New Beer Weekend #250

True Anomaly's Ambrosia Reserve, Wild Saison, 5.2% ABV.

From the brewery: Foeder-aged Saison, refermented on blackberries⁠. Conditioned with a custom tea blend of rose hips, chamomile, lemongrass, lavender, and rooibos tea⁠.



Pours a bright pink/reddish color. A dense white head forms with excellent retention and lace left behind.
Aroma is leafy tea leaves, berries, funky yeast, that is particularly intense, wood and light vanilla.
Taste wise, again, this is pretty intense. Berry fruits, and jammy. Yeast like funk, wood and vanilla. There is an intense acidic sourness that lasts and lingers on forever. Which makes this a bit unbalanced.
A medium body with crisp carbonation. There are big tannins here, a combination of the tea and foeder, I would think. Which becomes astringent for me. Along with that puckering sourness. Interesting and well made, if a little too much for me to really want to come back to.

This has almost a Lambic fruit sourness and funk to it. Which I typically love. but think is a bit too much for the context of a Saison. The tannin quality is astringent as well. I respect what True Anomaly is trying to do here, and it is interesting. Though it doesn't hit on all cylinders with me, and I think some of their other foeder aged Saisons are better. Still, I would say give this a try.

Don't put too much stock in my score, I can see others really loving this. But I plopped it at 3.64. I maybe should bump that up a little, but again, I think their other foeder aged Saisons are better for my tastes...

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/55586/743927/?ba=champ103#navigation

Having this out in my courtyard, while I'm reading Karl Ove Knausgaard's seasonal quartet. He wrote a memoir book for each season, for his new born daughter to read when she is old enough. He is always interesting, and well worth a read.

Moe says hi

 

Next up is a beer that @falloutsnow so kindly sent to me in a trade a while back.

Weizenvock - Riggs Beer Company - Urbana, IL - 7.2%

Wow! I am just in awe with this beer's flavor. I am just enjoying the hell out of it. So much going on here. So thankful and honored it was sent to me.
Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46277/238735/#navigation
4.46/5 rDev +5.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
From a 16oz can. Canned on Oct 08, 2024

The beer looks somewhat murky and is a burnt orange color. There's a 3 finger slightly off white head to this beer that is fluffy looking. The head retention is quite good, and I really love the lacing on the glass.
Holy cow, there's a lot of banana in the aroma, but there's a lot more as well. I get a good hit of bread. I get a lot of caramel. The yeast is also hitting my nose a lot and there's a hint of earthiness.
The flavor has a lot going on. There's a hint of bread right away. This flavor morphs into a good banana hit. The banana mellows out, but doesn't disappear. The caramel notes come into play on the finish with a hint of that earthy note that I got on the nose.
The body is very smooth feeling. I like the fullness to this beer. It has a creamy feeling to it.
Wow! This beer is downright delicious. So happy to have had the chance to try it.


I think there will be one more today. Cheers to my fellow patrons of this virtual bar.

 

Love it, one of my favorites from my home town. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

A love letter to Chinook...

@brewme recently created a thread about chinook hopped beers, a hop I think I love more than any other. In said thread I mentioned how many beers Tonewood still hops with Chinook, so today when I was grabbing some beer to go there I got a pour of another one of their beers that has said hop @JackHorzempa. A beer I haven't had from them since it is draft only usually and the timing never worked out, well today it did. Tonewood as always brewing the beers of my dreams...Here is some their description...

Sending this one out to all of our PNW regulars @vurt @woemad @mactrail...this definitely reminds me of the delicious ambers I had in Seattle and the ones @snaotheus has generously sent to me at my request, best part was I didn't need this one mailed.

Tonewood - Canyon Walls (PNW Amber 5.6%)



Pours cloudy amber with orange hue; dirty white head, average retention with good initial lacing.

Nose is mostly malt forward; toffee with really nice toasty character; woody and lightly pine forward hop character, touch of dry pithy citrus shows too.

Taste is very well balanced; good caramel malt presence with some toastiness, good hop presence on the finish; slight grapefruit, pleasant sticky piney bite on the finish; get even better as it warms a bit.

Medium body; smooth carbonation, almost creamy; great combination of malty yet super drinkable due to the drying and sticky bitter finish; this is a highlight for me; stunningly perfect.

This beer verges on palate perfection to me, just the goldilocks zone of hops, malt, bitterness and drinkability; I think I smiled the whole time I drank it. I hope one day they can this and I can buy a case of it.

I think that is it for me this weekend but I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is drinking and if you got any hoppy ambers post away; I love drinking vicariously through all of you.

----------------------

I still dream of our little getaway to what I describe as an alternate world, one day I hope to return to this beautiful corner of our country...

 

I've been in the mood for a good kolsch and lo and behold, I found one today at the gettin' place from a brewery that was certainly not on my kolsch radar:

Maine Beer Company's Spring, a kölsch style ale • 5% ABV • March 20, 2025 born-on date

Short version: A true gem. Wow!

I didn't realize MBC brewed anything but IPAs, but when I saw this one, I figured it would hit the spot. I had no idea. It's both simple and sturdy at the same time with good barley malt aromas and flavors on full display, lightly sweet, bready, even fruity at times. The grain notes are fantastic. The hops play around far off in the distance for about half the beer, then they start moving in and tickling and prickling ever so slightly, offering a hint of balancing bitterness. Everything is restrained but extremely tasty. A true beer drinker's beer IMO.

Official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20681/697164/?ba=Premo88#navigation
4.55 (+11% rDev)

I arguably got a bit gushy over the numbers, but dang, man ... I'm not sure what more one could ask of this style, so I honestly feel like I underrated it.

Cheers!

 

You and I both had the kolsch itch, I scratched it last week grabbed and drank Von Trapps most of this weekly; it drinks almost as the one you describe above. It’s very good when nice and fresh, which sadly isn’t often around here, if you haven’t had it.

 

I saw this at Premium Draught, and passed to get Lunch. They are the same price at about $10, I couldn't pull the trigger for a $10 Kolsh. I'm sure it is great, because Maine is a great brewery, but man that is a hard sell for me...maybe its all in my head and I need to get over it ha, cause I certainly spend some money on booze...

 

Sounds like an ‘old school’ beer to me.

Cheers to Tonewood for keeping the dreams alive!!

 

I bet Von Trapps' version is amazing. If we got Von Trapp in Texas, I'd try everything they make.

D&Q had it for I swear $4.99, which I thought was too expensive. It might've been more, but $7.99 tops. I love Premium Draught and reserve the right to buy whatever I want whenever I want from them, but their prices are usually a tick high.

 

Premium always includes taxes in their price, so it is what it is, which I kind of like to be honest. Still, they have been up charging a little more lately. As a former employee, I do get a discount, but don't always take it, maybe I should with this one ha.

 

I didn't realize the tax thing at Premium. Good to know.

What years did you work there? You didn't fill my growler back in 2014-16, did you?

 

Yep. I worked as a Saturday thing, just for fun and extra walking around money. The owner, Johnny, was one of the first people I met when I moved to Houston. He was manager at Ginger Man then the Little Woodrow's next door. I think I walked in with a Fighting Illini shirt one day, and we talked cause he is from Springfield. When Premium opened close to me in the Heights, he just needed somebody to take over the early Saturday shift. Which is pretty easy. Once Covid came, I stopped working there. The other employees are actual service industry workers, and needed the hours. It was just a fun extra thing from me to do on a Saturday, and my pupper Moe loved running around the store ha. But, it was time for me to move on.

 

Great Beer Name

 

Keeping with my personal NBW theme this evening, I found a "regular" beer from Jester King:

I fully expected this to be a "sour" pils infected by Jester King's wild yeast strain, but no, it's a straight ahead pils pils and a fairly decent one too. It lives on the side of restraint: cracker malt flavor (not bready/sweet), old black pepper hops (not particularly spicy, bitter, green or herbal) with a stale grain sacks aroma that I always connect with.

There's nothing fancy here, and it's far from the best American-made or Texas-made pilsner I've tried, but it's also nothing to sneeze at. I'll be drinking more of this in the future.

Official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24018/569812/?ba=Premo88#lists
4.02 (+3.3% rDev)

Cheers!

 

Greenhouse Aleworks Marigold Blode Ale W/Amarillo Hops, 4.5% ABV; 3.69 overall

Pours a sparkling gold with 2 fingers of eggshell colored head. Slight haze to this, good head retention, okay lacing
S: Bready, some grassy notes, decent nose, best thing about this beer

T: Follows the nose, pretty dry, white grape notes up front, some green melon notes as well. Grassy, some doughy notes & a little green melon once warm. Finishes dry & grassy, a trace of white grape

MF: Light body, moderate carbonation

Refreshing/easy drink okay for what it is. More hops & malt for me please

 

Hi to Moe!

 

Does make me think it might be a buck or two cheaper

 

Been a long time since I steeped foot in here. I used to be more active back in the NBS days. But Im having a special beer tonight so I figured why not.

Today's special beer is from Other Half brewing Company. Back before they were well known I recall reading up about this new up and coming brewery that has caught the attention of many people with their brews. And among some of their OG brews as a pale ale known as SuperFun.

I remember always wanting to try it but never had to chance to make it out there during that time or during any of it's re-relases.

Well look at what we found in my local store.The one and only SuperFun Pale Ale that was eluded me for years and this time the DDH version.

Canned 4/17/25

Hopped with Galaxy, Simecoe and El Dorado @ 4.2abv and poured into an UN-molded Free Hand Sauvin Beer Glass

Appearance is full on hazy NE style with no light shining through

Aroma is soft tropical fruits, bright citrus, orange, toasted grains

Taste follows the nose with a very very smooth uniform disputation of favors that doesn't not dominate on one particular note.

Mouthfeel is on the lighter side with a touch of creamy body that is common with NE styles

Finish is semi-dry with a citrus pithy-ness one back end. Touch of black pepper.

All in all this was amazing and delivered on what I expected all those years ago. Glad I finally got my hands on this.