New Beer Sunday (Week 664)

It's brewed in Wisconsin and I've seen it there by the case, but I got this single in Western Minnesota. The store owner buys cases and breaks them out for novelty sales of singles. I imagine those shirts are as popular as the ones for a regional convenience store "Kum And Go".

Looks like it's distributed in

• Arkansas
• Iowa
• Illinois
• Kansas
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Nebraska
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• Virginia
• Wisconsin

 

Gingerbread Butt Cheeks is a great name for a beer .

 

I LOVE the idea of 8oz cans for big imperial stouts!!

It's always good to see people enjoying Dunham. They make some very good beers.

 

One of the many new arrivals at the store this past Friday. A bit pricey at $14.99 / 4-pack of 12 oz. cans, but enjoyable.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24300/297237/




Moderate pour yields a one inch white head over a very slightly hazy pale golden body with some lacing. Nose of an exorbitant amount of passion fruit which is apparent upon opening the can. Flavor mirrors aroma with a wonderfully nice and refreshing sourness. Nice feel and overall, I certainly wish I had this in the summertime. Cheers!

4.24/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

They’ve had it in White River a few times, cans and draft. 3 different brews I think.

 

Next BIF, somebody better hook a brother up!

 

Good evening, all, and Happy New Collaboration American Blonde Ale Sunday! A big "Thank you!" to @lordofthewiens for the fine opening words for today. This is one of my on-call weekends, so I'm not cooking today, However, I just picked up a turducken for our Thanksgiving dinner at the group home where I work, and I'm really looking forward to having a go at that. Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday to work, since I don't do much of anything except cook. In addition to the standard fare, I'll usually serve butternut squash soup, wild rice with roasted root vegetables, and a few other surprises. Some of our residents don't have families, and they seem to enjoy the traditional celebrations as much as I do. Now I'm hungry. Good thing there's a Hot Pocket in the freezer with my name on it.

My new beer for today is another one from Jopen (Haarlem, NL), this one a collaboration with Cigar City Brewing: Wayne's World, a blonde ale brewed with grapefruit and juniper berries and aged on cedar. This was added to the BA database on 8/7/16 and is listed as a one-off. (My sample was bottled on 7/4/16. There are, however, quite a few recent ratings and reviews of this beer, making me wonder where it's been all this time.) From the description on the label:

There was a great deal of particulate matter in the bottle, so I put a double layer of cheesecloth over the mug before pouring it. I got a bit of a gusher, as you can see from the photo:


Briefly, the aromas and flavors are pretty much exactly as you'd expect. They are not overpowering and provide a nice complement to the base beer. There is a bit of astringence on the finish that brought to mind chewing on a cedar toothpick. Overall, very interesting and easy drinking. Worth $4.99 for an 11.2-ounce bottle? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

4.12/5 (rDev +7.9%)
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Review here.

 

Thank you, @lordofthewiens for the launch. In the ovaltine family, I am the griller of all meats, and I can also make a world-class tater tot hotdish (which is important if you live in the Upper Midwest for any length of time).

After that, I can follow a recipe well enough - but I cannot and will not vary, so if the recipe for a chocolate cake mistakenly asks for tuna to be added, there will be a lot of unhappy people trying to figure out why a chocolate cake has tuna. Don’t blame me, dadburnit, blame the recipe.

I have a couple of beers to offer, first up an excellent fresh hop IPA from one of my favorite breweries (I’ve reviewed/rated 93 beers from this brewery, by far the most prolific brewery in my review portfolio).



4.22/5 rDev +1.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Pour yields a brilliantly yellow, hazy beer propping up a frolicking, fluffy off-white head. Simply gorgeous. Aromas are all hops - lots of passion fruit, maybe some prickly pear, and other tropical notes. No malt that I can detect, which is actually fine, given the hop aromas.

The taste pungently hoppy, veering closely to acerbic, then mellowing a bit at the end of the taste - I detected a decidedly pineapple note, which pulled this back a bit. The feel is oily hops, with an effervescence that aligns perfectly with the hoppy pungency of the beer.

Sierra Nevada continues to produce very flavorful beer that are executed exceptionally well - and they’re available everywhere. Truly a treasure of a brewery, IMHO.

 

Against The Grain & 18th Street Brewery - Multi Use Warehouse

My oldest son had his 7th birthday a while back, but today was the party with his school friends. We had a house of crazy little boys acting like crazy little boys. Those three hours felt like ten.

There's some stuff written on the can about how this isn't a farmhouse ale because it wasn't brewed on a hill and it didn't include flora gathered from the woods... it's a warehouse ale. I like that line of thought. The can also states (more definitively in terms of layout) that this is an IPA. There's some talk online that this is like a saison or a Belgian IPA. I don't know if that's because this beer actually uses a "saison yeast" or because the text on the can is just misleading people. Either way, this just tastes like a modern IPA to me. It's a pale amber color. The head is fantastic. The can also states that one should "drink from the can" like Heady Topper. Given an option, I'm just not a fan of that approach... but for reasons not often given on BeerAdvocate. I just don't think the feel of the carbonation is as good without pouring it. The taste of this beer is a slightly unharmonious mashup of fruity peach with spicey bitterness. This one is OK.

 

Part Deux:

My first actual Budweiser branded review. Had to check it out. This was really good. Fantastic lasting head retention and thick soapy lacing on the glass. Crystal clarity. Aromas and flavors of caramel, brown sugar, brown bread crust, toasted biscuit, and light nutty/roast malts; with some mild herbal, grassy, peppery noble hops. Light herbal, grassy, spicy hop bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body. Very creamy/bready Munich malt mouthfeel; slight hop stickiness and chalky roast. Slightly increasing bitter dryness. No cloying. Perfectly clean lagering, no fruity/yeasty notes. They did a really fine job for an American style amber lager. Nicely rich and complex crystal, Munich, and mild roasted malt character; and just enough hop character to balance the sweetness. 3.81


This was fantastic. Aromas and flavors of big pumpkin, seeds, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice, gingerbread, toasted pie crust, caramel, and brown sugar; with lighter notes of coffee, cocoa, vanilla, and herbal spice earthiness. Light herbal/spice bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; very creamy/silky mouthfeel; slight sticky/chalky spice and coffee notes. Lightly increasing bitter/spice dryness. No cloying/astringent flavors. Insanely drinkable, no warming alcohol. The coffee aspect was really not huge at all, but it seemed to make the mouthfeel way more silky and smooth. Same Pumking flavor profile with less bitter/drying spice notes. Loved it, but not nearly as much as the base beer of course. Not as aromatically vibrant on spices and things. Glad I got a 4 pack. 4.25


This was amazing! Nice head retention/lacing for the style. Aromas and flavors of big sour/tart/tangy red/black cherries, fruit skin/pits, almond, lemon, plum, apricot, green apple, red grape, hay, straw, and grass; with some brown sugar, bread/crusty malts; lighter notes of vanilla, toasted oak, leathery/musty funk, and red wine vinegar. Light-moderate fruity/lactic tart/sourness, and fruit tang/tannins in the mouthfeel. Medium-high carbonation, medium body, and fairly crisp finishing. Balanced grainy malts, lactic acid, and fruit tang/tannins in the mouthfeel. Moderate increasing lactic/tangy/carbonated dryness. No puckering sourness or astringency. Insanely easy drinking. Holy crap this is wonderful. Cherry pie in glass. Insanely jammy with stone fruit notes forever. Loads of nutty/pitty fruit character, with nice oak presence, Brett/Lacto complexity, and malt balance. I might get another bottle. $28 though. I think it is definitely worth it. 4.35


Cheers, have a good evening NBS!

 

Good evening NBS, hope all is well! Only enjoying one beer today so I figured I would make it count with Barreled Souls MCAM, a Porter with bacon, cinnamon and coffee. Have to give a big thanks to @smanson56 for hooking me up with this beer that is as good as it sounds!
4.46/5 rDev +2.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Thank you smanson56 for this
500 ml bottle, dated 10/4/17, poured into a tulip
Bottle #604/852

A- Black with a two finger mocha head.

S- Lots of cinnamon, coffee, slightly smoky, touch of roasted and sweet malts. As it warms the smokiness gets more of a bacon quality.

T- Smoky, cinnamon, roasted coffee, a syrup like sweetness, the after taste is meaty/bacon.

M- Smooth, medium to full body.

O- Breakfest in a bottle. I’m actually surprised how well they pulled off the bacon in this and the cinnamon adds a nice balance for the flavors.

 

Greetings All from the Great Northwest.

A pretty Fall day today, sunny, with temps in the low 50's.

Today we have Leinenkugel's Original. Chippewa Pride!
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/710/3333/

A lot of people won't appreciate the style, but back in the pre and post prohibition days every town had a local brewery that turned out this kind of brew. Leinekugle was almost certainly one of those breweries, and to some extent they have evolved. Twist-off caps leave me a little flat. No pun intended.

Until next time.

Happy Trails!

 

#2, this was par of the 200th Anniversary variety pack. I’m holding the 200th Anniversary Export Stout to try with Little O, but I couldn’t resist this one any longer.



4.34/5 rDev +5.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pour is a mix of chestnut brown on the edges and rich, black body underneath the luxurious medium tan head. The first aroma I detect is booze - in Guinness? Yep. Because there’s also a rich chocolate aroma, and a buttery thing going on, too. Yes, buttery.

There’s no booze on the taste, but there’s a rich chocolate flavor, and indeed the buttery toffee flavor that is oh so rich, but not cloying. I could drink this until it came out my ears. My favorite beer - by a lot - from this iconic brewery. If they sold this in 12-packs, I’d always have a case on hand.

 

Ok, back from the Kennedy Center and dinner. Mostly caught up on this thread today (@jvgoor3786, maybe your kids can inadvertently do some decorations for two weeks from now ). Noted I likely will win my daily fantasy, so another new beer sounds like a good idea.


Epic Imperial Pumpkin Porter - which is as you would expect, a porter with pumpkin and spices... and aged in whiskey barrels.

This beer pours from the glass a medium to dark brown, not nearly as dark as it ends up in the glass. That stark white head against the dark body actually seems to me the color of a marshmallow that has just heated enough to show its first signs of browning. Like a heated marshmallow, the head is sticky - adhering to the top of the beer for a long while and gracing the glass it touches with pieces of itself.

The beer has a spiciness to it, but it's not coming across initially as pumpkin pie spice. It's a little more of a pumpernickel note I am getting. Then a little nutmeg and maybe cardamon, and then I start to get a little whiskey, but that just feeds a root beer sensation. It took me a while, but eventually a pumpkin bread scent set in.

The taste is a tad sweeter than I expected, but not at all cloying. The whiskey, cola, and dark bread hit up front. The spices and specifically pumpkin bread hit by mid taste. There's a light, weak coffee taste lingering in the background that gains a little near the end along with some barrel and whiskey and a little vanilla. A lingering note of whiskey-soaked charred wood chips ends the beer.

A nice dessert beer that isn't too sweet. The spice isn't quite as typical, and I think the bite of the whiskey seems to alter them slightly. I liked the mix of whiskey, spice, and bready notes.

 

Smuttynose single digit Dubbel,color is very dark maroon. Slightly heavy feel and maybe just a bit over carbonated. Aroma is malt,dried fruit and a lot of brown sugar. Taste is similar but not as sweet as I assumed it would be. Had an odd sour aftertaste Overall it was food but seemed to just fall short by a hair

 

Guess I tuckered out my kid earlier today enough that he's sleepin' like a log right now. Time for dear ol' dad to get this one in and perhaps one more.




The aroma captured a pure blissful harmonic unity of those fleshy citrus juicy to bitter rind-like appeal cutting into some piney fresh to that "cooling sprucy" subsiding scent. Seems like the Simcoe hops were plucked just the week this was brewed.
The flavor was a spot on full ride of the bittersweet juicy citrus to piney fresh indulgence that I had hoped for. Fully captive aftertaste of the Simcoe hops - pure and indulgent.
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied with a nice sipping quality. For an IPA, the Simcoe seems to come across so thick that the hop abrasion is there with it's harshness but still portraying the normal "New England juicy smoothness" that I have come to expect.
Overall, I felt like BBC squeezed fresh Simcoe hops right on into the beer and let it ferment right on the spot. If you don't like Simcoe hops, don't even think about giving this a shot, you'll hate it, seriously. Me, I'll drink gallons of this til my liver splits.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33136/311125/?ba=Lone_Freighter#review

 

One of many gifts from CK of NSB
and this collab really "nails" it!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28609/301697/



Canned 9/11/17.
Moderate pour yields a 3/4 inch white head over a hazy golden body with sticky lacing. Nose of apricot and mango at the forefront with some other tropical and citrus fruits wafting in and out. Superb! Taste of said fruit and the bitterness associated with those fruits. As it warms a bit a taste of candied fruit comes forward. Nice! Good feel and overall, please sir, may I have another? Alas, I had but one of these and thanks to brewer CK for the opportunity to try this!

4.29/5 rDev +5.9%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

This one is pre-made and frozen. It shouldn't require nearly as much work as it usually takes for me to prep a turkey. Thaw it out, pop it in a 220-degree oven for five hours (more or less), and Bob's yer uncle! No giblets, though, so I'll have to improvise on the gravy.