New Beer Weekend #111

Crushing Mass

15.1% stout by Three Floyds

The body pours as black as night. No head. Not much carbonation. Doesn't matter. Doesn't need it. Aged over a year in Willet bourbon barrels, this beer is the big cousin to Lagunitas Willettized stout.

Nose and taste are all about the barrel. Bourbon fans rejoice. Non bourbon fans (are there really non bourbon fans?) stay far away. Blending wonderfully with the bourbon is a delightful coffee flavor from the addition of Dark Matter coffee. My memory believes this stout is CBS without the chocolate notes.

Mouthfeel is good but not as heavy as one might expect. A smooth drinking 15% stout? Yup. This beer clearly is the my favorite from the Three Floyds catalog.

 

Toppling Goliath Dino Park DIPA, 7.3% ABV; 4.41 overall

Pours an effervescent & hazed gold with 3 fingers of fluffy cream-colored head. Good head retention & lacing

S: Guava, mango, strawberry

T: Follows the nose, green melon & dryness, plus passion fruit & a little pomelo up front. Green melon, passion fruit, tangerine & a little dryness as this warms, just a kiss of pineapple as well. Finishes a little dry with guava, green melon, passion fruit, lime & green melon

MF: Medium body, fairly soft carbonation; lovely balance

Another super solid Hazy IPA from these guys, drink this fresh, I don't think this flavor will hold up over time, but the 3 week old version is lovely!

 

Good evening all! Hopefully your long weekend is going well. I get to go on a kayak float tomorrow so mine is definitely looking up.

Was at a local bottle shop and came across this from Blackrocks in the UP. Took a shot and got it, not sorry I did-
This poured copper colored, nearly clear and topped with a manilla colored head that dissipated fairly quickly.
The aroma was malty and biscuit forward with some floral type accents wafting through.
The taste followed, the malts are well chosen and the noble hops help bring the traditional Märzen style beer to the glass.
The feel was spot on. Really enjoyed this.
It may have been because it was my first “fest” beer this season, but it was really good.
Also the first review; I got to add it to the database.
Cheers all! Oktoberfest season is upon us. Prost! Prosit!
(Take your pick, I see both used.)

 

Reuben's Brews - What Comes Next, 10th anniversary west coast IPA

16oz can served in a big snifter. Can is dated 08/05/??, but I assume it's this year, since it's one of their 10th anniversary beers.

Pours a clear light gold with a small head, settles into a thin, remarkably even skin. Smell is lemony, citrus zest, and just a hint of booze.

Taste is west coast bitterness with a hint of honeysuckle and again just a hint of booziness.

Mouthfeel is fairly thin and quite resinous. Overall, this is a nice IPA.

 

That's funny...I have never heard anyone but my wife talk about that movie. She made me watch it once, it's pretty funny.

 

Thanks for joining us Artie!

 

It is definitely a bit different and I laugh out loud every time I watch still. People are always shocked at the cast, I can't believe its over 20 years old now.

PS...it was around this time last year, I think technically its probably next weekend, that we ventured to your part of the US, the air/weather out here, the start of the school year are all pushing my memory to remember build up and the fun we had on that little trip. Hanging out and having beers was a true pleasure.

 

Good day BAs! Off to an early start today - Thanks @SawDog505 for starting this weekend's thread! Ah yes - Labor Day! Dedicated to pregnant women everywhere!
Today's New Breakfast Beer is one from the back of Beer Reefer #1:



Whiskey Barrel Aged Double Pecan Porter from 512 Brewing. Purchased from Total Wine, Selma, TX, 26/05/21 for $ 18.22 (Including tax)/22 oz bottle ($ 0.727/oz). On room-temperature shelf at store and stored at 37 degrees at home. Reviewed 03/09/22. Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Stamped “BOTTLE NO. 8168” on label as well as “2021”. Served at 50.1 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King Snifter. Final temperature 57.0 degrees. Note: Label is marked “SERVE AT 50-55oF.”
Appearance – 4.
First pour – Deep Amber (SRM 15), cloudy.
Body – Black (SRM 40), opaque. Under direct light, same. When rear-lite, ruby at the edges.
Head – Large (Maximum five cm, aggressive center pour), brown sugar but lightening to camel as it retracts and oxidizes, high density, settling into a three to seven mm crown fed by effervescence and a thin partial cap.
Lacing – Good! A short wall of near-microscopic to tiny bubbles is dragged behind the head as the level lowers.
Aroma – 3 - Virtually none. Weak bourbon and extremely weak roasted malt, no hops, no yeast. Some pecan aroma arrives as it warms above 55o.
Flavor – 4.25 – Begins slightly bitter with chocolate and malt and just a hint of bourbon, no hops, no yeast. No ethanol (9.5 % ABV as marked on label) aroma or taste. Moderate lower gastric warming slowly evolves, peaks at mildly uncomfortable, and fades away. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl. Eventually, a bit of tannin and vanillin appear.
Palate – 3.25 – Thin, creamy, soft carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4 The appearance is that of a stout so I must keep reminding myself that it’s only at the porter end of the spectrum and thus shouldn’t be evaluated like a stout. This is one of the few beers brewed with pecans of which I can actually detect a bit of pecan aroma. But no pecan in the flavor. Not exorbitantly expensive for a semi-organic pro tem barrel-aged porter.
Rating 3.79, rDev – 8.75%

 

You're not alone, this is the first year in a long time I will not have that many fall veggies into winter. With moving out of our house for a bit, the insane heat, no rain, and just general business my beds will remain mostly empty till early spring. I will miss picking brocolli for Thanksgiving but I am going to try and enjoy the less work I will have caring for them all into fall.

All I managed to get ready this year are several big pots of greens and a bed full of fall carrots, which last year I picked well into winter for plenty of crockpot meals; a true treat.

Forgot...Don't even get me started on the groundhog that came back for the first time all summer just to snip off and eat all my snap pea vines...

 

Ha! My groundhog has been ignoring my garden but really pigs out on the daily apple harvest - i also give him whatever veggies are freezer-burned IF they are something I don't grow (ie carrots). He's funny to watch and one of my neighbors has been dropping off watermelon rinds near his hole as well. It's the deer that cause me problems - they eat my tomato plants and something ate the tops off one pepper plant.

 

Catching up on the thread this morning after going to the Iowa State-Southeast Missouri football game yesterday. Plenty of Miller Lite was consumed and the beautiful weather was enjoyed as the Cyclones won.

Today's New Beer for me is Three Floyds Legendary Shader

Appearance: Cloudy orange, good head.

Smell: Bubblegum, banana, bit of clove.

Taste: Nice sweetness, banana, bit of clove, wheaty-yeasty, then finishes with citrusy hops.

Overall: A very nice hefe from 3 Floyds, not overhopped, very traditional tasting. I like banana flavor in hefes and this one has a good amount for not being a weizenbock. Very good stuff!

 

That is funny; different places different rodents eating our food. They’ll always find a way it seems, they’re all survivors that’s for sure.

 

This all sounds so much more natural than what happens in my backyard. I live about a 30 second walk from the subway. Very urban environment. There is also a small parkette next to the subway. A well meaning fool regularly leaves food of all sorts for the urban fauna in the parkette. Usually it is big piles of nuts, bread and occasionally he’ll hang hotdogs from the trees (no joke). During daylight hours, there is a squirrel highway from the parkette down through a strip of backyards including mine. The grass is littered with walnut and peanut shells. Not the worst thing, except the walnut shells cut my kids feet if I don’t pick them all up before they play. At night it is something else entirely. A war between skunks, raccoons and rats occurs nightly. The aromatic evidence is a regular experience for us. According to a neighbour, the rats and skunks have some kind of alliance. She swears she has seen them follow each other down the same holes peacefully on more than one occasion. It’s crazy.

Long story short, my daughter planted carrots in our very small vegetable plot and they were all dug up and partially eaten earlier this summer. It was her first garden and she was rather distraught. Thankfully, the city is adding an elevator to the subway station and has closed the parkette for the duration of the work. There appears to be an uneasy peace at present. I pray it lasts!

 

Haha such a well painted picture urban rodents are a whole nother beast I feel like. I was saw a raccoon just strolling a city street and it instantly freaked me out. They look so much nicer in the woods and grass.

And hanging hot dogs from trees I can only imagine, like some twisted decoration; only to see urban rodents trying to get them.

I wish your daughter luck next year and she learned her first lesson in gardening; there is always something else that wants your food. Hopefully she can protect it somehow next year with a mini fence.

 

From late last night…

Brasserie du Bas Canada L’Arrosoir, a hazy DIPA.



I was fortunate to have received a great box filled primarily with Brasserie du Bas Canada beers earlier this week. They are generally regarded as the best brewery in the country, particularly for the ‘hot’ styles like hazy IPA and flavoured imperial stouts. They also do a great job with more traditional styles.

This one poured a thick, murky light gold. Ample, pillowy head that stuck around a good while and laced the glass luxuriously as the beer was enjoyed.

The aroma is bright and strong. Lots of mixed fruit involved, but generally tropical with a little bitter citrus rind in the background.

The taste follows. Juicy and ripe tropical fruit, bitter grapefruit pith. A little mixed stone fruit peaks through from time to time.

This is a full bodied beer, bordering on ‘thick’ but not unpleasantly so.

If you like the Tree House/Other Half approach to the IPA, and find yourself in the Ottawa region, you could do much worse that visiting BBC to load up on hazy IPAs. Cheers.