also like the wicked Mermaid on the label, with her 'bad' tatoo, and the saying on the cap! My overall opinion - Get Bad! A deeelicious ale that I would buy again, despite the fact it is a bit of a marketing gimmick that isn't really brewed out on the island.

 

New Russian Imperial Stout Sunday
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Greetings fellow NBS brethren! Weather in Central OH is cold with snow flurries. Seemed appropriate to break out this gem today.

Posting this with a little bit of a heavy heart as I'm learning that uptown Athens, OH was hit pretty bad with a fire last night. Not only is it the home of Ohio U, my alma mater, but also the home of a great brewery and great people at Jackie O's. It looks like they sustained some water damage but I'm trying to find out more. Anyway, say a prayer, send some positive vibes, do whatever you do but this BA is hoping they can survive and thrive again soon.

Hope you all have a fine American Ale in your snifter, flute, or pint glass today.

Peace, love, and malty-ness,

Matt

Evil Twin I Love You With My Stout

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24300/118553/?ba=mattcrill

4.45/5 rDev +6.2%

look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Aroma: Rum soaked raisins up front. Boozy vanilla and oaky notes assault the senses. Lots of rich dark fruit character. Very inviting.

Appearance: Jet black pour with a 2 finger khaki head. Head retention is fair. Appears still in the glass. Nice legs coat the snifter.

Flavor: More boozy raisin and vanilla notes up front. A pleasant roasted character asserts mid-palate. Notes of espresso, caramel, and toasted marshmallow fill the palate. There is a background earthy hop bitterness. Balance is to the roasted bitterness. Finish is dry with a long roasted aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with medium-low carbonation. Slightly oily and creamy.

Overall impression: A big, bad, bold stout. Worth savoring and aging. Well done!

 

5.6% alcohol. 11.7 IBU. Brewed in Katy, Texas. I bought a bottle at H.E.B. in The Woodlands, Texas.

 

Hey what's going on?!?

ugh... crazy week... but I am loaded with lots of new goodies and can't wait to dig em dig em!!

Going to be blasting out home made Thai curry as the lemongrass is officially harvested for the season. Love that mortar and pestle. Going very broke on my budget as lots of new goodies have been coming into the area too.

So what's new for our hero today?

Evil Twin / Intangible Ales Sour Bikini - Evil Twin Brewing


Evil Twin Brewing / Intangible Ales - Sour Bikini Pale by imbibehour, on Flickr

Review here or read below: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24300/82842/?ba=smakawhat

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Poured from the bottle into a tulip glass.

Minimal head creation, faint white at a finger to fall to a simple collar. Body color is kind of odd. A rusty and brown yellow. Opaque. Not much visible carbonation, and a little lifeless looking.

Big tropical fruit nose, hints of peaches, and juiced up lychee fruit. Not much else going on, not hinting of tartness or a sense of sourness coming. Real impressive juiced fruit aroma.

Palate comes with a light and refreshing session feel, but with a very wet body. Mild tartness and the fruit action comes nicely. Not much malt presence, as it seems to emphasize the other beers aspects. Not much chewy depth, but with a great fruity notes. Tolerable and controlled sour aspects, with moderate carbonation. An aftertaste of tannic pear skin a bit too.

It comes off as a real nice fruit aromatic beer with of course no added fruit which is impressive and sour twinge, so it's hard to pin down an angle. It is though a drinkable easy beer, but doesn't really grab me to have another.

look: 3.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

Final rating: 3.7
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I'm still sipping on the Narwhal. I reckon the ODell Woodcut will have to keep til next week.

 

Happy NBS!
Monday is creeping up on me like Nemesis. The weather is chilly and damp. Beer time yes?
Bell's Venus.
Soapy. The vanilla and the fruit with just a bit of alcohol left me with the impression of a (clean at least!) lady’s room. The apricot and sour was nice but the vanilla in it tasted artificial and like a tacked on froufrou note to fit the concept of Venus as a female astrological influence. Soap + artificial tasting sweetness with hints of floral and vanilla combine with the appropriate amber color and fluffy head, and somehow waxy mouth feel to give an impression of hand soap.


I’m sad that I missed Mars. Reports on that one where exciting. This is…yeah. Not so much. In conclusion? I love Bell’s usually but this is the perfect beer to hide in a bathroom and drink. Which is an alternative I may consider rather than facing the real world again tomorrow.

 

New Bourbon Barrel Wee Heavy Sunday

According to the National Weather Service, we are in line to get 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow, so I spent some quality time with my leaf blower this morning. Highs in the teens Tuesday. Man, I thought last winter lasted forever… I feel for you @Bitterbill. I antelope hunt over in Glenrock. -18 there is not the same as here. For those of you who tuned into WBAYDN edition #756, you may have seen this:


It did not turn out as well as I hoped. Need to tweak the ratios a bit still. I went with 2 caps full of bourbon (too much) and a 50/50 and then 60/40 in favor of cream stout, but I think it may need to be the other way. You out there @jzeilinger?

Annnywaaayyy… Today this is happening.




http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22072/78247/?ba=WesMantooth#navigation

Overall - An excellent bourbon barrel Wee Heavy. A do think it is slightly hot/boozy across the entire range of temperatures, and a tad thin on body, but has some really good qualities. For me, even though I enjoy it, I would personally have a hard time buying again based on the fact I can get (much better) Wulver for less money. I don't think anyone would be disappointed in this purchase though. I suggest trying if you see it.


I was looking at some small caliber pistols, and came across this review.

 

New Belgian Strong Pale Ale Sunday

Whoop! Whoop! The sound of the police.
Whoop! Whoop! The neighbor of the beast.



Sorry but this beer has that song stuck firmly in my head. Anyway, happy NBS guys! Cloudy and cold while working in the yard today. Okay so I was mostly raking leaves in piles so the little guy could romp through them. Very little was actually accomplished. The cloudy and cold part is true though. Pretty decent beer I brought back from NY a month or two ago, warming me up for sure.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/357/58731/

Cheers!

 

It’s a balmy 23 degrees in the largest city between Seattle and Minneapolis. I’m only half-kiddng when I say “balmy”. For most of the week, we’ve been enjoying the soul-destroying cold temperatures and wind chills that come with being on the extreme west edge of that nasty cold front that came down from Canada. On the plus side, we were “near-missed” by snow. I’m not emotionally prepared for snow yet, so that was fine with me.

Yesterday the college football gods gave me the spectacle of UW playing one of their best games against a good team this year, then yanked away victory literally in the final seconds. My EWU Eagles enjoyed a week off to rest up for what will hopefully be a victorious final game, followed by a playoff run. Last night I opened up a bomber of Fat from Silver City. It wasn’t a new beer, but I had to buy it in Olympia, and it was only the second or third bottle of it I’ve ever had. Silver City – please, please get your bottles distributed to Spokane!

Today I went with an IPA from Tacoma that I liked way more than most (nearly +26%), but only one other BA has gone beyond rating it and actually wrote a review, and he liked it too:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32084/115065/?ba=woemad

I thought it was kind of like a throwback to the old bitter & piney IPA style, which I happen to dig. Maybe it wasn’t trendy enough for some. I’ve got a couple of other goodies on-deck, and this Seahawk game is virtually guaranteed to cause some desperation drinking, so I’ll be back.

 

In a world with no shortage of good IPA's it looks like we have another one.
Sierra Nevada Boomerang IPA This is the palest IPA I think I've ever seen. Light of body, full of citrus and very refreshing. Boomerang would be a great summer brew. I wonder why it's in the Snow Pack. Awesome beer in any case.

 

New Belgian IPA Sunday

Gonna hold off watching Red-zone until the 1 pm games are finishing up just before the birds game .
It looks like close to 3,000 have had this one but not me.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/220/57912/?ba=FatBoyGotSwagger



I like it, Cheers!

 

Two Brothers' Wobble IPA (review #752)


Pickles

Cat knows there's sammitches up there...

But getting none, settles in instead...

Cool games - a lotta excitement, right?

Speaking of cool, how cool is Amazon Prime?

Ordered Friday night, delivered today

There's a thread about how much beer you need in order to do a review...

I need a full glass (12 oz.), but ideally, I wanna have two full pours...

"One for you and one for review"

Real nice IPA - nothing that's gonna leap into your top 10 or anything, but clean, fresh, and hop-forward with a well-executed assemblage of pine and citrus impressions. Malt base is appropriately scaled, lending some roundness and chew, but nothing to draw your attention away from the hop action.

Of course, while I've been posting...



Nothing new from this point on, so I'll see ya in WBAYDN...

Here's to new beers Cheers!

 

Bottled 10/16/13. Poured 11/16/14. I got this in Wisconsin in July. Finally cracked it open.

Appearance: Aggressive pour brought on a slow forming brown head that wound up being three fingers in height. This stout is pitch black with nothing getting through the glass. The lacing is really great -- plenty of it all over the glass. (4.5/5)

Smell: Everything you'd want from an Imperial Stout: lots of chocolate and roasted malt. There's some coffee character in there, but that aroma accents more than anything. I don't get any kind of dark fruits on the aroma, but I do get a caramel quality and a plain cake doughnut sort of smell that I usually pick up in high ABV stouts -- especially BBA'd ones. I know, I'm weird. (4.75/5)

Taste/feel: Absolutely delicious. The taste is almost exactly like the aroma, and I have zero problems with that. The mouth feel is fantastic... not super heavy, but pretty full-bodied, with a light carbonation. It feels like chocolate milk in beer form. Lots of smooth milk chocolate flavors coming through in this beer with caramel malts... the finish is some roasted malt and coffee with a little much needed bitterness that balances out the initial sweetness. I don't really get any dark fruit flavors to speak of... this reminds me of a more balanced Chocolate Manifesto. Speedway Stout still remains a somewhat sweet Imperial Stout overall, but then again it is 12% ABV. (4.5/5, 4.75/5)

4.63/5 (rDev +5.5%)

Excellent, and the best I've had from the style. Worthy of every bit of the praise it receives.

 

Pours a dark, cloudy, orange-brown with a fluffy head that persists quite a while.

Smell is spicy: cinnamon and nutmeg prevalent.

Taste: I'm not anything like an expert, but this reminded me of some of the Abbey Ales I have tried: fruity but not sweet, with a dry finish. Not bad overall.

Feel: mouthfeel seemed medium; not overly heavy nor light.

Overall: I'm not a fan of the style, but this one was pretty well done. I won't go out of my way to find it again, but I would gladly drink it if it was available.

 

2 caps? not meaning to preach. i've experimented similarly, many times. if you are trying to get something near the influence of typical "barrel aging", you'll probably want a medicine dropper adding like 3-5 drops. try putting the spirit in the glass first swirling it around gently, then pour the beer over it.

 

I guess I should have specified roughly 1 cap for each glass, but I agree. It was still 3-4 times more than needed. After all, those barrels are in fact empty when they put beer in them. Hard to recreate that "seeping" effect. Obviously, I dont expect to do what they acheive in 10 months in in 10 seconds, but some have turned out to be quite enjoyable. The weird thing is, I did 1/2 of an oz in a pumpkin beer and loved it, but that is way too much for any imperial stout. I suppose because the ABV is already considerably higher. Thanks for the input

 

Can you spot my cat in this pic?

 

Although I've heard of the other two, I'm most familiar with Richard Thompson, who I've really come to like over the last few years. Why a guitarist of that caliber isn't a bigger name than he already is boggles the mind.

 

Like I said, I've seen him here twice over 20 years, and he is an amazing guitarist, showman, and a "quiet" legend. My musician friends revere him as the "best" guitarist and keeper of tradition that exists.