New Beer Weekend #10

NBW #10, beer #1, one that I didn't get to in last week's Oktoberfest online tasting.

A beer from a relatively new brewer in Maple Grove, MN.

OMNI Oktoberfest
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 23



Murky, cloudy "home-brewed iced tea" amber below a tall, thick, creamy off-white head with good retention, leaving stringy, sticky lacing as it receded. On the positive side, the head is nice looking and hangs around awhile. Otherwise, it is kind of ugly. And, as it turns out, "Look" got the highest score from me for this beer! So, you know where this is going...

Aroma is quite weak. Malty. Bready, with hints of fruit and spice. (But, just hints.)

Taste is inoffensive, but, as with the aroma, weak. Fruit, spice, and bread (as expected), but too weak to be really distinctive. It just all kind of combines together in a muddle.

Mouth feel is thin. There is enough body to keep it out of watery territory, but it is approaching the border.

Overall, a middling OK drinkable beer, but a rather unimpressive märzen. The Oktoberfest-Märzen competition in Minnesota is tough, with the likes of Schell's, Surly, and Summit being challenged - and some say exceeded - by impressive offerings from some of the smaller guys. If OMNI expects to compete against the other players in this market, they'll need to step up their game.

L: 3.5 | S: 2.75 | T: 3.0 | F: 3.0 | O: 3.25 | Rating: 3.02

 

Very true. The closest I came to being in the PNW in the fresh hop season was about a month late.

 

Right now seems to be pretty much peak season, at least around here. The first fresh hop beers started coming out a little more than a month ago down in Oregon and I'm thinking climate/latitude has something to do with why we start seeing them a little later in Washington. The last 3 weeks or so in Seattle it's just been hard to keep up. If you were to come out here for the month of September you'd probably get a pretty good sampling of this experience.

I actually thought you were going to say we should be calling them "wet hop" beers instead of fresh hop, and that is another issue that's ruffled more than a few feathers over in that other thread...

 

Yikes, gusher alert! Good thing I'm not at my couch:

That happened in approximately 2 seconds and there was no stopping it. Kind of like a mentos experiment.
Here's what it is, after all was said and done:

Alvinne Sigma, a dark sour ale

And all things aside, it's actually quite lovely. Tartness on the level of a nice sauvignon blanc, snappy but not overpowering. It's also pretty light on its feet and effervescent (duh!) for 10% abv (!!!). Actually, it drinks like half that, so this is some dangerous stuff if you look at it that way. But that gravity does show up in the muscular body (for a sour) and twinge of residual sweetness that dances quite nicely with that acidity.

Flavors of fig jam, cocoa powder, bread crust, peppery and sweet spice, red grapes (particularly the skin's astringency), delicate flowers and Italian plums. But it's not heavy handed at all, and made with some real finesse, each element playing a dual role as yin and yang to something else. All is forgiven, Alvinne, it's a solid A (4.5).

 

I dont care what they're called, as a consumer it would be nice though if the terminology was consistent between regions and establishments.

 

Signed up for Bif#12 Estonian Ticks and Rocket balls , received this week a generous assortment of Michigan’s finest from @foundersasap .

Moved my nephew into his new home today and am now relaxing poolside on a glorious New England Indian Summer Day. The opportunity to try new beers, new breweries is exciting to me. My new beer Is Larry’s Latest Juicy Ipa by Bells

3.99/5 rDev +1.8%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4


Bottled 9.3 opened 9.26, poured into an ipa glass

Three finger creamy white foam cap , very good retention , Settles to a domed island with very good lacings over a turbid derp orange liquid with some microcarbonation streams

Aroma of peach, orange , whiff of pine

Taste is peach, orange with a hint of pine finish

Sudsy mouthfeel , gentle hop nibble nicely lingers ,

Good beer

 

I am moving along quickly through some big cans of fresh hop beers today. It's a cool, breezy, cloudy, almost-rainy kind of day in Seattle and I don't really feel like doing anything. My wife and daughter are out, so turns out that is actually an option. Listening to Miles Davis on the patio, which feels right.

Here we have Matchless Stratafresh, another fresh hop beer from Tumwater, Washington. Quite nice. My preliminary review after half a tulip:

3.88/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

16oz can (no date, presumably canned within a few days or weeks) into a tulip. Pours a slightly hazy golden color w/ a nice white head, patch lace.

Aroma seems a bit muted with mostly melon coming through. Again, similar to a Hellbent Strata fresh hop beer I had a few days ago, there's an aroma/taste I can't quite put my finger on. Something herbal, or floral ... or something in potpourri maybe. Reminiscent of how freshly cut grass smells.

Taste is really subtle and understated, and not in a bad way. There's a really nice balance here between the pale malt and the fresh Strata hops, each carrying its weight. Malt is dry and biscuity and the hops complement it nicely. More melon: cantaloupe/honeydew (really the only melon I'm familiar with in any meaningful way, other than pumpkin). Also a very subtle minerally quality going on here.

Mouthfeel is likewise balanced, medium bodied. Crisp, gently bitter hoppy bite on the finish.

Overall a well-built, non-showy fresh hop beer. Quite drinkable.

 

Today was Zwanze day here in Europe, which means, among other things, a new Zwanze beer, a beetroot one this year !

So how does it stack up to its predecessors ?

Look: intense dark pink, with a light pink head that dissolves in a few tens of seconds. 4.3/5

Smell: very earthy, powerful beetroot. Almost too powerful in fact, as it hides away some of the red fruits aromas. 3.8/5

Taste: again, overpowering beetroot, though it fades away and leaves room to some funk. Would have loved to get a more distinct lambic character, though it's not a bad beer. 3.7/5

Feel: average carbonation for a lambic, pleasant, somewhat thicker than average. 4.4/5

Overall: it's a good beetroot beer, but I would have loved to feel the lambic more.
Zwanze 2011 and 2016 will stay the best Zwanze beers one more year imo. 4.1/5

Cheers !

 

I haven´t had many but Alvinne has certainly earned my respect from those, and would love to dig further. Best Berliner ever in a collab with a local brewery for starters!

 

New beer number 2, Speciation Incipient - Blood Orange, thanks @Joplamp!
4.28/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Thank you Joplamp for this
16 oz can’t poured into a teku

A- A fairly hazy golden orange with a small white head.

S- Tart, lemons, blood oranges, some oak, touch of wheat, mild earthy funk.

T- Sour, blood oranges, lemons, oak, hints of wheat and funk.

M- Smooth, crisp, light body.

O- Another tasty and well done sour from Speciation.

Cheers!

 

Ocean Rain, really? Love that album since I was having my actual first beers in the past!

 

Yeah, they need to follow the consistency of naming example set by brewers with styles like porter and stout!

 

Hello guys in this my first NBW.

First up is Mahou Session IPA, a 'spanish' one from the big beer guys buying Founders in the past. The beer is 4.5% and oats are between the ingredients. I am pretty intrigued in how this beer turns out at slightly less than 1 euro, and what´s the extent of Founders expertise on it given their batch actually shows up in the can. I don´t drink 'American' IPAS often lately, so take this review with a pinch of salt.




Slightly hazy amber with a nice head, average retention and nice lacing.

Spicy mango, orange peel, grapefruit, pine, onion, hints of bubblegum, oats? I didn´t expect the full brigade but here it is, on top of the creamy malts with a nice balance overall. Pretty solid for a macro!

I like the taste. The citrusy flavors are somewhat austere but satisfying in the long run, and the malts come along with a very subtle but warming enough sweetness to round it all towards the end. Some lemon peel and onion in the aftertaste.

The oats are working very well to build up a decent body without making a mess. It feels creamy with a bite, and the carbonation is on point. The end of the pint is not as rewarding as the start though.

This is actually a pretty nice humble beer with all its parts working rather well imo. Modern, smart and well enough constructed to 'mirror/rival' English bottled pale ales (traditional or hybrids) in the session department at .9 euro the can. I can see myself coming back to it when in the mood.

I´d say even 4+, if not for the 'stale' ending. So 3.75+

 

Now that´s fucking cool! Please don´t tell me you also did Bowie and The Cure!

Lovely.

 

YARDS UNTER DOG OKTOBERFEST
..beautiful dark clear amber color
...medium carbonation with about a medium body
...aroma is malt,molasses,brown sugar, sweet bread,a spice hop scent
..taste has mild sweetness which is a perfect amount. Theres makt,molasses sweet bread,brown sugar and an unusual but pleasant spice.
...im a big fan of yards and this didn't disappoint. Great oktoberfest with a nice spice addition

 

I don’t really care either, but fresh hops seems to be the most apt description for what these beers are. Fresh fruit, fresh fish, fresh milk all seem pretty obvious, so why not fresh hops?

And there’s plenty of regional variation for other terms, so I don’t have a real problem with that. Not sure who would be in charge of standardizing the terminology anyway, as (AFAIK) we don’t really have an equivalent of the Reinheitsgebot in the U.S....

 

@draheim in terms of fresh hop beers how does chasin freshies compare to all the local options? I’m very jealous of you all in PNW. Chasin freshies is really my only PNW fresh hop beer. Sadly haven’t had it in a few years now.