New Beer Sunday (week 540)

New Beer Sunday: New Zealand Elemental Porter Ale.

Evenin NBSers with special greetings to the fans of portable palatable porters.

Peeked in a couple of times earlier today, knowing that the BIF reports would be running rampant. Wasn't wrong there, this thread is already almost twice as long as usual with some great sounding beers being described.

Today was almost picture perfect here with nice breezes and relatively low humidity (for this area... ) so there was a lot of time spent on continuing clean up after our storm earlier in the week. This time around there was no doging the bullet and Tuesday night several areas in PA and NJ had multiple trees down and there was so much damage that some folks still don't have power back. Fortunately we didn't lose power or cable and internet service. While a falling tree branch did take the power cables and the phone line down the only thing we lost was land line phone service (but some of the cell providers were also badly impacted by loss of power and signal). Fortunately we got the power cables back up off the ground on Wed and finished off the repairs to the damage done when it pulled down.

Also today saw a trip to the gym, some "honey-do" items ticked off, and some grocery shopping done.

Tonight's new beer is from Renaissance Brewing in New Zealand and is called Elemental. Nice label and it clearly says what I'm drinking is a Porter Ale, so I guess the New Zealanders haven't heard some of the lectures by certain BAs about how Porters are not Ales.... I've been fortunate enough in the past to make more than one trip to Australia on someone else's nickel, (but not New Zealand) and I recently realized with a sense of guilt that while I'd had multiple Aussie beers I'd never had one from New Zealand. So when I found this one I bought a bottle to try (despite its rather high price tag as an imported beer).

My ongoing review is here (as usual subject to revision until I finish the beer):

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16534/40371/?ba=drtth

For music this evening I picked a recording that includes a performance by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, a highly successful New Zealand born Soprano with a stellar international career, in one of her finer performances. She often played the role of the Countess Almaviva in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." So thats the recording that's on the player tonight.

So you can get a sense of her talents, here is a link to a concert performance of one of the Countesses arias from Le Nozze de Figaro. In this aria The Countess is expressing how she feels when she has reason to think her husband no longer loves her.






Cheers, All!

 

I know this beer may be old hat to many, but we've only had Founder's in Oklahoma for about a year now. I was more than happy to be able to sample this one in a mixed sixer I picked up yesterday.

4.12/5 rDev +2.5%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

I ran across Old Curmudgeon at Brown's in Stillwater, OK - the best beer store in this part of OK. Since I'm a little gun shy when it comes to Old Ales, I decided to pick one in the store's mix-a-six deal so I could try it on for size.

I was pleased with the clear copper color, but not the wispy thin white foam that all but vanished before I could get a pic with my phone camera. Kind of expected for the style and abv.

I caught a whiff on the pour and I could tell that this beer was going smell fantastic. It did - molasses, sweet grapes, apples, cherries, all simmering together with donuts afloat.

Flavors align with the nose, but there's a slight alcohol presence and hop twist in there. All the sweetness, alcohol, and hop bite held together with that oak wood vanilla in the background. Very nice.

I know higher abv beers are not well endowed with bubbles, but I wish this old ale had a little more punch in that area. The medium body is great with a grilled steak. That's what I did with the second half of the glass. Good steak beer.

Overall, this is the best of the style I've encountered and style aside, it's just a great beer. Not something I'd seek out often, but I will buy a 4 pack with each new year from now on. Drink good beer!

 

Oh, I hear you. The job market's better where I grew up than where I live now, and my parents want me to move back and are constantly pressuring me to do so, but I grew up absolutely hating the place. It's better now than it was back then, but there's still a bad taste in my mouth about it, so moving back home is absolutely the last option.

 

For those of you paying attention, one of my GF's friends graced us with some good beers in a recent meet (I see zero hands raised). We "won" the non-competition, getting KBS (used in side-by-side vs Sunday Morning Stout), a New Glarus Beer (on NBS), a couple year old BCBS (cellared with 2014), and this:


To be honest, when I saw this brought home (I was sick and couldn't meet up), my mind said: you've... seen/heard... of this... right? A bit later, I know local brewery does a wheatwine (Adroit Theory - Lux), which was decent, and their recent version was barrel-aged in Sherry and whiskey barrels.

Not sure what 6 (yes, six!) years does to this beer. I shouldn't be shocked with the age, as I follow DFH, and they constantly have vintage beers at special occasions; plus, I've been on BA a whopping 2 years now, and seen the posts of patient BAs. My cellar started at most 2 years ago, so this is a novelty to me.

Pour is cloudy amber-brown, initially clear, but the later pour did have sediment-induced cloudiness. Nose definitely has some spirit nature to it... but it is generic whiskey. Note, I gave myself the "first squeezin's" on this, and the GF got more sediment. So in the overall beer, not sure how this held up. However, both beers had a whiskey nature to the flavor. There's a little tart dark fruit (raisin), as well some sweet potato-like earthy vegetable. The maple is likely the missing element I can't quite place in the equation. The sediment-laden version had more spiciness (root beer/sasparilla like) to it.

We combined our remaining beer, and a whiff produced an almost fusel alcohol note. Further sniffs indicated [very] hard apple cider. Other than that, the combined beer seemed to have a light licorice flavor, and was both a bit more earthy and a tad more sweet.

Very interesting for my first consumer-applied cellar-aged beer. I am not sure what complexity was lost and what was added. I enjoyed the beer quite a bit, but am not sure what I had would be worth 6 years compared to what I can have fresh nowadays. Regardless, much thanks to our friend who gave us the beer; very much worth the experience.

 

Greetings All:

Extraordinarily hot here in the Pacific Northwest this weekend. Triple digit temps. I lived in the desert southwest for a few years back in the 1980's and heat doesn't generally bother me, but this is something.

So I thought I would drag out a fruit beer, part of the Blue Moon (Coors) summer sampler. Blackberry Tart Ale was more of an amber in my book, and not a real good one. I was hoping for an extra pale or a blonde ale with some blackberry flavor. Not the case.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/92402/

Well, we saw 105 on the front porch thermometer this afternoon. Now it's down to 104. Very warm for this part of the country this time of year. The wheat field out back is turning amber fast, so the farmers bet be oiling up the combines. Going to be an early harvest.

Until next time.

Happy Trails!

 

Next time a good batch hits the shelf I will make sure to send you a can!

 

Good evening all you malt Mavericks in NBS land.

Wet and dreary here in my slice of paradise. Second weekend in a row for a cookout rainout. The good news is no yard work, but the grass will be a foot tall by midweek. I guess ya can't win.

Grocery shopped and not buying any grill stuff made it more of a chore than usual. We've been driving by this BBQ truck for the last year and said what the heck. The local firemen and police are hittin this place, so why not? Good call overall. Moist and juicy chicken. Melt in your mouth brisket and good pulled pork. Jury is out on the ribs (especially after seeing @WesMantooth finished product over on WBAYDN). Meaty, good texture, but maybe a bit over-smoked. All in all, thirty bucks well spent.on this damp, raw day.

Well, got to wash it down with something. Todays victim is Allagash Century Ale, a brett saison, bottled February 5, 2015. The aroma is very nice. A blend of crackers and biscuits. Then a kind of tropical fruit aroma that promises sweet and tart. Very mellow. The pour is clear golden nectar with a frothy, lively head that lasted a few minutes but clung to the glass like spiderweb...very pretty beer. The taste followed the nose. It is sweet and sour at the same time. The sweetness seems to tame down the sour. Neither dominates. Nice, funky earthiness and some vague citrus/tropical fruitiness. Very lightly bitter. Lively on the tongue, yet medium bodied. Bubbly yet has some heft to it. I'm diggin' it. Pleasant drinking beer that I'd like to try a little closer to the bottling date.

 

Next beer of the box,

Ice Harbor's IPA
Very grainy picture this time (sorry)



Pours a light amber with a beige colored head. Head retention is pretty good.

Smells smacks me in the face with rye. Also, I'm not sure what malt is used in most red ales, but that is what this smells like. Bitter, hoppy, red with some rye spiciness.

Taste is honestly more fitting for an imperial red ale to me than an IPA. Bitter resinous hops punch right up front, fading into a rich, slightly sweet malt backbone.

Mouthfeel is creamy rather than crisp. Medium plus bodied.

Overall a good beer, just not what I was expecting out of an IPA, but I like being surprised.

 

Had one of these as a nightcap last night. Agree a lovely beer, but I wish the bitter ending was toned down just one notch, myself. Maybe for my preferences I need to cellar it a bit?

 

It's worth a trip. They have a really nice and spacious patio that over looks an airport hangar and the mountains. They have a ton of water water misters, which was key because it was over 90. I didn't ask about blank growlers as I didn't have one but their fill prices were very reasonable.

 

Hey, it's new to YOU. And we like hearing from YOU.

 

It ages nicely, I still have 3 bottles of 2012 laying around. I feel that changes as it ages haven't be very dramatic, but it does mellow out

 

#2, also from 18th Street ..... THIS is a home run.



4.19/5 rDev +1.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Look: jet black, 2 fingers of tan head. Gorgeous.

Smell: coffee, dark chocolate, dark fruit, minimal booze.

Taste: immediate dark chocolate, more dark chocolate, and more dark chocolate. Then the oats kick in, balancing with a little coffee bitterness. Simply outstanding.

Feel: creamy lusciousness. Very full-bodied and "chewy."

Overall: GOOOOAAAALLLLL!!!!! This is, IMHO, an excellent representation of the style. Well done by the 18th Street folks.

 

Incredible beer. I love their tardy porter and nut brown as well.

 

I had it for the first time a few days ago. It's a nice beer. I look forward to trying it with a fresh palate. The last time I had it was after a couple of other beers and I think it negatively effected the perception of the beer for me ( although I still enjoyed it). smutty is an underated brewery.

 

Good evening. It's been a long day of driving RV out of Kansas into panhandle of Oklahoma heading east. Stopped for dinner and a beer at Bricktown Brewing in Oklahoma City, and have settled just east of there at Watkins Lake, McCloud, OK to camp for the night. My NBD is "Chocolate Stout" from Fort Collins Brewing, Fort Collins, CO.



Black pour with thin khaki head. Good carbonation but little foam even with aggressive pour. No head retention or lacing. 3.5

Aromas of chocolate and toasted bread. Nothing more. 3.25

Dark bittersweet chocolate, roasted malt, and a slightly bitter hop finish. 3.75

Lite, dry cracker like mouthfeel. Wish there was more chocolate for the tongue. 3.25

Bittersweet chocolate finish with some hop bitter to keep this from being on the sweet side. Honestly, I was really looking forward to drinking and reviewing this beer, but it was underwhelming. I wish it had more chocolate or even a bigger roast presence to beef up the flavor. Still it was a perfectly drinkable stout. 3.50

 

Gettysburg did it for me. There were places I could not stop looking over my shoulder...honest to God.

Legend has it that what is now a root cellar in a barn where we kept our horse was originally a tunnel from the nearby river and was part of the underground railway. Definitely a place of power...and the horses avoided the area. They knew.

 

Back at it players thanks to the bif and @rgordon .

Another new beer from Nathahala brewing co. Judaculla, a bb RIS. Had my eye on this since I got the box.

Pours an oily black color. Nose gives some stiff malty tones. The taste comes off smooth and smokey. Lots on nice malts with a touch of chocolate. The barrel is a bit subtle but I do get a good feel of the bourbon and woody notes. Other flavors of lactose really come on the more I drink it.

Overall, not the best I've had but a solid offering. Probably in the low 4's for the most part.

 

New Session IPA Sunday

Greetings,
A new beer from @beertunes courtesy of NBS BIF #2.
A beer with a fun name and label that makes me think of this.

but it actually looks like this.

A solid session IPA.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20679/106318/?ba=garymuchow
So I have a beer and I'm going to watch night 2 of the Fare Thee Well gigs. So I guess @beertunes is, in fact, the way to go.
Best to all