New Beer Sunday (week 607)

What's up with these Snorkel glasses what do I have to do to get one of these!

 

Good afternoon, folks! Loving the onslaught of beer packages being revealed today.

For my next beer, I went with on I didn't have too high hopes for after hearing another BA talk about it and seeing the averages. Basically, it lived both up and down to expectations. This is Heavy Seas/Terrapin collaboration beer Rye Wit:


This bottle is between 2 and 3 months old, if I am reading the bottle correctly. It poured quite cloudy, even more than I expected for a witbier. As you can see, it's almost the same color of the label. The head is a fairly dense fluff of white that remained thick in one glass, while the other reduced to a thin white cap. Both pours' heads lasted a while, and left a decent sheet of lace each sip that returned back to the source slowly.

Nose is orange and lemon citrus up front, which was a bit stronger than I expected. Then I recalled (by reading the label) that this beer was aged in Chardonnay barrels. This might explain the accent on the citrus, but it really explains the wooden note I got. I get the wheat with a deeper sniff, along with a little bit of a semi-sweet wine note. The nose was interesting the more I got into it.

Once I got to the taste and feel, however, I began to be let down. The carbonation seems okay, so I think it is more the taste that seems a little to heavy on the barrel notes. This wooden note seems to dull the flavors I expect (or hope) to be bright and refreshing in a normal witbier. The citrus notes from the nose are there, but muted. Coriander, grape skins, and a light amount of rye spice can be picked out if searching for them. The beer is also a bit heavier than many witbiers.

So in the end, the flavors just seem to blend together too much for me. I think the wine barrel is a bit too much involved in the taste, and maybe needed a lighter touch than exhibited in this [style of] brew. It's not at all a bad beer, and in fact, my girlfriend really liked it.

 

Welcome home and thanks for your review. I think Westbrook's is one of the most balanced IPA's I've had. It seems to thread the needle of all the IPA sub-styles and is just plain good. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

 

Time for another beer! (Actually had this quite some time ago, but Flickr's upload was down)

Oude Bae | Stillwater Artisanal Ales

Stillwater Artisinal Ales - Oude Bae by imbibehour, on Flickr

Poured from the bottle into a tulip glass.

Out of the bottle looks like a dark rose or light pinot wine body, light purple and red filling the glass with a purple dark plum and ruby red color. Head is slightly pink and a little creamy with a two finger top and half finger lying puck. Very neat looking beer, but certainly not looking like and oud bruin, lets go with Flanders red for the win I say, and very nice.

Very nice aroma if a little closed. Creamy sensing malt and a mild funk. Fruity tones with a bit of oak, with the fruit angles sensing a more berried cherry and raspberry quality. Very solid, just a bit too burried though on the nose.

Palate grasps at some real greatness. Grape and real round flavors, but with a weaker body than expected. Thined out mid palate but with fruity tartness of tangy grape. Quenching fruit quality with a mild sour tinge. Aftertaste hints a little pepper but not quite, and lots tannic hinting dryness. A bit more body and this could really pop and roar.

A very nice take on a Flanders style but certainly going very wild on the angle. Very unique beer, nice use of wine and French oak additions to make something all new and fun.

look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25 | BA Generated: 4.17

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LETS GO NATS!!

 

Holy cow- great start today, everybody! I was supposed to be in the midst of throwing a party today, but it got postponed until November, so that means I may as well get into my BIF box earlier than expected.

Once again, this one comes by way of that great box sent by @jhartley -

3 Daughters Stern Line Oatmeal Stout

This is another brewery completely new to me, so I'm excited to tear into it. Aroma is dominated by dark chocolate, with a good helping of blackstrap molasses underneath. Swirling brings out a gentle spicy/floral noble hop character that lends a nice air of breeziness. The first sip is a bit rough, leaning heavily towards the bitter dark chocolate, but subsequent ones start showing more balance. By mid glass, the blackstrap is taking over, with a dark chocolate kicker (kind of like a Goldenberg's Peanut Chew without the peanuts ). It's still quite dry and bitter on the finish, and the mouthfeel is moderately smooth.

It's a nice beer, but could use a bit of tweaking to lessen the coarseness and increase the drinkability. The molasses quality is also getting a bit overbearing by the end of the glass. I really enjoy these kinds of stouts, but the balance can be trickier to pull off than most people suspect. Enjoyable, but not top tier - solid B (3.7).

Thanks again, Jeff, and this was just the appetizer! Really looking forward to some more later on...

 

Glad I didn't steer you wrong! And I must say, I think the bolded line is about how I feel about Pernicious, at least.

I actually quite enjoy the presumed base Black Marlin porter, so I am hoping I'll see the mocha version around here sometime after seeing this review.

 

Hey NBSers! I'm getting pretty jealous of all the BIF goodies everyone's posting about here. Good stuff by many posters... still gotta go through the thread and dole out the likes, but it's looking like a solid NBS so far.

As for me, it's very rainy here in northern Massachusetts. Part of me is mildly-annoyed because I had plans for tonight that involved the outside world that have been summarily quashed, but I guess I'll save some money and stay indoors, enjoying some nice beers in the virtual tavern before getting up early on the holiday tomorrow to head to Trillium in Canton to grab some of the new collab with Monkish (Never & Again mango-aged DIPA)!

Today I'll have several posts coming up about three different beers with a definitive thread that runs throughout them. However, I'm also going to be reviewing them in such an order that each individual beer will have a common technique or ingredient shared between itself and the previous entry. As such, the middle beer ties the two together! I love doing thematic stuff like this and thinking about overarching stylistic tendencies and ingredient-wrangling so I'm very excited. I bought all three today and actually had no real idea that I picked beers that had such commonality between them when I checked out. It was only when I got home and showed my buddy Chris my haul that I realized my luck. I'll be enlisting that same buddy to help me out a bit with the two stronger/bigger format beers, as this could be a lot for one night! I'm gonna lead off with a more modest-strength offering to get this going, luckily.

Without further ado, Happy New Dark Beer Sunday!

First up is Evil Twin/Two Roads with Two Evil Pachamama Porter, a 6.5% ABV porter brewed with purple maize, sweet potatoes and ají panca chili peppers. Apparently, this is supposed to be a "Peruvian inspired porter" using traditional Peruvian ingredients and named after the "earth mother of Incan mythology." Sounds interesting! Only picked up a single because I was less convinced on the outset with this one than the previous ET/TR collab, Geyser Gose (which was really good and an instant 4-pack buy for me!).



Pours a deep, dark brown bordering black with some slight russet undertones if held directly up to light. Head is somewhat khaki-colored with very solid lace show and good retention. Micro-bubbles build up below the surface quite quickly and adequate carbonation seems to be present. All seems to be in order here, so let's move on to the nose and palate which are definitely more important facets to me

The nose seems to be mainly that of an English style porter complete with slight roast and a heavily nutty malt profile along with some earthiness and cocoa powder. A tangible yet reserved spice characteristic seems present as well. Kind of smoky and woody, maybe? My research lead me to discover that the ají panca pepper is not widely utilized for pure capsaicin content and instead tends to be used as a flavor addition to dishes calling for chili peppers. Perhaps it's like an "aroma hop" in the pepper world?

Flavor is very reserved as well with some light roast notes, milk chocolate and earthy spice. Nothing mind-blowing here, but it's solid. The roommate was not a fan and felt it was far too weak bodied and boring, but I still consider it fairly well-made. It doesn't really highlight the adjunct ingredients much, but I appreciate the effort that both breweries involved went through to harvest and/or import Peruvian ingredients to give some terroir gravitas to this brew. In a blind taste test, I'd probably never think of this as anything but a normal porter, but the power of marketing is definitely very strong, especially for Jeppe of Evil Twin. Not everything has to blow minds these days, though I will admit part of the reason I picked it up was to see how they'd deal with those ingredients. I've had some sweet potato beers before, and they tend to have a very heavy, kind of starchy and yeasty flavor, for example, but this is just kind of normal, for sure. Sort of too safe for me given the brewer(ie)s involved, but I'm glad I tried it.

Feel is smooth, round and nicely carbonated with a velvety profile and silky movement from beginning to middle to finish. Probably this beer's absolute high point to me; there's no acridity, harshness or unpalatable qualities to the way it drinks. Very nice transition on the palate. Going back to the appearance, this still has very nice cobwebs of lacing sticking around. This is one of those weird examples of a beer that has a more exciting, notable and striking appearance/mouthfeel than anything else about it. Good stuff, but not mind-blowing. It got me thinking a little bit and I love that Phil and Jeppe are seemingly all about deriving inspiration from heretofore-unexplored regions and cultures in craft brewing (Geyser Gose, for those unfamiliar, was made using native Icelandic ingredients!). For that alone, this deserves some praise, but on its own it fails to stand out to any special extent, at the end of the day.

You know what never fails to stand out to me, though? Blut Aus Nord's The Work Which Transforms God. A harrowing, industrial-tinged haunted house journey through early 2000s 3rd-wave black metal hell, BAN really channeled some powerful mechanical spirits for this one. A genius album that always blows my mind, even 12 years after its release.



Sláinte, Skål and Prost to my favorite Sunday phenomenon! I'll be back soon enough with more goodies. You guys are gonna love this transitional beer... hopefully, I do too (!?)

 

I really am glad that @larryi86 sent me a new Hefe to enjoy. It is really hitting the spot on this late afternoon.

Groove City pours a hazy pale yellow with a 1.5 finger white head. Falls into a thin collar whilst tiny bubbles rise up through the liquid. Aroma is very pleasing with some banana bread, bubble gum, and a bit of yeast. Not much in the way of clove or other spice. Flavor follows with a big yeasty banana flavor along with some grainy wheat. Feel is lighter, but creamy with soft carbonation. Well done Hefe and I have had a few great ones to compare it against

 

A great review from a member of the Snorkel Glass Society!

 

Glad you and I agree that this one needs a little more work or tweaking or something! I think it drinks much easier than it should, I know that sounds weird, but it needs a little more...something.
BTW that glass is pretty snazzy looking! LOL

 

Nice review, consider joining in the BIF fun next time!

 

Glad you are enjoing it that is one of my favorite beers from Wicked Weed and they have many.

 

You're welcome man! Glad you liked it. I, as the beginner sour experimenter, thought it was tasty as well. Cheers!

 

Not impressed by this at all.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17005/246166/?ba=woemad#review



Floaty City!

 

Nudge, nudge - know what I mean?

 

Happy Sunday NBS players. Rain and dreary as all hell here on the island. Jets are pretty much done at this point and I will be surprised if bowels isn't fired in season at this point.
Any-how today is all about NBS BIF#4 Monkey's with Knives. My sender is just another great BA in the name of @newjack .
My new beer, and new brewery for that matter, is Gravedigger Billy, a ba we heavy ale. The brew checks in at 10.4% with no apparent bottle date. If I'm missing it let me know.

A pretty dark brown pour with a burgundy hew. The nose speaks of burnt sugars, oak, and char. The drinking starts with big time whiskey barrel right upfront. A rather smokey flow with a pretty smooth finish. Flavor tones of dark sugared fruits with plums, dates, figs, and raisins. The mouth feel is a bit thin but the barrel notes seem to make up for the lacking.

Overall, a pretty good beer but not close to the tops of the mark. I love the barrel notes but the body just doesn't hold up as much as I would like. I'm right around a 4 on it.

 

My NBS BIF MWK haul from @boralyl. I've been closely monitoring this thread all day while stuck at work. I should be home and cracking my first official NB this S in less than 90 minutes.

For all of you non-participants in the NBS BIF, next round you HAVE to join. It's a blast!

 

New American Double/Imperial Stout Sunday

The Bengals still suck, but my next new brew was much better! Jackie O's Champion Ground bourbon barrel stout was really good! https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1432/187700/?ba=bluejacket74#review





I'm still deciding whether or not to have another new beer today. If I do or not, I'll still make sure to see everyone else's new brews later today or tomorrow morning sometime. Cheers!

 

Wow @2beerdogs !! @Hopgoddess312 sure did bomb yer porch! Has that foundation?

 

It's Sunday, so I can make a little confession, right? I've had new beers every Sunday for the past few, and took my notes; however, with all the great beers/posts I felt sheepish talking about watery island lagers, so I punted...

Tonight I'll say to heck with it, and add my "new beer" with what few thoughts I can muster...

"Deputy", a "quality Pilsner Lager", from Banks (Barbados) Breweries Ltd., Newton, Barbados:



Pours a pale gold (4) with thin white head; quick cap reduction leaving spotty lace at best and a thin ring, all of which vanished almost immediately; excellent clarity. 3.25

Baked bread and a subtle floral/spicy hop nose. I'd definitely err on the German Pilsner side of the equation here. 3.5

Crackers and surprisingly minerally; more flavor than the flagship lager, which is not saying a lot; no DMS, and baked white bread finish. 3.25

Lite minus carbonation, more of which would have helped to pep this beer up; thin body, but a slight creaminess, and ever so slightly grainy. 3.25

Overall there is a pleasant, clean aftertaste that does not linger. I like better than the Banks lager (of which I've drunk a boat load), and wish I could find this beer in something larger than an 8.5 oz see through green bottle, and I would drink more. 3.25

Ok, that wasn't so hard...back to the lagers and rum - have a great Sunday!