New Beer Sunday (week 545)

Seriously that is fantastic. And completely the way I operate. To me its like dangling a carrot in front of a donkeys (in my case) nose. I'll just keep on going- keeping my eye on the prize. In this case delicious and unusual beer. And your review was tantalizing. I TRY not to drink until the works done. And rarely before like 2 minimum not taking into consideration special occasions like: football tailgates, wedding parties, fishing ,bbqs, vacations, jam sessions, camping, boating, hiking,....oh shit....

 

Closing out NBS with Tree House's "That's what she Said" milk stout. As is always the case with TH, the mouthfeel on this beer was amazing! I thought the rest of the beer was solid, but not other-worldly. My score was 4.01; rAVG 4.2. I noticed a lot of reviews talk about how 'good, but not great' this was but still rate it 4.3-4.5. Smh! It is what it is. Not bad; not great. Solid is the word I would use to describe.

 

As a native Memphian I will agree that this is probably my least favorite of their canned offerings. Still a good one though., considering their other canned stuff is phenomenal. There are many things I miss about Memphis when I moved up to NW Indiana in January. Wiseacre is one of them. But now they're distributed to Chicago, so I'll be able to grab some next time I'm up there. Cheers!

 

Terreux Beret
The Bruery
American Wild Ale / 9.00% ABV
4.31/5rDev n/a | rAvg: 4.01
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

750 ml bottle poured into a Belgian style tulip
A: Pours a golden orange color with a white head that quickly disappeared, decent amount of lacing, not a whole lot of carbonation, cloudy.

A: Tart funkiness up front, raspberries, hint of sweetness, no alcohol, not getting any oak presence on the nose, hint of apricots, smells really good.

T: Tart, funk, raspberry sourness, slight oak, finishes with a big wheat presence, grassy, earthy, herbal notes, hint of spice, lots of flavors, complexity, and depth. As the beer warms the spice is more prevalent with slight banana sweetness coming through.

M: Low carbonation, dry, light mouthfeel.

O: I am impressed, lots going on, tart, funk, raspberry, slight apricot, some oak, what makes Beret interesting to me is the presence of wheat in the finish, adds a nice dimension of grass, earth, herb notes. Very good. I've never had a sour wit ale and will be on the lookout for some comparison to Beret.

 

I agree. Love Gotta Get Up To Get Down, Tiny Bomb and Ananda, which I get fresh in Nashville.

 

Part of Bells Planet Series. I haven't been keeping track of each planet beer or I shall say I haven't been suckered into Bell's marketing scheme. Anyway I saw this at the grocer store and was intrigued.

It's an ale brewed with all sorts of crazy ingredients. The label sounds pretty gross to be honest.

Great pour, thick mocha head. Rich smell of coffee, caramel and earth. Taste is similar but very strong earthiness, sweetness and some lingering heat. Interesting brew to be fair. Definitely better than expected. Cheers!

 

Hey great post man. The description of the family get together was awesome. Makes me think of childhood and what summer is about. BUT the beer, you sold me on that - gotta get it...

 

Well Done, Sir!!!

 

Most likely the night capper.

My last Boulevard Brewing Co. - The Sixth Glass

 

Enjoying this for the first time. A very interesting take on a Pale Ale. I guess they make them different in the South Pacific.

 

What do you think of it? What makes it interesting? Any description of the aromas and flavors? Thanks.

 

So what's it like? Any interesting aromas and flavors going on there?

 

White hawk IPA from Mendocino and a wexford irish cream, made the craziest sound when I opened the can and kinda reminded me of the way a gunniess looks when poured..........

 

Yum, yum and yum. That pie is right up my alley. Along with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller. JoJo, great BS tune....

 

GOOD MORNING NBS!!

Sorry. Just trying to channel my inner Robin Williams.

Anyway I was absent last week from NBS due to a trip to TX to visit the girlfriend. She doesn't like when I buy a bunch of beer only to throw it in my cellar (read closet), but she loves going to breweries with me because she always has unexpected fun, and hey, I usually get some good beer too. She lives in Houston, and back last December I convinced her to go to Austin and visit Jester King with me. Well she fell in love with the place (though she doesn't like funky beer) and now it is a regular visit when I come into town. I refuse to complain. I absolutely refuse to complain. Especially when I get to go to an Atrial release and she stands in line with me for an hour or so in 105 degree heat so I can get an extra bottle. Yeah....she's a keeper.... She did steal two of my yellow rose bottles though. Not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, I came back up to the Region and proceeded to have the longest week of work I've had since moving up here. Friday rolls around and I get surprised by a note at my door saying that there was a box for me. I wasn't expecting anything. But I was surprised by a nice box from @CraigTravor with a Heady and some SOS. Hell yes.

Anyway, y'all are here for the beer. Not my stories. So here we go...

I looked in my fridge for today and realized I don't have anything new. But then I spied this from behind another bottle. Part of @woemad 's BIF box, I almost forgot about this one. Anyway I present...

Huckleberry Pucker from Paradise Creek Brewery.


Pours a nice hazy golden yellow. Almost orangey amber. Large chalk white head. Decent lacing. 4.25

Smell has a slightly sweet, tart berry scent mixed in with some yeast phenols. Crisp tartness and green apple present as well. 4

Taste begins with a flash of puckering tartness. Semi-sweet berry flavor moves in mid-palate. Nice crisp and clean. Kinda taste like liquid sweet tarts. Actually, that is a perfect descriptor. The finish has this nice sour flavor that lingers and isn't extremely intense, but the enamel on my teeth start to feel it. 4.25

Mouthfeel is actually great. There is this bubbly carbonation that dances on the tongue. 4.5

Overall a nice take on the Berliner Weisse. I really enjoyed this one.

 

lol thanks!

Worked out nicely, and had a lotta fun - one in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

My fave was the Smaug stout, it had the most leeway (as a style) in my eyes, and delivered a nice flavor and feel. The pilsener and tripel were really just DIPA-type beers, both thick and fruity, one more citric than the other - both a little bit mediocre as reps for their style (or my expectation of them). Fun day of drinking, Hobbit-style...

Cheers...

 

This is the rare Lagunitas beer that I have not tried in the past for one reason or another.

Lagunitas Daytime Fractional IPA

Poured out into a Bruery tulip glass

A: Very light yellow in color, almost looks as pale as an American Adjunct Lager. Single finger of head, plenty of bubbles coming up, head dissipated about halfway into the glass.
S: Oranges, floral spices, grapefruit, crackery malts faintly in the background, lemongrass, lemon-lime
T: Follows the nose a bit, more emphasis on the lemon-lime, lemongrass qualities, finishes with a small pop of bitterness. Lemon in the aftertaste.
M: Bite upfront, medium carbonation hits your tongue fairly hard, very thin mouthfeel, finishes up dry as a bone.
O: Good session IPA, it seems like this would pair best with hot weather and activities. Sitting and drinking its a little too thin for my liking. It's not bursting with hops quite as much as sessions like Go-To, which is my session of choice.

 

Howdy NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend. Thanks to @cavedave for getting us started off today. I had a hardcore multitask day today. I brewed my American red ale I couldn't brew last week, 2 loads of laundry, and got all my deposits returned. Still need to get an immersion heater coil because it still takes forever to boil. Anyways, I boiled off a bit more than I expected so I got 5 instead of 5.5 gallons, no big deal. Mashed a little higher than I wanted but it shouldn't be a problem. I still don't know how the WLP008 will perform as I have never used it before. I do know the flocculation is going to be a bit difficult, but I've got a plan for that anyways. (gelatin)

Yesterday I had a giant beer haul and got my Singles stock filled up with more new beers; with a few pricey bomber limited selections.

Here are today's new beers:

A seriously delicious C hop IPA, very classic feeling. Aromas and flavors of juicy grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, lemon zest, orange peel, and pine; with some moderate caramel/toasted bread maltiness and floral/grassy hop earthiness. Moderate pine/citrus rind bitter finish; with great sweetness/bitterness balance; moderate creamy/hop sticky mouthfeel as well. Very drinkable, hoppy, and balanced all around. I love C hops, this was really enjoyable. Pretty similar to Crooked Tree. 3.9


Yep this was so awesome. Great lasting head retention and dense lacing. Aromas and flavors of big milk chocolate, cocoa, peanut butter, caramel, toffee, toast, brown bread, and light herbal hops. Light herbal/roast bitterness on the finish. Great balance and robustness of malt and peanut butter flavors; with a good bitter/sweet balanced finish. Very smooth and moderately creamy/silky; slight chalkiness from the PB and roast malts. Great medium bodied feel. Similar to other PB beers I have had(mostly homebrews) the nose is an assault on PB presence, but the taste comes out more balanced. The only other similar craft beer I've had was the Belching Beaver one, this one was a bit more creamy and fuller bodied. I really loved this one. A very classic tasting porter profile to style at it's base as well. 4.22


My first Tennessee tick! As the name implies this is a very classic tasting and excellent saison. Nice head retention and plenty of streaming carbonation. Aromas and flavors of big lemon, pear, apple, apricot, white grape, light banana, pepper, clove, wheat, cracker, light honey, herbal, straw, grass, and yeast earthiness. Nice earthy/spicy yeast finish; with medium-high carbonation and a fairly crisp mouthfeel with light-moderate creaminess. Not too dry at all. Good malt presence. Overall absolutely excellent all around, very classic tasting saison, with great all around balanced flavors. 4.1


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Earlier today, I noticed some cheap cans in the discounted beer cart at my local Kroger. Cans of things I probably wouldn't ever risk buying a full six-pack of. They were a dollar (in one case) or less (in the case of the one I'm about to try) per can, so I figured... well, I'm not blowing a ton of money on this, so why not?

I may be about to find out why not, but at least I didn't get a whole six-pack. XD




Country Club Malt Liquor.

So far I've avoided malt liquors entirely, but the six-packs of this one always had me a bit curious. This and Mickey's were the only malt liquor I've ever seen in six-packs, and those two also happened to be the only ones that had "standard beer" level ABVs rather than somewhere in the 8% range. Plus, the cans look kinda neat -- more of an "old-timey beer can" look to them rather than necessarily "cheapo crap."

Immediately upon opening the can, I'm smacked in the face with a big whiff of what I usually describe as the "hair salon smell" -- previously detected in the smell of Yuengling Lager and in both the smell and taste of Foster's Ale. Yeah, this does not smell good right off. A bit of a yeasty funkiness to it as well, which hangs around a bit longer than the "hair salon" grossness. Thankfully, once poured into the glass the nastier elements of the smell die down, replaced with a quick burst of sweetness and an almost pleasant bready sort of thing. Maybe this won't be as bad as the initial smell seemed after all.

Looks very, very pale yellow... very clear... and very bubbly. Not quite the pretty shiny golden sort of "clear yellow" of a pilsner or kolsch, it's a bit duller looking than that, and possibly even paler in color. The foam on top vanishes pretty quick, but the bubbles from the bottom of the glass are pretty big and moving pretty quickly. I can actually see them coming to the surface and popping, now that the foam's faded away into one tiny "island" around the center of the glass.

Tastes... well, mostly like corn right away. A little sweet, a little grainy, almost bready but not quite there. A bit of alcohol warmth that I wouldn't have expected from something with an ABV in the 5% range. It's pretty light and fizzy, but somehow ends up feeling a bit more substantial than a lot of the light, fizzy beers. It's actually not that bad -- certainly not anywhere near as bad as I had expected from the huge whiff of that awful smell the moment the can opened up. It's not anywhere near the nicest-tasting beer I've ever tried, and as I'm getting to about the halfway point of the glass I'm noticing a bit of a slightly gross sweetness starting to build up... but it's not anywhere near as bad as I was expecting a malt liquor to be. And I'm drinking this starting at "fridge temperature," not ice cold out of a frosted glass or anything. It doesn't seem to be changing much at all as it warms up, as far as I can tell -- that slightly off-putting sweetness that seemed to be building up earlier didn't ever get much stronger than it was when I noticed it building up, and now the glass is empty. I suppose it'd probably have plenty of time to get super gross if you were drinking a 40 of this (I've actually never seen it for sale around here in a 40, which is odd considering... well, it's a malt liquor and all), but as far as a 12-ounce can goes it's no problem.

Overall, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how gross this wasn't. The initial smell made me think I'd end up regretting picking up two cans instead of just one, but honestly I don't think I'll have any difficulty at all drinking the other one. Is this really good beer, compared to all the other beers I've had? No... no, it isn't. But is it undrinkable garbage? Also a definite no. Going by some of the descriptions I've read of the smells and tastes involved in other malt liquors, I'd have to say that this might be pretty damn good as far as malt liquor goes. It actually reminds me of Foster's Ale, but with the more unpleasant parts of that beer removed or toned down drastically -- the gross chemical-like sweetness in that one was much stronger from the start (rather than not being there at all at first and building up a little over time), the smell was worse (not quite as bad as the initial cracking-open-the-can blast of this one, but close) and never really improved much over time, and the feel was weirdly light for its color and ABV, as opposed to this one that felt pretty substantial for a 5%-range beer. Not bad at all for what is literally the cheapest six-pack beer in the store. I'd gladly trade the last bottle of Busch Signature sitting in my fridge for a third can of this.
Glancing over the page for this one on the site... yeah, I think it's safe to say my review for this one (coming whenever I drink the second can) will have a huge positive rDev % on it. XD

 

Greetings NBSers, Old & New.
Thanks to @cavedave for the wonderful start. Some great new blood representing here today.
After two+ weeks of travel to the PNW, and some great beering and a bit of fishing (not catching), I'm back and finally trying to get back to doing justice to @Prager62 's Behemoth of a NBS BIF #2 box. So here she be:

Pipeworks Sam vs. Unicorn Imperial Red Ale This glass is lifted in respect to @LeperJim 's Uncle Jack.

Pours a deep copper amber that shines like a penny at sunset. Slight light tan head foams up gently and then settles to a thin ring of lace that clings lazily to the glass.
Smell is a melange of both tropical hues and some earthy piney goodness. Really intriguing.
Ahhhh. The taste is pure heaven. The tropical hints start off with some pineapple and citrus but the piney comes through with a resiny sweet slick kiss. I really LOVE this beer.
Mouthfeel is full enough to hug your tongue in an oh-so-loving way.
Finish moves toward the piney, earthy, resin and is a bit slick.
I believe this is the best American Amber/Red I've ever had.
New status: PermaWANT.

Can't thank you enough Jim.