New Beer Sunday (week 549)

Good morning northern hemisphere. It is 11:30 Sunday night here in Auckland, NZ and I'm having a nightcap which should fit nicely into NBS:

Epicurean Coffee & Fig, an Imperial Oatmeal Stout from Epic Brewing Company Limited, Auckland, NZ





Strong roast coffee nose; fig and dark chocolate show up as liquid warms. Coffee flavor dominates, with some fig and a little vanilla in the middle. Creamy medium lite mouthfeel and a starchy tongue coating. The linger is a tad burnt coffee beans - overall a good coffee stout, I just wish it had more meat on its bones. Overall I'd give it a smidge above a 4.

Wife and I are house sitting for the next 6 weeks in the One Tree Hill neighborhood in south Auckland. Our house is one block from giant Cornwall Park. Today one of the roads thru the park was closed for strolling among the daffodils, "train" rides, and live music. The misty rain made the experience all the more fun. Cheers!

 

Good morning to all who join in this wonderful and fun community. I'm just taking a minute this beautiful late summer morning to share the picture of our morning glories that are in full bloom at this time of year here in NH. Our bikes are loaded on the car and we're headed over to the coast for a ride this morning but my new beer is in the fridge and I'll be back this afternoon to share it with you all.

 

Good morning BA!

Today for my first beer on this glorious "Two Beer Sunday" I have the latest from Ballast Point. This brewer is turning out to be excellent across the board in a variety of styles. This is Calm Before The Storm.

I have to admit that when I saw this offering in the store I passed it up because I thought, the cream ale shows a modest DMS presence and why would you introduce coffee or vanilla? You all seem to like it so here we go.




This is the cream ale made sumptuous by the addition of coffee and vanilla. No diacetyl on the nose and only an iota of dms. The vanilla is light and the coffee is fragrant. The malt is not too deep and the exciting contrast in this beer is not between malt and hops but between the blonde malt and the brunette coffee. The coffee is bold on the palate and your fist sip gives the illusion of a much heavier mouthfeel. The dms presence on the palate is not a hard taste but rather an openness on the malt. In other words the dms is not a strong flavor. The vanilla never becomes to strong & the hops are mild. It's actually that dms that shows you a trace of the herbal hop as your mouth waters from it. The body is light, crisp, lightly sweet but rich with the coffee and vanilla flavor. Decent carbonic bite finishes this one as it dries out on the tongue malty and not much residual sweetness. Moderate hops bitterness.




This is my sixth one.



What will Ballast Point do next?!


Cheers and Happy New American Style Cream Ale with Coffee and Vanilla Sunday!

 

7% alcohol. 70 IBU. Introduced in 2014. Brewed in Minnesota.

3.25/5 rDev n/a
look: 3.25 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.25

Traitor IPA has a thick, overflowing, off-white head of foam, an opaque, bubbly, orange-gold appearance, and thin lacing left on the glass. The aroma is of oily, vegetal, hop resin and background white bread. Taste is of piney, resiny hop oil, onion skin, faint rotten vegetable, and white bread. Bitterness is bold, yet not harsh. Mouthfeel is medium to heavy, and Traitor IPA finishes on the dry and drinkable end.

RJT

 

Was making a breakfast sandwich and now that there's two of us drinking the beer it does go fast.

Happy Two Beer and Maybe a Few More Sunday

Today for beer I have an authentic Czech Style Pilsner. Konrad's Svetle Piwo 14. That 14 stands for14 degrees plato and that translates to a slightly high abv of 6 % for this style. As for my beer preferences the pilsner is my preferred style. From there I prefer the German style pils rather than the bohemian pils.

This beer pours golden amber, bright with a white head that lasts a long time. Spontaneous bubbles make their way to the top cheerfully but not in droves. Mild malty nose with an extra dash of dapper hops. Weedy herbal and strong hop spice.

This beer is an easy mouthful and everything I like about the pils. Bread and hops meet and the finish is where the herbal really shines. Good swift bite from carbonation to keep that malt lively and crisp. No alcohol on the palate, no diacetyl, no dms.

The lack of bitterness in the czech style and the forward sweet herbal can sometimes over power the palate when combined with the czech style soft and doughy malt. However, I must say that this beer showed me a bitterness that I would liken to the humorous use of the word "gratis." It frees the finish beautifully and shows plenty of dry breadiness to the palate. I thought I tasted a brief hint of chalk in the middle of the beer and decided to ignore it.

Dry bubbly and very enjoyable. For this beer you need a BIG MUG!






Cheers you all =)

 

Greetings friends, I'm helping both of my children move and we're very busy between houses and them across new distances. We began the day cutting up another huge Ash limb down out back, hopefully not a victim of the encroaching ash borer issue around the region... we shall see.
I've just cracked a very fresh Foothills Hoppyum- and let me just say it is just what I need!
I'll just leave with another poem by Theodore Roethke, from The Far Field.

The Pike

The river turns,
Leaving a place for the eye to rest,
A furred, a rocky pool,
A bottom of water.

The crabs tilt and eat, leisurely,
And the small fish lie, without shadow, motionless,
Or drift lazily in and out of the weeds.
The bottom stones shimmer back their irregular striations,
And the half sunken branch bends away from the gazer's eye.

A scene for the self to abjure!-
And I lean, almost in the water,
My eye always beyond the surface reflection;
I lean and love theses manifold shapes,
Until, out from a dark cove,
From behind the end of a mossy log,
With one sinuous ripple, then a rush,
A thrashing-up of the whole pool,
The pike strikes.

Everyone have a good Sunday and I'll see you next week.

 

How many beans does it take to make a beer!?!

Apparently this year the answer is 4.

Sixpoint has made multi-bean beers in the past: 3Beans. I have never had a Sixpoint Bean beer before so this will be a new experience for me.

Let’s see if 4 is the ‘magic’ number (according to School House Rock 3 is a magic number)

Served in my 0.4 liter goblet:

Appearance:

The color of this beer is black. It has a thin creamy tan head that died down quickly.


Aroma:

The nose has aromas of chocolate, coffee, and vanilla.

Taste:


The flavor follows the smell with a pleasant balance of chocolate, coffee and vanilla.. There are subtle hints of sweetness.


Mouthfeel:


The body is medium with a smooth mouthfeel.


Overall:

The overall impression I get from this beer is desert beer since it has subtle sweetness and flavors of chocolate, coffee and vanilla. Even at 10% ABV the alcohol is well hidden in this beer; it is well crafted.

Cheers to @Sixpoint for a tasty beer!!



Does this bring back any memories?

 

Good morning New BSers! Thank you @cavedave for throwing down the gauntlet and getting today off to a start. Well, troops, we're heading off to Jester King again today so I'll get to try Fen Tao for the first time and get to stock up on Snorkel and Wytchmaker, two of my faves from JK. I just cracked a bottle of Vie en Rose to see what it was like - eh. Not a big fan of raspberry beer, no matter how well made it is. This is definitely well made.



Batch #4 – 07.13.2015 at 50 degrees into snifter
$ 14/750 mL bottle at Jester King
Aroma of raspberries, lasts the entire drink
Head small (1.5 cm, aggressive pour), white, frothy, diminishing to one mm ring and layer. Layer is unique in that the tiny bubbles form thicker spots on the larger, thinner, island. These spots look like early fungal growth on agar.
Lacing – small islands of tiny bubbles, quickly rejoining the ring
Body – pink, clear, effervescent
Flavor – raspberry, raspberry, raspberry – starts slightly sweet, ends slightly tart
Palate – light to medium, dry, lively carbonation

Appearance 3.75, Aroma 4, Flavor 4.25, Palate 4.25, Overall 4. Rating 4.11, rDev +2.0

 

Happy NBS. Family is quite ill (I haven't been sick since early 2012). Hopefully they will all feel better before school begins on Tuesday. Looks like summer will make a big push next week with temps in the upper 80s.

On this pleasant Sunday I am enjoying HF Florence. It pours hazy, deep straw yellow with a nice 2.5 finger white head. Retention is excellent and a thick cap with lacing remains for the session.

Aromas of citrus, peach/nectarine, and floral notes. There is breadiness from the pale malts and some grassy/earthy notes followed by hints grain. Quite citrusy, with light peach/nectarine flavors. Floral and earthy hops along with grassy notes fill in with a bready or cracker like malt. Just a bit of spice and funk on the finish.

Light and crisp with fantastic carbonation. A tad granular on the finish. Another terrific Saison from HF.



Cheers to everyone and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 

Hey everyone! It's been a while since a new beer day lined up with a Sun-day for me, but I always browse end enjoy everyone's post even when not contributing. Today, though, is a New Beer Sunday for me!



A 'Barrel Roll' from an airplane-themed brewery. Fun pun.



It's hot with a sharp aggressive bitterness. There's a bit of vanilla and chocolate too? Maybe even coffee? It kind of defies being pinned down. It definitely does the barleywine super-ESB flavour, mingling with spicy peppery bourbon?, it's kind of spicy. I settle on hazelnuts too. Generally sweet, so it's for sipping. I like it.

 

Thank you for Roethke - I need to rereread some poetry.

 

Jack, Schoolhouse Rock was my first album. Lucky seven sampson is my song and Five. Whose not ready holler I! I have 4 beans in the fridge =)

 

Maybe a back to school bug? Hope everyone is well soon.

 

Good morning my fellow NBS ers. On a recent VT beer run I was pleasantly surprised by a brew from the Prohibition Pig. I had already tried most of the well known local brews from the area - several from HF, the Alchemist and Lawson's - so I decided to try some of the Pro Pigs own brews. While they were all good but their Vanilla Bean Porter really blew me away. What a fantastic beer. Pours extremely dark with a great foamy head. Very nice - subtle vanilla. Wonderful flavor that has legs. Thankfully we made one last stop on the way home and I picked up a few Crowlers of it. Today seems like a perfect day to sit back and enjoy this amazing brew with a cigar. Liquid smiles with a tasty stick. Gonna be a good day. Cheers all

 

Happy New Beer Sunday from Canada's Capital! I'm living the bachelor life here, as my wife is in NY for a few days, so that has lead to a few more beers than usual for this guy . I'm headed down to pick her up in a couple of days and will be "resupplying" my stock for NBS for the next few weeks at least.

Today's new beer is Evil Twin Lil' B Imperial Porter



4.19/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

A: Pours a deep brown/black with a two finger root beer brown head. The head breaks rather quickly and there is just a touch of lacing left behind.

S: Dark chocolate, roasted malts, some anise, and you can definitely pick up some alcohol as well.

T: The roast malts come forward, followed by strong anise and mild chocolate. The beer is sweet, but there is a bitter finish at the end. Almost no hops presence.

M: Very smooth. Full feel with moderate carbonation. The alcohol is minimally present.

O: A nice imperial porter. Definitely a sipper because of the high ABV, but I would love to have it again. I would be afraid to let this one sit too long though, as I would expect it would only grow sweeter as it ages and it was already leaning toward the sweet side.

Hope everyone has a great day....perhaps a bit like this:

 

good late morning on a cloudy Chicago day

this is my first sacrifice of two

pours out thick and rich and produces only a thin tan head

scents of chocolate are present as well as some licorice notes

I would say it could use a bit more sweetness, just my thoughts, dry finish with no real aftertaste

I give it a 3.75/5 not the best of the best, but worth trying.

 

Drinking my beer early on NBS. Gotta leave the warm confines of the leper compound yet AGAIN today, yeah, and oooooooo look what I've got!!

Labatt Blue! It's made by the Labatt Brewing Company Ltd., dontcha know!



Never had it, but I'm sure ready to talk about it.

It's, uh, an American, uh, Adjunct Lager. ...umm, yay?

Why did I buy a Labatt Blue?

Well, before I tell you, I would like to whine briefly if I may? It's been, well, a tiring week, I'm tired of the weekday rat race to work (boo-hoo poor me), the stock market bled out and thus quelled early retirement plans for now. My office is in the cool hipster infested part of this little cow town. Business partners like it because it's where the tattoo parlors, **** shops, trendy bars, restaurants, cool kids, and the occasional metrosexual are found. I decided yesterday that all these people around here are idiots. Including moi. I also missed my usual lazy Saturday nightroutine and fun my WBAYDN friends because I was out among the local sweaty peasantry. Thank God it wasn't a WBAYDN MST3K event night or something!

Anyway, there's more: We've had a little white 17 pound doggie houseguest at the domicile all week and she boldly challenged my Super Uber Alpha status for three days...then finally relinquished control back to me, but GODDAMM IT WAS A STRUGGLE!!!!

She's leaving today. Here she is.



This is Miss Lilywhite Lilith ~ Scottish West Highland White Terrier / aka Lily, or Lilybug, or Smoocharoonni, or Schnoocklefrutzzi, or Punkinhead, or Heybitch etc. A dominant / sweet little package. She makes you love her, and this of course is her superpower. I'll miss her of course.

Back to this beer for NBS! Labatt Bluuuue!

I was feeling cranky at the supermarket this morning, so I stuck one stupid bottle of Labatt Blue in a six pack I put together. Hopefully nobody saw me do it or one of us will have to die.

Why Labatt Blue? Well, instead of pulling the wings off butterflies or stepping on ladybugs or tying a sock to the tail of the neighbor's cat, I decided to buy this "beer". Yes, I bought Labatt Blue to ridicule it, to mock and make fun of it, and generally to abuse it like a red-headed stepchild.



But then, when I got right down to it, and opened it, and held it in my hand, I thought to myself,

"MY GOD JIM! Aren't you better than this?" (Dr. McCoy vocal)

Of course I'm not.

Just for the record, I haven't had a beer that I KNEW was going to be vastly inferior to what I'm used too, for about seven years when I drank several Bud Lights at a Wiccan cookout & ritual in the forest. That time it was worth the sacrifice.



Warning: If you're uncomfortable with mocking and graphic verbal abuse of a helpless and innocent beer that never even asked to made. This poor little bottle of swill got stuck with me...in fact I feel kind of bad myself...I'm not sure I can do this...

So no, no I'm not going tell you how magnificently godawful nasty and disgusting this colossal stinking watery bit of bubbling bile drained from the Devil's booty...is. Instead I'll dwell on the other five from my six-pack. These are the good beers. The Divine Beers. None of them new to me, but all worthy of a lesser god or any BA still reading this diatribe. If you ARE reading this, then I promise to buy you a quality ale should we ever meet.

Until next time! Cheers and have a nice Sunday!
Oh, and try not to drink any Labatt Blue...unless she's tending bar.



Disclaimer: No insects or cats were harmed or misused in the making of this NBS post.

 

AWESOME glass. Where did you get it?