New Beer Weekend #155

Two more days of vacation so I'm not throwing in the towel yet.
Got a couple Ive been saving from @beergoot for a special occasion.
Here's a beauty.
Russian River R-n-D IPA #18
Pours a clear pale yellow a large white head, good retention, nice lacing.
Interesting nose; some flowers fading quickly to passionfruit, mango, peach, lemon, grapefruit.
Taste follows with some tropical, lemon, vinous notes, grapefruit and pine. Taste is not as full as the nose.
Light malts, crisp and clean, nice and creamy edge that dries on the finish. Light/med body.
Super summer IPA here. Fruity yet dry and quenching. Initial nose was a highlight. I love this Cali style.
Thank You Dave!

 

I’m sticking to the magnificent WCIPA box until I get through it. This beer fits perfectly in the “dank” thread my friend @BBThunderbolt started a few days ago.





4.29/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25
Pours a beautiful golden color with just the slightest bit of hop haze and a frothy white head that lingers and laces the glass nicely. Gorgeous WCIPA. The nose is DANK - big citrus and tropical fruit aromas, plus a nice berry aroma. The nose on this beer is toe-curlingly good, IMHO.

The berry flavors are more pronounced on the taste and exquisite, with a nice amount of dank tangerine, passion fruit, and a bit of white grape at the back of the palate. Very balanced and very dank, which I love in any IPA.

The mouthfeel is medium and just a bit softer than I’d prefer in the WCIPA style. Still, the dank-o-meter on this beer has me wishing I had a case of it in my beer fridge. Excellent stuff here, IMHO.

 

Have a good NBW. Had a good unwind with my College roommates younger Brother and his kids last night at Macs. Had a lot of fun, his 6YO son was like my 7YO nephew on the Sonic and Nintendo Very chatty. Work has been getting really busy and I am getting random panic attacks over it. Just finally found a Dr to get my health back on track. I just need to book a therapist next. It was bound to happen, that's just how Engineering deadlines work, in any industry They rushed a test this week and I was unable to document anything except the results I love my job because I am good at it, but have to keep a good balance of all the work. Definitely making a ppt to show why I need a raise I am doing the work of at least 3 people. Like I said, Julia is my soulmate, no need to care about marriages or unneeded expenses in a rush, we have our whole lives. It's 2023 and I have seen enough to know that the society view on marriage is a farce, just ask DeBeers and Jared jewelry commercials. I am getting a synthetic rock.... someday. My bday is tomorrow and I am 3 years since the life slap, Julia came into my life on OKCupid on Sept 12 2020. (its the only good dating app FYI, and the only one that got me dates) My family and friends have never given up on me. Still ETA on having a beer with everyone IRL in the NBS crew

That burger: SOUTHERN LOOP: 1/2 LB. BURGER, PIMENTO CHEESE, PICKLED JALAPEÑO, SMOKED TOMATO AIOLI, LETTUCE, FRIED TOMATO & ONION SERVED ON A TOASTED BRIOCHE BUN. Amazing and spicy. Plenty of cheese falling over the place. Did not like the red slaw at all. I like creamy slaw the most.



A new review. Dogfish Head citrus squall. This was overall a good beer. Nose of light grapefruit and citrus peels and light booze. Taste of ruby grapefruit, citrus peel/zest, wood, peppercorn, pine, cracker, grain, herbal, floral, grass, and yeast earthiness. Base golden ale gets a little warming and boozy on the 8% after the finish. The grapefruit felt far to restrained than expectations, but had good overall citrus vibrancy. Clean and drinkable for the ABV. Medium-plus body and carb. Balanced grainy malt and sticky/resinous hops. Lingering resin finish with no astringency. 3.75


Cheers

 

Zero gravity put a lime in it lager
...nice gold/orange appearance .
...slightly thin body with just above average almost prickly carbonation.
...aroma is a nice mix of bread, yeast,dough, with the lime showing up as earthy and bitter.
....taste mild acidy lime which coats the mouth and lingers in the aftertaste along with a building bitterness. Theres doughy bread along with a bit of almost sugary mild sweetness.
...overall its very good and can see it being easy to have a few in a row.
Interesting as my refrigerator has been cooling unevenly and this was very cold which did not help. As it warmed it became more enjoyable in every way. Makes me pause to rethink mistakes I could easily make reviewing a beer.
Its not solving world hunger doing beer reviews but it can have an adverse effect on a small business and that bothers me a bit

 

I’ll put another Oregon beer on your radar that was shared with me twice now. You’re review made me think of it, sounds similar but maybe more pine and resin…Von Ebert - Volatile Substance, great IPA.

 

Good evening friends I haven’t met yet. And the few of you that I have.
So @Roguer has this little LIF over on NBW BIF #17 and I managed to be lucky enough to get a consolation prize. He claimed it was simpler for him but I know he is just not right in the head, slinging beer all over the country with wild abandon.
Like @snaotheus above, I had seen this beer posted many times and thought it would be good to try. Well, @Roguer can apparently read minds as he sent me one.

After reading his description of it I tasted it anew but came up with the same flavors.
Maybe comparing it side by side to SoS would be helpful, but as neither are distributed here it’s not going to be done by me any time soon.
On to the beer!
Poured more translucent than murky, I could see light through it. The light beige head topped about 2 cm and left copious amounts of lacing.
The aroma is still not available to me, beginning to wonder if it will ever come back.
The taste though, lovely tropical fruit flavors wash over the tongue before the dankness kicks in at the swallow. I had to take multiple gulps to verify this was the pattern and, for me at least, it was. Malts likely played a role in there somewhere but it was all about the hops.
The feel was just weighty enough to carry the ABV, and the flavors were certainly mouth filling.
Good beer, glad I got to try it.

 

#2, this is from @Coronaeus and NBS BIF #17.

You are a rockstar of the highest magnitude, Peter.





4.6/5 rDev +3.6%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
Pours dark cola brown and settles as onyx black in the glass with no leakage - none - on the edges, with a creamy dark tan head that sticks around and provides a surprising amount of lacing. Gorgeous beer.

The nose has significant barrel notes, oak, vanilla, rich cocoa, and a bit of roasty coffee. Stupendous nose on this beer.

The significant barrel and oak notes are aggressively forward on the palate - and not domineering, because they allow room for the rich cocoa and vanilla flavors to take the lead, before the roasty coffee flavors declare they are the captain of this beer nerd ship and will glide this world class beer into a smooth finish with the creamy, decadent mouthfeel this beer sports.

I was curious where I would land with this because the iconic OG is a favorite of mine - and this is better, IMHO. Truly world class stuff.

 

Good evening, NBW crew. Hot and humid. I have a small tractor to mow most of what passes for lawn, got that done early, went to get the weedwhacker, looked at what I had left to finish up, said fuck that and went push mower shopping. Now I can cut fast with the tractor, mow the places where the tractor doesn't fit, and use the trimmer to trim instead of killin' myself pseudo-mowing. The beer store just happens to be next door to Tractor Supply, sooooo...



Jester King Le Petit Prince, called a grisette here, pretty sure it says Farmhouse on the can, but whatever. Never seen a Jester King can in the wild here, so total impulse buy.

They say it is "a clear and simple expression of the delicate interplay between noble hops and Farmhouse yeast." It's 2.9% ABV, so I guess this would be a re-creation of the low alcohol meal accompaniment beer for farmhands and general consumption. Let's see...

Pours very pale yellow, slight turbidity. Huge white head that lasts, eventually lands at about a quarter inch.

Definite funk on the nose, not overwhelming but noticeable because the backdrop is fairly weak. A little crackery malt, the hops seem quite floral and grassy. There's lemon as well, and a vague Juicy Fruit kind of fruit smell.

The taste pretty well follows. It's basically a weak saison in terms of flavor. Grassy, funky, earthy, lemon citrus, that vague fruit note, a very weak sour note, earthy, lingering bitter and building pepper.

The feel - well, it's thin and watery but it's supposed to be. Oddly, it isn't all that refreshing. Dry, bitterness lingering.

Overall, I think it's well made and it represents what they wanted to achieve. It matches conceptually with what I've read of some historical Farmhouse beers. I get the idea, it's executed nicely so I think around a 3.8 - tried it, understand it, nothing to repeat. Oxbow rules this particular yard for me.

 

Cheers! Glad you enjoyed it.

As fate would have it, it looks like my source for this and the Peché day variants is shipping a bunch of this off to me in the next week or two. I plan to forward most of it to NBS Biffers towards the end of summer.

 

Thank you so much for reviewing this, I see it at the local Horrocks and had been curious. But I think I have other beers I’d rather invest in.
Oh, and I will be back soon. A KBS variant.

 

The missus picked this one up today while we were "lawnmower shopping". She got halfway through it, so I'll claim it!



Tiny Paradise from Mast Landing, a Mai Tai inspired "mocktail" brew, I gather for their 6th anniversary according to the notes. I've never had a Mai Tai and SWMBO says she doesn't recall specifically or otherwise. OK...easy enough to look up. Orange liqueur, almond syrup, lime.

Pours an amber color. Crystal clear. Dense, white head that lasts a while and coats the glass like crazy.

Minus the rum, it smells like everything else in a Mai Tai. Unfortunately for me, the lime dominates. I'm not particularly fond of lime. It takes a while, but the almond is almost as heavy. The orange is the last to arrive and the notes say vanilla which I can't find.

Initial taste is an absolute blast of lime and almond. The orange comes in with both a juicy and rind-like character. It's quite sweet (lactose was used) and while I can't smell it the vanilla comes on pretty strong in the aftertaste.

It feels thick and loses some refreshment factor as it warms. The rind components of the orange linger, the lime leaves some pucker. I think it's appropriately sour for what it represents. A little sticky on the lips.

This, to me, is one of those not really a beer beers. Seems an odd choice for Mast to make for an anniversary brew, but it's fun for a while, eventually a little less pleasant as it warms up and harder to drink. Even though lime and I aren't friends, the flavors work together and it delivers what it's supposed to. It definitely needs yo be cold. Have to think about it some before writing the review.

 

Greetings, New Beer enthusiasts! It's a fine, spring-like, post-errands/pre-dinner evening here in Beaverton. I was all set to open a nice fresh can of Breakside IPA (an old favorite), but then I spotted a New Beer in my side of the beer crisper and just couldn't resist...



(Standard disclaimer: No official review yet because I'm still working out the numbers.)

Fracture Barefoot Is Legal Summer IPA
16-ounce can purchased at ABV Public House in Hillsboro, OR. Date stamp reads "CANNED ON 06/15/23", and sports a dot matrix version of the Fracture Brewing monogram logo. Poured in stages in a half-pint Becher-style glass. The label informs me that this beer features Adeena, Strata, and Lorien hops.

Look:
The beer has a slightly translucent body of a rich yellow-gold color. A measured pour yields a finger-tall disc of loose, rather sudsy white foam that quickly shrinks to a thin ring and an uneven skin. Almost no lacing.

Smell:
Starts with mixed citrus, bright and tart and lively. There's also a mix of honeydew, cantaloupe, a touch of sweet berries, along with hints of hay and flowers. All of this rests on a solid bed of cereal grains.

Taste:
Starts off tangy and lemony, with a fairly strong floral component up front (honeysuckle?). Sweet honeydew comes through next, on top of mild, bready malt. This is followed in rapid succession by orange juice, watermelon Jolly Ranchers, strawberry Starburst, and a breath of spicy herbal/floral character. Sweet, grainy aftertaste with moderate bitterness and more alcohol than I'd expect from a beer that checks in below 6%.

Feel:
Light body with a smooth texture that goes slightly astringent at the swallow. Tingly carbonation. Some unexpected and unwelcome fusel alcohol warmth at the end.

Overall:
There's a lot going on in this beer, and after drinking half the can I'm still not sure how much I like it. It's definitely sweeter than I like in an IPA, and the fusel burn is intrusive. That said, I like the way these hops play together, and it's been fun picking apart all the aroma and flavor notes. A New Beer that's a bit of a challenge? Heck yeah, I'm in. Cheers!

 

Been in the cellar for 3 years now and the chocolate is still very present, almost too sweet:
Has the standard coffee and smoothness of the imperial oatmeal stout and the chocolate has been amplified exponentially. I am not a huge fan of pastry stouts but I enjoy a well made one. This is a well made one.
The feel is smooth and viscous, ideal for the beer.
Just wish I had tried it before instead of waiting 3 years.

 

Lawson's Finest Liquids - Kiwi, another beer @Roguer apparently picked by reading my mind

16oz can served in a big snifter. Can is dated 05/??/23. I cannot read the middle two digits. Also from a LIF associated with NBS BIF #17.

Pours a murky dark amber-orange with a smallish head that settles into a thin even dusting with a few big clumps drifting around. Smell is bubble gum and hay, maybe a little orange.

Taste is interesting. Bubble gum and lime, a ripe fruit vibe that almost hits tropical juice, deep bitterness on the finish. Bitterness builds with more sips, juiciness gets a bit more drowned out. Booziness is noticeable, but more as an afterthought.

Mouthfeel is medium and has a bit of the chalkiness I sometimes get from really hazy IPAs. Overall, this is a really nice beer, aroma is not bad but the rest of the beer totally outshines it.