New Beer Sunday (Week 701)

Poured slightly chilled into a 16 Flying Goose Snulip, bottled 10/05/17. Pours a viscous black with a finger plus light brown head that leaves some thin waves of lace behind, sip after glorious sip.4.75

Smell is dark chocolate, strong dry coffee, oaked vanilla, and a little char from the barrells, maybe a little bourbon. 4.75

Taste follows very roasty coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, some alcohol from the bourbon, and just a little hint Smokey char. 4.75

Mouthfeel is big, the perfect amount of carbonation for the style, slightly creamy, a touch dry, and a sipper that drinks way to easy at 11.2%. 5

Overall I went in with really high expectations and it absolutely delivered and I got the 4 pack for $20.99 sadly that feels like a steal these days. 4.75

 

Cheers you all. Thank you @cjgiant for the lovely start. This week I have a beer which I have paired quite a bit around my kitchen. I might even dub this the year of the sour beers. I never chased after them as whales but now that the styles are more familiar and have found a niche I do enjoy them as summer beer styles. The gose first surprised me as a style when i realized the bright rock like mineral quality that salt can have on the beer. Greek style food came to mind first for pairings but all this week at my house it has been Chinese. Today I am going to try to make vermouth glazed chicken wings. I mean there's beer and wings and then there's classier beer and wings. This is El Gose by Avery .

Happy New Beer Sunday



Hazy yellow with a white head that lasted well and fairly long. Smells like lime. The bright zest of the lime peel. Grassy hops and a bit of their spice . A bit of cracker. Taste is excellent. Smooth crisp and a touch salty in the finish. crisp malt with a moderate carbonation. Very light hops and lots of lime. A mouth watering tartness and a lick of salt . There is a difference between bread with crust on it and cracker and that is the reason that the gose can feature the citrus so well with a dash of salt. The beer is refreshing and pairs well with lots of food. It's as friendly to the table as the farmhouse ale.

Chickpeas with Daikon and Cucumber Salad



Sizzling Beef



Thai Style Bok Choy with Carrots and Peppers



You can put this gose and the Dolin blanc or dry vermouth in the same line up and the reason is the clean flavors of the gose. The lime and it's pepper is it. No real hop flavors although they were grassy. The Dolin blanc is just sweet and features orange peel, herbs and a little anise in the background. We will see how my wings come out. Cheers you all.


Too Hot To Handle

 

New Beer Sunday: A Fruit/Vegetable Beer

Mornin’ NBSers with a report for fans of fruited beers that don’t use juice. Also a special salutation to @cjgiant for setting up the start of a yet another Sunday session (YASS).

Today’s weather is expected to be sunny, clear and less humid than the days of scattered showers and occasional drenching rain we’d just gone through before the weekend began.

This morning’s new beer is Rubaeus from Founders.

As usual, my review, subject to revision until I finish the beer, can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1199/23474/?ba=drtth#review


For me this is a “wow” beer in that it is mostly about the fruitiness of the raspberries but there is much more going on. The aromas/flavors are focused on the smooth lightly tart sweetness of fresh raspberries. Some light wheat and malt in the background make a noticeable contribution that works well with the fruitiness and there’s no real bitterness from the hops. Will definitely be looking to have this one again and think it would also go well either before or after a meal when entertaining friends.

Cheers, all!

 

Holy cow. It’s a perfect beer version of “the dress.” Is the bottle cap blue and black or is it white and gold? The answer is the former, but I see the latter above. Cheers.

 

Good morning NBS
When I see a new Central Waters Brewer's Reserve beer, I buy it and bring it to NBS...

The review:
12oz bottle coded 1418 and notched as 2018 vintage poured into a snifter at fridge temp, no ABV listed on label. The beer pours dense very dark brown with chocolate tan colored head. The head recedes to a few bubbles and pencil thin ring with very little lacing. The aroma is oak, vanilla and bourbon in that order. The taste is stout first with the vanilla, bourbon and cinnamon coming on in the finish. I struggle to find the coffee in aroma or taste. Nice balance, not sweet or overly bitter. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, adequately carbonated and mostly dry in the finish. There is a little booze in the taste on this one as it warms. Overall, very good, but my least favorite of the Brewers Reserve series.

I'm assuming that the printed date code on the bottle means 141st day of 2018 (about 2 months ago). I was surprised how little the coffee showed up even as it warmed. Probably my palate as the cinnamon was prevalent to me. Cheers all!

 

My new beer today is from my travels in Maine earlier this month. I wanted to spend some time this summer drinking beer in NE to try and wrap my mind (and tongue) around the new official judging style NEIPA. I visited breweries in ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, and NY, and sourced what I could in the local bars & restaurants & bottle shops along the way...

Today’s new beer was gifted to me by a restaurant and bottle shop owner in Bar Harbor, ME who after a long chat re: the new style, and my personal palate preferences, said I would like this beer...he was right!

“T-Shirt Cannon” an unfiltered IPA from Lone Pine Brewing Company, Portland ME. Canned 6/20/18 from his cooler to mine and refrigeratored since...



Pours an opaque deep gold with mixed size fizzy white bubbles/head; fairly quick cap leaves a thin ring and an island of micro bubbles; spotty lacing at best; some clarity underneath cap as the liquid settles. 4.0



Dank tropical fruit; pineapple, mango, grapefruit zest under strong weedy nose. 4.5

Juicy grapefruit, mango, black pepper and melon; semi sweet caramel malt base; no garlic or onion; weedy and lightly bitter finish. 4.5

Moderate plus carbonation; medium light body; not pillowy or fluffy at all, but rather soft as opposed to crisp; very lite resinous tongue coating. No sharpness or astringency. 4.25

Overall a light, easy drinking IPA; almost zippy with the carbonation; excellent balance of malt and hops; lite bitter linger that gently fades away. 4.5

I really liked this beer...I’m not sure that it ticks all the boxes for a NEIPA, but it was just right for me flavor and feel wise. I could happily drink a second one after finishing the first. I highly recommend.

With traffic jams yesterday it took 12 hours to drive from Georgia to my brother’s home in West Virginia. I’m going to kick back today, and drink a beer or two. I hope y’all have a great Sunday, and Cheers!

 

Hey what's going on?!?

Hope everyone is well. I haven't had beer for awhile and been fairly quiet on the forum lately, as I've been on antibiotics for quite some time for a minor medical issue. Not to worry I am fine.

However, even though I could limit my drinking, I had one beer on it and it didn't react well, so I've been laying low on the beers, and wont be back until I am done my medication.

Still missing all the beer pic threads and fun times on BA, but I'll be back shortly. And MAN because I have still been buying some interesting beers since then I have got a SUPPER STASH of goodies just aching to rip open!

In the mean time since we all like beer pic madness, I 've been working on something else you might get a kick on.

I made this YTube video recently, as a tribute to my past beers. Feel free to thumbs up and check the video out if you'd like at the link bellow



Cheers and see you guys soon!

 

Beef looks awesome! Want to share the recipe???

 

Yes, I have scaled back on the number of beers in my beer fridge. I shop for quality over quantity and would be happy to experience only 1 beer a week if it was quality. That why I use beer advocate to search out and find high quality (4.0 and higher) rated beers. I have discovered on my own a teeeny tiny new micro brewer , second wind. They don’t produce a lot , you can only find their beers in the local Plymouth area. But, what they do produce is quality. I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

Warbird by Second Wind

4.02/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Milkshake IPA with Citra and Mosaic in Whirlpool with Galaxy, Whole bean vanilla, and pureed Blood Oranges added during fermentation.

Hazy orange , three finger white foam cap

Citrus orange aroma

Orange citrus hop taste

Creamy , low sudsing , hop nibble

Good fresh local beer

 

Thanks to the great start to this weeks NBS @cjgiant. Will be back later on today with a new beer.

Cheers!

 

Let’s Spruce things up!

My wife is a BIG fan of Spruce beers, me not quite as much.

I decided to homebrew another batch of Spruce Ale which is essentially an American Pale Ale but I add fresh growth Blue Spruce tips (I picked these tips as the wort is boiling) at the end of boil; this is classically referred to as the aroma addition in the hopping schedule.

For those of you who are members of the American Homebrewers Association you can ‘read all about it’ in the May/June 2018 edition of Zymurgy magazine. In that article I discussed the Colonial American aspect of brewing with Spruce. For example I included a Spruce beer recipe that Ben Franklin documented:

“Ways of Making Beer with Essence of Spruce:

For a Cask containing 80 bottles, take one pot of Essence [of spruce] and 13 Pounds of Molasses. - or the same amount of unrefined Loaf Sugar; mix them well together in 20 pints of hot Water: Stir together until they make a Foam, then pour it into the Cask you will then fill with Water: add a Pint of good Yeast, stir it well together and let it stand 2 or 3 Days to ferment, after which close the Cask, and after a few days it will be ready to be put into Bottles, that must be tightly corked. Leave them 10 or 12 Days in a cool Cellar, after which the Beer will be good to drink.”

I also discussed how Ben Franklin may have become familiar with brewing with Spruce via the earlier colonists to the New Sweden colony (present day Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware along the Delaware River). Some of the New Sweden colonists were from Finland and the Finns have a history of brewing beer using evergreen trees – Juniper while brewing Sahti beer.

Despite all of this history much of my brewing decisions for producing this beer is guesswork. I went through my decision making process in the article but the sound bite answer is: I decided to use 4 ounces of Blue Spruce fresh growth for my 5 gallon batch and I added them at the end of boil (and steeped them for 30 minutes for this recent batch). I did decide to something a bit different for this second batch in that I solely picked the freshest of the fresh growth – tips that were less than 2 inches in length. In last year’s batch I decided (with no scientific reasoning) to utilize 25% large growth (4 inches in length), 50% medium growth (about 2 inches in length) and 25% small growth (about 1 inch in length). Needless to say but as with any agricultural product the harvest tastes are likely to change from year to year based upon the vagaries of weather conditions: amount of rain, how cold was the winter, etc.

So, how did this year’s batch of Spruce Ale turn out?

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glass:

Appearance

Golden amber colored with a white head.

Aroma

The predominant aroma is a unique/intriguing aroma of herbal/spicy from the spruce tips*.

Taste:

The flavor follows the nose with the unique/intriguing flavors of herbal/spicy provided by the spruce tips*.

Mouthfeel

A medium mouthfeel and an off-dry finish.


Overall

My wife’s view of this batch: “Very, very good!”

My impression is that this batch is much ‘better’ than last year’s version: I think it is pretty darn good! My guess is that the fresher/smaller tips provides a less intense flavor (or a differing flavor profile?) on a per unit weight basis?

* For my palate the aroma/flavor is not at all “piney” or “resiny” but something different altogether. In a nutshell it does not smell or taste like anything else that I have personally experienced.

Cheers!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @RobH @GormBrewhouse @Sixpoint @honkey @JValm @bhinks

 

Happy Sunday NBS players. Up and at it a bit early but I’m in full work mode and have been up since 7. Looking at a rather breezy summer day on the island with a nice break in the humidity. I have plans to hit the beach this afternoon but it might be to windy but we shall see. Other than that it’s just mindless ball games, grilling, and relaxing.

My first new beer today is Coffee Vanilla Black, an imperial stout w/ vanilla/coffee, from Dugges brewing in god damn Sweden. This has been staring at me on the shelf for a while and I finally gave it a go. The brew checks in at 13% abv and no apparent bottle date.

A rather back pour with virtually no head. Just a thin halo of brown bubbles around the glass. The nose is big and pungent with coffee grinds and malt. The drinking starts with big malt tones and a rather thick feel that really stands out. Lots of coffee and vanilla upfront that seems to provide a sort of lactose flavor as well. A very lush and decadent flow that finishes nicely bitter with more coffee grind notes. Additional flavor notes include chocolate, caramel, and a bit of a nutty flavor. The mouth feel on the brew really shines. Full body that’s very lush and smooth. The flavors really coat the palate, with just the right amount of stick, for really nice lingering. Although I know it will hit me shortly, I barely noticed the abv.

Overall, really excellent stuff. I’m probably in the low 4’s here to possible 4.5 in some categories. The ba score seems to have some haters bringing it down a bit. I will be buying more.

 

Stillwater imperial milk stout
..solid black with a decent t brown head
..low carbonation, above average body with a slightly slick oily feel
..aroma ismalt,roasted malt,coffee,dark chocolate,and char
..taste is identical to aroma,with the char dominating
..nice feel and aroma but the char taste starts to overtake everything rlse

 

Jack- did you by any chance get to have that Einstok holiday ale last year? It made use of spruce tips, and in a very jdicious way; they really blended in very well with the overall feel of it. If not, then keep an eye out this upcoming year, it was very limited and sold out quickly.

 

Staying with a local theme this morning . . .






Very attractive gold color of a deeper shade with white cap and lacing.

Aroma of sweet malt covered in piney, spicy hops.

Flavor is straight up malt forward with a polishing of bright, citrusy, resiney, shining hops. The hop flavor complements the malt and contributes to moving the whole flavor bundle forward. Not a complex group of flavors buy tasty. Finishes clean with a bit of hop firmness lingering in the aftertaste.

Medium texture with balancing carbonation.

A very likable ale of the Pale sort with a bit (read noticeable) more malt than I usually get from bog standard IPAs and I think this beer is the better for it

 

Happy Sunday, NBS crew! Keeping it low abv today, since I have a party to attend later and don’t want to show up blitzed. So starting with the lowest abv beer I have in my fridge.

DDH Small Green Everything - Other Half
IPA - 4.8% abv
Canned 7/1/18 (28 days ago)
Received from @thisischuck01
Score: 4.21 (+2.7% rDev)



L - 1-finger dense offwhite head recedes quickly, leaving no lacing. Body is a translucent, vibrant yellow.

S - strong grapefruit, pine. Very traditional nose.

T - follows the nose. Quite bitter grapefruit flesh and rind. Melon. Resin. Pine. Very smooth middle. Moderate-high bitterness. No sweetness. No booziness.

F - medium body with average carb.

O - packed with flavor for such a low abv. Not a NE IPA, but a throwback to OH’s earlier days. Reminds me of the first IPA I had from them, 4 years ago (the untitled “Other Half IPA”)

 

Sure slice your beef thin but not too thin. marinate in soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic and you could add a thai pepper or a little vinegar. Sizzle in a hot wok with very little oil, one side only until crispy. do not cook in the marinade.

 

I didn't run or play soccer this morning, but I did dig a long trench, so now a treat.
This new beer (to me) presents as a clear golden pour with a 1 cm foam cap. The aroma is of mango and orange. The flavor includes pineapple and clementine. This is moderately bitter, tropical, but not very sweet (appreciated). The mouthfeel is very smooth and pleasant. Cheers!