New Beer Sunday (Week 765)

Been meaning to try this one for a while now. Palo Santo Marron from Dogfish Head.



4.18/5 rDev -0.9% | Average: 4.22
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

A moderate pour from a 12-oz. bottle yields a finger of khaki creamy and lumpy foam with long retention and small blotches of lace. Opaque stout-like dark brown, lighter brown highlights.

Rich smell of vanilla, caramel malt in front of toasted malt and bread. Light roasted malt and and grainy wheat. Very faint herbal hops and alcohol. These follow to taste and are bigger.

That 12% ABV is the first taste, it is quickly moderate by the rich malt.
Semi-dry and averagely bitter at first, an attempt at sweetness from baked pitted fruits fails. Daringly bold malt remains in Russian Imperial Stout-like style as it drys a little while peppery alcohol, hops and roasted malt bitterness builds to pretty high at the long finish.
The aftertaste is long and mirrors the finish.

Full bodied and well carbonated, somehow manages to be smooth as a sipper.
The booze is so much bigger in the taste than the smell.
This pushes the boundaries of the style, a perfect case for an Imperial Brown style being added. This beer would be a contender for Ranked #1.

Cheers!

 

Untitled Art / Mikerphone - Hazelnut Imperial Stout. This was amazing! Lasting rocky head retention/thick foamy lacing the whole glass. Aromas and flavors of huge milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, hazelnuts, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, vanilla, cream, toffee, toasted biscuit, and dark bread/crust; with lighter notes of licorice, molasses, dark fruit, leather, tobacco, smoke, charcoal, wood, herbal, grass, peppercorn, pine, and yeast earthiness. Light-moderate pine, herbal, woody, grassy, peppery, roast/charred bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation and very full body; very creamy/silky/velvety/bready malts; and some sticky hops, and chalky char in the mouthfeel. Light-moderate increasing lingering hop/char bitter dryness; no cloying/acrid/astringency. Dangerously smooth/soft sipping; mild increasing warmth of 12%, no lingering booze. Amazing balance of super rich malts, hazelnuts, lactose complexity; with balancing earthy hops, and restrained fruity yeast. Light residual sweetness with lingering hop/char bitter dryness. Very much like an RIS style. Will get another. 4.38


Cheers, have a good night NBS. Even the ones who absolutely hate me.

 

QFT - Quoted For Truth - Every single word!

Glad it held up, bought a few at a bottle shop closing last month and looking to having once I finish my regular stock.

About as many as the number of Jazz clubs in Salt Lake City.

 

One more time watching the Eagles struggling to find a rhythm against this Cowboys team that I hate to say had playing better. Opening up some DFH Right Loose, a blueberry sour aged 12 months in wine barrels. I have really enjoyed a lot of DFH’s sour barreled aged beers and this one is great and really feel like their Wooden It Be Nice sour program is up there with sour programs like Allagash.

4.3/5 rDev +3.9%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

375 ml bottle poured into snifter

A- Deep purple with a fast fading purple head.

S- Blueberries, sour, funk, hints of fruits skins, oak, some red wine.

T- Sour, blueberries, lemons, fruit skins, some peaches, oak, touch of wine, mild funk.

M- Smooth, light body.

O- Fruit is done well, barrel is subtle, nice balance.

Cheers!

 

Well Hello Late Night NBS

As for baseball, I'm not a big fan. I do like to watch some games here and there, but I have a pretty busy life and... well let's just say I'm looking forward to college basketball season.

As for new beers, I hit Mexican Chocolate Yeti by Great Divide Brewing Co.

It's been a few years since I've had a Yeti, but I remembered it being a fine Impy stout. Poured from the new large can format.
This pours beautifully. Tan colored crown sits majestically atop a deep almost black body.
Smell is roasted coffee, sweet chocolatey malts, and roasted chile. So far, so good.
On first sip, I'm getting chile, coffee (but it's going toward an astringent note), and some chocolate. But it's just not really coming together for me. And this is where the mouthfeel seems to be lacking. Feels too thin for style. There is a slight creaminess, but this too feels thinned out, or slightly diluted.
Overall, this lacks the full feel of an imperial stout, and for me this carries into the flavor as well. Of course, I'll try it again if I ever find it on draft.
3.55/5 rDev -16.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.5

Frankly, I was a bit let down by this one. Maybe it was just my can, but I probably won't risk another 10 spot to give it another shake.

 

I also got a phone call from my brother today. He drove out to Deming, NM, to do a little chasing, and recording of the graceful rail giant known as The Big Boy, the most massive steamer to ever run across this land.

He left his phone on speaker while he videoed so I could hear it. So here I am in the tool section at Home Depot choking up a bit, while listening to an old steamer. I'm sure it looked strange. But you see, I was brought up chasing steam. As kids, starting in the late 60's, my family took vacations that often took us where steam was still running, or at least to places where some of these elegant beasts were housed in Limbo. We's travel around Colorado, and especially Wyoming, Cheyenne & Laramie were key spots for us. Many a times were spent in my grandparents International TravelAll or our International pickup with camper mount, jockeying for a good position along an old steamer running alongside on some old county road or state highway. We'd be trying to outmaneuver all of the other yahoos doing the same thing we were: trying to get some good photos, film, and yes, even tape recordings of the steamer. I'm sure this sounds pretty stupid, but it was always exciting, and thinking about this family tradition warms my heart.

And I appreciate my brother being about as corny as I am. I would've called him too.
And a special thanks to Arthur @thebeers for sending me a grand railroad stein (that actually features this very locomotive). Brother, you can't imagine how many ways this gesture is going to roll through my family.
A) My brother rolls into town later this week.
B) My dad's church is having a small "Oktoberfest" gathering where my dad always drinks from his Spotted Dog stein (Las Cruces, NM) that my brother got him.
C) I'm going to give him your stein on that day with my brother there (and my brother has never been to this gathering- in fact he has refused multiple invites from my dad to come to his church, but with beer and brats, I think he'll show up).
D) And you sent me some Sly Fox Oktoberfest beers to drop into said stein.

Serendipity all over the place.
If any of you get a chance to see the Big Boy, I highly recommend it. It's traveling across the south right now, and will hit quite a few places in Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma before it heads back west towards Cheyenne, WY. Look it up on the Union Pacific website...

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm

 

Next week I'm planning to pour a collab between Brouwerij De Molen and Fyne Ales in Scotland.

 

Cheers NBSers. Saved this one for a Sunday. Canned 9/30 so it’s legal

Pour is moderate to thick with some beautiful lacing. Nose is orange candy and citrus. Taste follows with tangerine, orange pez, peach, peach gummy rings, apricot, and oj. Mouthfeel is full with a Smarties-like chalkiness from the overload of hops. Over all the 4.6-7 range and an outstanding sample of the style.

 

Sports. So I went to the Seahawks game today. It was a lot of fun. Got to see a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. The game sucked. Very frustrating. But now I've got delicious beer, so that helps.



Doing a generational side by side sort of.

2013 Bell's Expedition Stout from my time in St. Louis up next to a 2017 Bourbon Barrel Aged Expedition Stout courtesy of the generosity of @FlintB way back in NBS BIF#007.
I've had the base Expedition before, and have been periodically sampling the bottles of the '13 that I've got in my 'cellar,' but had not had the BBA version prior to tonight.

Immediately upon pouring differences appear. While they both present an obsidian black body that clutches all light sent its way in a miserly fist and dares you to stare too deep, the base beer has an almost clay-like desaturated pale brown head that dissipates rapidly, while the BBA version is a richer brighter darker brown. This settles in to a cloudbank in the middle in addition to the ring around the edge, and is easily returned to fuzzy prominence with some gentle swirling.

The nose is the least compelling aspect of this beer for me. It's not bad, it's just not as rich and fragrant as I would ideally prefer. Nose on the 2013 basic is actually a little richer, and definitely sweeter than the BBA 4 years its junior. More chocolate and cream. The BBA is more subdued all around, and features more spice and some definite wood, as well as more molasses.

The flavour is nice and rich. The base stout is slightly drier and more char, and while the BBA still has some char, it leans more into the chocolate and toffee and roast and molasses. The sweetness and light vanilla notes from the bourbon really offer a nice contrast to the chocolate and coffee of the base.

Then things get out of control. Base Expedition ages well. It's a nice big smoothe stout with a nice velvety body and good balance, and some bitterness to the back end. BBA is like liquid velvet. I've used that descriptor before, but never before has it been so apt. BBA Expedition may have the best mouthfeel of any beer I've ever tried. Not quite as thick as the base (makes sense), but more than makes up for it as just incredibly smoothe soft oily viscous ;dofsfdgkildfjghr... In a word: scrumtrulescent. This shit's incredible.



I'm a big fan. Thanks Brian for spoiling me for all other BA Stouts, and for making me now have to continuously search this bad boy out. Cheers!!