New Beer Sunday (Week 645)

I'm wiped out after yard work, grilling and tipping a few with the bro. I retreat to the porch where a thundershower ensues as I open my new beer. A twelve ounce bottle of brandy barrel aged Cherry Lager by Lakefront Brewery of Milwaukee WI. It was bottled on 25 MAY 2017, the abv. is 10.7% and I'm pouring it in my crazy looking old school pilsener glass for the review. Let's check it out.....

Pours a transparent ruby red with a small finger of soapy white foam that quickly settles revealing no lacing. The smell is tart cherry, some floral and fruity yeast. Taste is maraschino cherry, spicy brandy and musty wood. The feel is crisp and clean with a slightly tart semi dry finish.

A decent enough and drinkable beer for the abv. that brings nothing complex to the table. I've passed these in my beer travels until now and may continue to do so after this lackluster performance. My score is 3.58 / rDev-11.2%.

A double rainbow appeared as I sipped and reviewed this beer. I'm heading out to the front lawn to find at least one pot of gold. May you find the other in your glass! Cheers to the week ahead and our freedom. Here's the skinny.......

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/741/233565/?ba=Prager62#review

 

If anybody is familiar with the barley wine thread I made, as a result of that thread, I decided to take a look at the highest rated beers on BeerAdvocate in the following styles: English Strong Ale, American Strong Ale, English Barley Wine, American Barley Wine, Scotch Ale, Winter Warmer, and Old Ale. I felt that including DIPAs would be a poor choice. My timing was coincidentally appropriate since there is a new thread asking about the differences between barley wine, old ale, strong ale, etc. Anyone reading that thread knows that I don't believe in hard lines between the categories (to say the least).

Getting back to the BeerAdvocate ratings, I ignored every barrel-aged beer, ignored every beer rated less than 90, and ignored every beer that I couldn't buy in my area. Of the beers that remained, I looked at the top 3 beers. In most cases, I already featured those beers in my thread. There were three beers that I didn't feature, so I decided to purchase them:



Two of those beers I've had in the past - Nøgne Ø Winter Ale (aka God Jul) and Thornbridge Bracia. Stone Double Bastard was new to me, so I saved it for today and NBS.

First, the two that weren't new to me (enjoyed over the last two days):

Nøgne Ø Winter Ale / God Jul is the highest rated "Winter Warmer" here. It was always a favorite and it still is. It's fantastic. Brown sugar, cherry, plum, pumpernickel bread, and a supporting hop character.

Thornbridge Bracia is the highest rated "English Strong Ale" here. it looks like a stout. It's incredibly bitter in a stinging, burnt, herbal, and ashy way. That sounds terrible but it's a really great beer because there's an underlying fruity and doughy quality that provides balance and complexity.


Those two highs bring us to today's event:





Stone Double Bastard

This beer is from 2015. It's chestnut brown.

Light body. Thorough and unadorned bitterness that lingers. Minor breadiness. Some sweetness but only in support of bitterness. Little pineapple and a good bit of apricot. This was nice but definitely my least favorite of the three.

Cheers.

@utopiajane

 

It was my dad's. When & where from, I don't know. Early 70s? He had it (or one like it) when I was a kid. Same story with my Genesee opener.
I remember him by opening a beer. So....... I'm compelled to, eh?

 

supposed to be Diamondback Brewery

 

Not sure how often I can guarantee I'll be in this thread, but if anything, I'm here tonight. It does seem to be one of the most interesting threads of Beer Advocate if anything.




Poured into a tulip, the appearance was a hazy rusty orange color with a thin finger's worth of white foamy head that slid off fairly quick to leave barely any lace. What was there, seemed to just slide into the glass. [side note: this picture actually shows quite less than a finger's worth but that's because I'm too slow with my camera phone]
The aroma had a nice semi-sweet juicy to sturdy bitter citrusy and plum sweet embrace. The sourness trickled in nicely and melded with a fair floral to almost lavender-like scent. Clean sweet grassiness rounded out the edges.
The flavor was a blend of the sour to bitter juicy citrus and plum features and then the sourness dipped into some more white grape/vinous sour-ed qualities. Light "Brett" amplified the sour notes. Vinous sour to semi-sticky sort of aftertaste.
The mouthfeel was almost medium bodied as it seemed to sit just a touch under and having a pretty good sipping feel about it. ABV duly noted. Carbonation felt fine. Vinous sour does stretch my tongue somewhat but nothing overly astringent. Juicy sort of finish.
Overall, pretty nice American Wild Ale that I wouldn't mind having more of this Summer.

Final BA score was a solid 4!

 

Thanks, yeah, I see. 645th week, wow. Never saw anything like this on any other beer website I was on. Seems to be pretty damn legit!

 

Sounds good. Will see what I can pull off. Cheers.

 

Twin Fork Chromatic Ale

This is from an enigmatic brewer in the Riverhead area of Long Island, NY. This area has become a surprising choice for a relatively decent concentration of brewers.

I like the simplicity of the branding.

I'd call it an American pale ale and I guess BeerAdvocate users agree.

This will be a perfunctory review after my more thoughtful Double Bastard post.

This beer feels like an exceptional beer in today's environment. When I say exceptional, I mean unusual rather than outstanding.

It reminds me of American pale ales when they were trying to follow in the footsteps of English pale ales more. It's bitter, and the malt has a nice cookie quality. Unfortunately, there's also a little of that cooked vegetable quality I get in some beers like this.

I appreciate the approach a lot, but I won't be itching to revisit it.

@beerloserLI

 

Holy smokes. Am I looking at this wrong, or did you put in 3000 reviews in the last month??? I'm assuming you're moving them from another method of tracking, but that seems incredible! How long did that take?

 

Yeah, uhhhhh...hmmmm, how should I put this, well, let's just say I'm done with a certain website that seemed to have shot themselves in the foot recently with an extremely poor decision made by their owner. So, I'd rather be in a place that truly cares about "Craft Beer."

The rest of those reviews, I'll probably just leave there just so that those people know that they can see me here. Hahaha, joke's on them, now.

 

I figured and glad to have you here! I'm just amazed at the dedication and time it must have taken to move all those reviews.

 

I agree about that being one of the best coffee stouts (year round or not), but I have never seen a screw top.

 

Thanks, but wanted to make sure I had the ones I probably would never see again, or that's what I'm guessing. But well, I figure now, the rest of what I left there, well, I'm going to seek "re-visits" with those if I can get some of those again, or just not worry about it.

Would rather seek good discussions of beer with good people. And I can see more than enough spectacular people with absolutely stellar reviews and thoughtful threads.

 

Good evening NBS homeslices! i really had meant to check in a couple more eligible beers today, but: I had just finished house-sitting for my friend Dan whilst he spent the week in the home of our own @sharpski . I tasked Dan with the goal of bringing back a case of my second favorite beer ever, Ching Ching, and what funds were left over were to go to some Lovely, also by Bend Brewing. Well, my homeboy brought back double the expected amount of beer, and asked for a hand moving a new piece of furniture. Sure. We started cracking open crowlers and growlers he brought back from his trip. There were new beers had, but no notes or reviews. Here's a partial list: Mazama Grand Cru, Bale Breaker Pilot Batch ? (something Belgian-ish, they were busy and he didn't want to bug them about details), and, well other stuff that I didn't even bother checking into Untappd with. Sue me.

Just sayin', I've had very beery, and new beery, NBS. Cheers all, til next week!

 

I'm not sure why, but I feel like I know you. Is this beerkangaroo from a 'past life'? He was the BA that introduced me to this thread a few years ago when the torch was passed from mattcrill. Cheers either way!

 

So, NBS is on the slow down for this week, so, what better time to shoot out a reminder about our next NBS BIF! Nothing written in stone, but, here's the time frame I have in mind. Sign-up starting mid-late August, with a deadline of Labor Day ish, All of September for hints & hauls, an official "share date" of Columbus day Sunday here on NBS.

We encourage all NBSers to participate, cuz beer +NBS = FUN! And, next one has a couple twists. Yeah! We gonna Chubby Checker the next round!

Little reminders like this will start appearing the next few weeks. Join in! All the uncool kids are doing NBS BIFs!

 

Well Hello Late Night NBS!!!
Thanks to @cjgiant for the start to our festivities.
I love the haze craze that's going on. This one is pretty good but I wouldn't sing its praises to high heaven.
Men at Murk a collab with Noble Ale Works, Highland Park Brewing, and Alvarado Street Brewing.

3.77/5 rDev -11.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

Poured from the can.
Definitely a murky beer. But the look is almost muddled peach meets golden straw. But in a roiled kinda way as opposed to "hazy."
Smell is very citrus forward at first. Reminds me of rubbing lemon verbena leaves and inhaling deeply.
Taste begins with the citrus: lemon zest, a tad of pith, and a floral lemon that moves toward lime and maybe a hint of apricot or peach but heads right back to lime.
A little prickly in the mouth. Medium body.
Overall, I might ask for would be a little more "juiciness" in the flavor and a little less of that prickly carbonation.