New Beer Sunday (week 577)

Hey NBS crew! I thought I'd pop by for one (finally feeling back to normal after a night out last night and taking it a bit easy today).

Finally found the Adventure Pack beers in singles so scooped up one of each. I didn't want to drop the $20+ on the whole pack because I heard the sorting was off and some beers were left out, some people were getting 4 Vienna Lagers etc. Really happy I could grab one of each to try. Going with Risen today - Devil's Backbone and Surly collaboration. Cheers!



4.06/5 rDev +1.5%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Poured into a snifter. Thin fizzy head forms and recedes immediately to a small ring. Zero lacing.

Nose is nice - coffee forward but clearly a brown ale. Lots of roasted malts come through big and clean. Slight hint of booze but barely there. Almost a bit of a chocolate note as well.

Taste is nice. Big brown ale flavor that's coffee forward. For the life of me I don't get any oak but that's okay. It's not a cloying brown ale - nicer and more balanced than expected for an 8%+ brown with low IBUs. The coffee added to the brown ale is definitely not something I've experienced before and works quite well. I wish I could pull some oak flavors here but what I do get is really nice and the flavors compliment each other very well even if there isn't a ton going on. Not too much depth or many other subtle notes I'm getting but that's just fine. The finish is actually quite clean.

The feel is really nice - great carbonation leaves this light and airy. It is a touch on the thin side or I'd rate it higher. It doesn't have any brash coffee bitterness or lingering sweetness from the malt. It's nicely rounded, nothing abrasive here.

Overall it's definitely an interesting pairing of flavors - would make for a really nice morning beer if you aren't feeling breakfast stout, but generally I'd prefer a nice breakfast stout.

 

Well, if Captain's Daughter hadn't sold out the day before I would have bought that one too . I guess I'm a 'why not both' kind of guy. I'll do my part with the Leaning Chimneys in NY, though- gotta keep that one coming our way.

 

Nice beer and nice hoops. Always have liked MSU compared to UM. In addition to the Jud Heathcote connection to my city(locally, word is he and Mark Few have lunch regularly during basketball season), I consider myself a kind of honorary Michigander for having spent so much time in the Detroit area as a kid, but I think the residue of too many Rose Bowls involving them during the Don James era of Husky football has predisposed me to dislike UM a bit. Harbaugh's current position has not helped in that regard.

 

I'll be honest. And I know you were aware of this when they first started Brewing the beer: just picked up a pk of CD the other day dated 2/19. Seems they are back to some inconsistencies with that brew. This is a consensus among those who drink and have access to it. Almost seems like they changed or rearranged the Hop bill. No diacetyl but the Citra to Mosaic ratio has been either changed or the hops chemical properties are different. Doesn't have that room filling aroma its always had...

 

Yeah, the 3.2% version in Utah probably not as good

 

So what have you gotten through of the collabs, and how would your rank them? I think I saw you post the IPL earlier in the week.

 

Lost Nation Lost Galaxy IPA

My Brother in law went to VT for some ice fishing. He grabbed me a couple of these and Lost Nation Mosaic. Also, a four pack of the LN gose and a Milkier wheat Bret which sounds intriguing. He also shared a bottle of Lush with me as well as Foley Brother's Prospect IIPA. The Foley's was really good.

Big brewing weekend as well. Woke up early yesterday and brewed 2.25 gallons of a quad. I have never brewed a quad before and it is currently bubbling away. Also, me and a couple of buddies do 10 gallon batches, we keg/bottled an imperial red this morning. It tasted really good. I am excited to see how it develops. We are going to be entering it into our first homebrew competition. We are entering the imperial red and an America brown, plus I am entering a couple of solo batches (imperial stout and English Porter). Looking forward to getting feedback on our beers. Other then the brown, the other three we/I have only brewed once. I think the brown is the best beer we brew (it's my buddy's recipe, we take turns designing recipes).

On to the review:
Look: Light yellow, slightly hazy, nice white head with some lacing 4.5
Smell: Tropical with some pineapple 4.25
Taste: Singlular tropical hop flavor, starts sweet, ends slightly bitter, harsh flavor in there 2.5
Feel: very thin, prickly carbonation 3
Overall: Not that good. It's very dissapointing. It's not bad, but nothing I would buy again. 3

Happy NBS everyone.

 

And here I had gone all day without guffawing...

 

Was that the batch recalled?

 

Hello all,

Lucky enough to do NBS at work! Balmy 55 degrees out here in NWNJ, got to try a great one today.

Check out my review here.

 

Back for a 2nd post on this NBS didn't really expect to be making another post but well I had a second new beer so just had to check it out. This would be Alpines Mandarin Nectar.

Alpine recently began distribution in NH and it was nice to get there Brews. Even if they were actually being brewed at green flash. This bottle was not labeled as being brewed at Green Flash.
It poured a nice golden orange color into my glass.
The nose is citrusy with the orange and mango coming through.
The taste is best to say kind of muddled a lot of stuff going on but nothing that really brings me to a sharp point.
The mouth feel is smooth.
All in all this is a sub par beer from the other beers I have had from Alpine. Not something that I would buy again.
Cheers

 

I haven't heard of a recall. Maybe you know more than I do?

 

Yeah, I have seen that stated. FWIW the Victory Ten Year Alt tastes nothing like Uerige Doppelsticke so I personally just refer to it as a Sticke Alt.

I have had the Uerige Doppelsticke on a number of occasions most recently on draft at a local beer bar (Teresa's Next Door in Wayne, PA) and that beer has always reminded me of a Barleywine; it is too cloying for my tastes.

The Victory Ten Year Alt has a much different flavor profile; more similar to my homebrewed Sticke Alt.

Cheers!

 

Greetings NBSer's!

As for all mere mortals, it was a week of ups and downs.

The biggest "up" was last night's gang bang with three Golden Monkeys and a Hibernation Ale
whilst listening to ELP.

Another up is my wife is making meatloaf as I type and drink......
Rage! An Imperial Black India Pale Ale! From Greenbush Brewing Co.

Amazing beer from @Prager62! Holy shit it's intense! Thick malty sweetness accompanied by a powerful burn! 14.7 ABV. IT'S GONNA BURN! Very difficult to breakdown. Beers this big scare me, especially after last night's Golden Monkey incident.

Let's just say it's a sipper and every sip is an adventure in roasty bitter sweet dark chocolate flavor. It's a delicious beer that is ALMOST out of control...

Rage!

And...

The biggest "down" of the week was Keith Emerson shooting himself in the head.

I felt a little bitter tinge after reading last night that he was depressed due to chronic nerve damage to his hands and a Japan tour was imminent.

I also remembered last night a book I read many years ago by R. Buckminster Fuller with a quote that has always stuck with me. I looked it up to get the quote right.

Fuller heard a voice declare,
"From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth.You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others."

I certainly plan to be around for infinite new beers until the universe decides it's time for me to go.

Cheers gang. Live long, drink well and prosper!

 

So far from this pack I've only had Risen and the IPL - I had the Sun King on draft (which was the only one I couldn't buy as a single). At this point I think I put the Another State of Kind below the IPL and Risen - both of these are definitely solid offerings in my humble opinion. So far giving the edge to the IPL just because it was such a surprise to have so much going on for such a low ABV. I'm really looking forward to the Seven Summits, just wasn't feeling a huge stout today.

How about you? Cheers!

 

It wasn't a terrible week in the office, but I'm on-call until 8am tomorrow (which in terms of inebriation-levels means little to me as it's only dispatching work orders and calling service providers).
It's been raining more or less all week. The 3-gallon bucket on my deck was empty as of last Saturday and spilling over this morning...El Nino's a bitch.
My means of transportation (to and from work and in general) is my Cannondale CAAD 10 road bike. So when it rains, I have to take the bus. Riding the six miles each way to the office allows me to process the day ahead of me (to work) and decompress (on the way home), so having to take the bus is a bummer. I also use the 60 total miles riding to/from work as exercise for my (somewhat excessive) weekday drinking. That aside, it bums me out to not be able to ride.
Friday afternoon comes and I get home only to see a BM from @richj1970 about a desk bomb that was delivered to my office already. That'd be great and all, but I'm in the office at 6:30/out at 3:30, so I made the trek into the office yesterday and opened said box, to find this among the gems!

Oh, this is mighty fine!!
I've been on a big Swami's kick lately and having seen a lot of Other Half posted here lately, I was itching to try it...and it didn't disappoint!
As soon as I cracked the top the hiss met my nose with a great citrus aroma that let me know this would be an enjoyable beer.
The murky golden hue isn't something that we here on the Best Coast see in our IPA's, but having enjoyed a Make it Rain (also from @richj1970 's desk bomb) yesterday, I cared not of the hue, only the sweet taste as it hit my lips, mouth and liver.
I could see this as being a go-to IPA. And for that matter, go-to brewery were it local (or if I lived within their distro network).
Nothing about this beer sucks or is even remotely bad...aside from the fact I have to trade to get it.

 

I would've taken a bottle. I love a well crafted Altbier.

 

Great photo and tribute! I agree that is one beast of a beer that is worth trying because it's so different. I'll be interested to see how it cellars?

 

Felt fooled. Lol "black IPA" kinda thought lagunitas nighttime going into this but with the barrel aging I'm tasting stout. Love it. ☺ cheers!

 

I still have the bottle if you want it.

Cheers!