New Beer Sunday (week 513)

Someone needs to put together a Hell tasting, with stuff like Mephistopheles, A Deal with the Devil, Moloch, Darkness, Dark Lord and the like.

 

I am wasting no time collecting my due.

Very pleasant. Drinking like an English ale. Very little carbonation, nicely balanced.

 

Good evening NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend again. I've been battling the flu all weekend, but my sinuses have genuinely been cleared up. Joint and Muscle pain and migraines are another issue. Here's todays new beers!

This is a nice and pleasant brown ale. Labeled as a "dark ale", but I would quickly throw in under a Belgian category after this review. Aromas have some noticeable raisin/plum and light banana notes along with pepper/clove esters. Taste has caramel, brown sugar, toast, orange peel, brown bread, light chocolate, clove, pepper, light raisin/banana, and herbal/yeast earthiness. A fair amount of earthy yeast spiciness on the finish. Well balanced malt, spice, and yeast flavors. Smooth, fairly crisp, and lightly creamy mouthfeel. Good robustness of flavors. Overall quite enjoyable. 3.68


Great imperial coffee stout. Amazing appearance with a dense lasting head and thick lacing the whole glass. Big aromas with dark chocolate, dark roasted coffee, dark toasted bread, some light smoke/char, and some light pine/herbal hop notes present. Taste of big dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, toast, dark bread, light smoke/char, light pine, and some herbal hop/roasted earthiness. Good amount of roast/char and herbal hop bitterness on the finish. Nice balance of roasted bitterness/sweetness in flavors with the hop flavors not becoming too overdone. Very smooth, moderately creamy, a bit sticky/chalky mouthfeel from hops and coffee. Labeled as a sweet stout; but there is no lactose in this beer at all, and the amount of bitterness present also disqualifies that category. Definitely a great all around coffee stout otherwise. 4.05


Another delicious sweetened fruit lambic. Nice aromas with big sweet/tart raspberries, candi sugar, with some hay/grass, light pepper, and some earthy yeast and oak notes. Taste is much of the same: sweet and tart raspberries, candi sugar, with hay/grass and light pepper with some yeast/oak earthiness. Nice fruity tart/acidic finish. Nice sweetness/tartness balance of fruit flavors; no cloying sweetness at all. Very smooth, fairly crisp, slightly syrupy finish. Flavors are all about the raspberries, some light yeast funk and oak too; but it was all expected considering the route that Lindeman's goes with fruit lambics. Had the same opinion with the Kriek earlier this month, will have to try the rest of the lineup in the next few months. It's massively flavorful and any fruit beer fan will love it. 4.1


A really good Abbey dubbel style. Nice persistent head and lacing. Nice balanced aromas with dark bread/sugar and pale/darkish fruits with some pepper/clove spice. Taste of caramel, toast, brown sugar, brown bread, nuttiness, raisin, plum, pear, apple, red grape, pepper, clove, and some herbal/earthy hop and yeast flavors. Nice spicy finish with some bready-like tartness. Well balanced malt and yeast flavors. Very smooth and fairly crisp finish; not too dry. Some moderate creaminess. Overall really well balanced with good yeast and malt complexity all around. No complaints. 4


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

I propose adding The Sixth Glass
Also if you don't invite me to that tasting you and I can't be friends.

 

I've never been to Alabama, so sure thing.

 

To celebrate having a working computer again and having my first-ever traffic ticket paid off without any problems, I got myself an early Christmas present... new beer. XD


Spotted this at the local Kroger; had seen the 12-packs occasionally but never 6-packs before. I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce "Urquell" (in my head I've been saying it as "ur-kwell" but the kinda funny thought that it could be pronounced like "Urkel" instead has come to mind), but I've been wanting to try another pilsner ever since finding out that the Bohemia I had at the local Mexican place fell into that category, so I picked this up.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm not picking up any of that lemony flavor I really liked in Bohemia (I guess they use different hops?), but still not bad at all. Reminds me of... biscuits, actually. I get various "bread" flavors from a lot of beers but this definitely tastes more like biscuits specifically than just bread-in-general. There's another vague flavor I'm noticing sometimes that I can only describe as "carbonated/fizzy flavor" in there (not just the actual feeling of carbonation but something that almost reminds me of some of the lighter-colored sodas, like Sprite and such--not sure of any other way to describe it), but overall pretty light compared to most beers I've had.

I think I'll have a couple more of these (...not all tonight though, I can't afford to drink my way through them that fast! XD) before I put together an actual review.

 

Sadly, I didn't make it to a new beer today, outside of some fresh 2014 BCBS, but that doesn't really count since I've had it before (not 2014 though).

I need to keep more than one 12 oz. bottle in the fridge, especially when that one contains coffee. Ugh!

Sorry NBS! Maybe next week.

@Shroud0fdoom, we should have this beer in MD, but it might be in the $30 range, which is why it stuck around. However, it might not be the cherry version.

 

One of my favorites. I have a 22 in the DBF just waiting for a cold January day.

Cabin Fever by Boundary Bay Brewing of Bellingham, WA

 

Where did you pick that up at? That's a longtime fav of mine, and I haven't seen it locally for years.

 

Get my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. THAT should be fun...
That aside I'm super amped for our little BIF that's coming up. I might be stalking my target to a mildly creepy level.
Got to my parents place yesterday for the holiday season, and got to see all the puppies. Missed these goobers. Can't wait until my place is ready to take my little Porter pumpkin back down to the city. She's gotten so much worse about coming to her name and walking on a leash though, and I'm worried about that trend. She's young though, hopefully with some formal training she'll get back to it.
Weather is wet and muddy back in the bog from whence I came. Excited about the days getting longer!
Got back on the basketball court again tonight for the first time since significantly messing up my ankle a couple of months ago. It was fun. Couldn't hit a shot to save my life, but had a couple of really satisfying blocks, even if we lost more games than we won.
Crazy game from the Hawks today. First half was too close playing against a third string QB, but after halftime... whooooo. Madness. BEASTMODE! If the Cardinals can get their full team healthy, that's a team to be reckoned with. Bruce Arians is unbelievably good as a coach. They finally seem to have at least competent O-line play. They've got a fantastic wide receiving corps. That defense is solid on all three levels. They need a reliable RB and QB (which I actually believe Carson Palmer CAN be [I know, I know...] assuming his career is not over), but that's a team right there. Anyway.

Today's new brew is one that I've seen pop up a couple of times here in our lovely little community, and one that seems to vacillate pretty wildly from section to section. Cedar Plank, from Green Flash is a pretty little liar, that starts out amazingly tropical fruit juicy as soon as I popped the cap off. With a massive white head. The aroma set it up nicely, but then you start sipping and it starts out kind of weak. Watery and a little bit of that tangerine tropical fruit sweet, but there just seems to be something missing. Maybe more malt support would give it better body and a more rounded flavour profile. It moves into a fairly bitter bit as it goes along: pine and pith through the finish. I can convince myself that the pine is actually cedar, but I wouldn't have gone there if not for the label. Decent little APA, but a little bit thin on the front and I wanted more pronounced cedar. I'm a sucker for cedar: it holds great significance to my upbringing. Religious ceremonies and just living being surrounded by cedar trees here in my little neck of the woods... I've had two now that profess to be cedar-ified. This is the lesser of the two on the cedar front.

Cheers to everyone, hope you're enjoying your sunday!

 

I'll keep an eye open. $30 a 750 isn't all that bad, especially if it's damn enjoyable. If it's not enjoyable, then lesson learned.

 

Some of us still do and I encourage you to join again each Sunday and help me rekindle that tradition. Cheers!

 

Hi Wasatch,

Nice to see you in NBS. I really like the picture you are using for your Avatar. Reminds me of places I've not seen in way too long a time and of things I've not had a chance to do much of since moving back East.

Cheers!

 

Enjoyed some GREAT New England IPAs yesterday that were new for me. All very good and exactly what I'm liking now in IPAs. Lots of hop flavor without all the massive bitterness and a bone dry finish.