New Beer Sunday (week 595)

Thanks! That's good to know. I'd never seen one before. We have different incredibly destructive beetles where I'm from haha

 

Thanks a lot for that.
I finally caught up with my posts in that thread to get to the beer I set aside today for NBS - and it was a beaut. NBS keeps me on schedule.



Reactions here.

And in keeping with the insect theme:
Yeah, that's a Japanese Beetle. It's refreshing that you see beauty... a gardener would see an enemy.

 

Hate em

 

Greetings from Navajoland. It's dry here. In the not permitting alcohol kinda way. So I'll just read about all y'all and your beers.
Cheers NBS Friends

 

Damn ... I want that Jester King beer. Green bottle and all!

Page 6 NBS late post:


Blackwater Draw's Border Town, a Vienna lager (Mexican style lager)

Blackwater Draw started as a brewpub on Northgate in College Station about two (three?) years ago. They recently bought a warehouse in Downtown Bryan (6-12 months ago) and are now canning. I've had several of their beers at the original pub but this is my first 6-pack of cans from BWD.

Border Town is very solid. Lots of toasted malt aroma, some decent noble hop flavor mixing with grain/toasted grain. It reminds me a ton of Sierra Nevada's big collaboration Oktoberfest this past fall ... the one we all tried and loved? Or at least liked? It's very earthy and almost medicinal at times, but just when you think it's getting TOO medicinal and starting to taste like it was cleaned out with isopropyl, bam -- a nice chunk of sweet malt flavor (buttery, honeyed biscuits, peach) hits and you think, you know, this Border Town ain't all bad.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43320/216267/?ba=Premo88#review

3.76 (N/A rDev ... just 2 ratings, 1 review)

Shots from late afternoon golf practice:




Cheers!

 

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
... and ...
"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

New beer #4 from the current Devil's Backbone variety pack...



...Ale of Two Cities, which is a Kolsch! I suppose the two cities would be Cologne/Koln where the style originated and Lexington, VA where Devil's Backbone has their brewery? I've very much enjoyed every other beer in the style that I've tried before (though sadly haven't managed to stumble across any actual German examples so far), so here's hoping this one's going to be a good one. Devil's Backbone generally does a good job with the German-type lagers in my experience so I have confidence that it'll at least be decent.

Appearance-wise it's pretty much what I expected: golden in color, perfectly clear, lots of little rising bubbles and a substantial but fairly thin layer of foam on top. This shrinks down to a thin coating pretty quick, but that has lingered pretty well and there's a thicker ring around the edge of the glass. Smell is malty and lager-y with a bit of hops peeking in at the very end. Has a nice sweetish bready quality to it. I had been slightly worried that this would be some oddball "overdosed with new-variety hops" twist on a Kolsch (which could be good, but... not when my taste buds are in a "let's not taste hops right" mood) but the smell certainly isn't pointing in that direction at all. Taste is... wow, yeah, this is pretty good! Very nice breadiness to it, almost toasty or bread-crust-like for a moment at the start but then shifting into more of a standard bread (but good bread, not the bleached-to-death cheapo white stuff), with a background fruity sweetness. No obvious hops or bitterness but it doesn't really seem "sweet" despite the fruity presence in the background. Definitely not a "hoppy" variation on Kolsch in the least, actually this may be the least-hoppy take on the style I've had so far (all have been American versions, as I've mentioned before.) Even at around the halfway point there's no noticeable bitterness, just a slight spicy-hop linger on the end. A bit of the fruitiness becomes present in the smell around this time, I'm noticing. It's still not super prominent in the flavor, just a persistent element in the background that quietly adds its own contribution to the beer while mostly just letting the malt do its thing. Hops are the same way -- they're present, you notice them from time to time, but they never attempt to overwhelm the malt.

Yeah, this is good. Interesting how my two favorites of the pack so far are an "American-style oddball ingredients" beer (the jalapeño IPA) and a much more traditional take on the style (this one), which almost seem like polar opposites in a way. What they have in common is being really well-balanced (I'm still amazed that the jalapeño beer was not at all like drinking hot sauce) and just tasting good, which is the most important part! I'd be happy to see this one become a six-pack beer, or at least make a return appearance from time to time -- it'd be a good one to have in the summer variety packs, especially if Sierra Nevada's Kolsch won't be coming back every year.

 

Well, now I know one beer I'll definitely have to try if I ever see it anywhere! "A lot like Sierra Nevada's 2015 Oktoberfest" is pretty high praise in my opinion (that was the first beer I ever bought a six-pack of, then went back later and grabbed a 12-pack, and never once got tired of it even when it was literally the only beer I was drinking for a week at a time... probably would have gotten a second twelve-pack if they hadn't already vanished from the shelves by the time I had the thought. XD)

 

Mount Bake Theater? I know you Bellinghammers have a reputation, but, wow...

 

I have our weekly Michigan trip coming up in a few, so thanks for the review on this. I honestly may have not even noticed it, not for your post. Looks like something I can grab a lot of for family gatherings and such up there.