New Beer Sunday (week 466)

Don't make yourself a stranger here!

 

Tripel Taste Off between 2 new beers (for me):
A tie between 2 Tripels. Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel 4.6 ties with Chimay Tripel 4.7.

WOW! Tasting notes compare side by side with Chimay Tripel.
I'd have to taste these again with friends to discern which one really comes out on top and why. I think it depends on temperature, time of year, mood, that particular bottle. Both better as they warm. Drink slowly.
If hop head - goes to Houblon, if Tripel lover may go to Chimay, which seems to win on more fruit, complexity and body.

Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel 4.6
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

You could call this IPA champagne. Nothing I'd rather drink at a party. A very happy brew.

A: Beautiful, semi-clear golden ala Chimay White. Intense, tiny white, lively bubbles, white lace all the way down. 4.5

S: Fruit, hops, yeast. repeat. Beautifully blended. Not as sun-washed orchard of chinese pears as Chimay. 4.25

T: Again - clean entry and exit. Starts with massive hop tingle, citric, herbal, spicy, tobacco. Malt, fruit flesh, and pepper are next, and a long crisp, piney/citrus finish with pepper and balanced hop bitterness… long dry finish. 4.75

F: Mid body, refreshing carbonation, long finish, leaves you in a great place. 4.5

O: Right up there with Chimay - 4.5

Chimay Tripel 4.7
look: 5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75

I am a Chimay Blue fan. So far, other than Allagash and Nashaminy, I am rarely a fan of American imitators. One day I will have to taste them off blind with friends. This is my first Chimay white label tripel. Poured into a Leffe Chalice. Wow!

A: This beer is so alive, a small pour kicks up the thick cream colored head, that mounds and then leaves islands when it fades. And best of all completely surrounds the brew with creamy lace. The body is a hazed glowing amber blonde, that seems to ramp from light blonde to amber blonde.

S: Garden of Eden fruit orchard. All the perfect apples, pears and grapes you can imagine, ripe on the vine, and then some asian pears and exotic fruits you never had before. Sun baked, juicy. Cloves and spice, but as in a woman's scent, and underneath there is her skin, her body too, earthy, and not over done. A very human smell. More and better as she warms.

T: A dive into that fruit feast, starts it off, juicy, appetizing, exciting, followed by a marriage of juice, spice, clove, caramel, candy, honey, and faint hop flowers. Long dry yeasty finish that leaves you feeling kissed.

F: Medium to full, creamy, long tingly finish, a lot to chew on with each sip, easily worth the price.

O: Currently my favorite tripel. Thank the monks.

 

>>>>>> New Impy Stout Sunday <<<<<<

High Gravity Imperiale Stout from Ninkasi.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14400/74906/?ba=RJLarse

Not sure I would go out of my way to have those again. With Ninkasi brews it seems I either love them or don't. This one was a little long on the molasses and bourbon flavors.

Cold here in the Columbia Basin, but use the term advisedly. Nothing like what is happening in the midwest. We have been stuck in a narrow range of temperatures between 25 and 30 day and night for over a week. Stagnant air, gray skies and frost. Pretty dreary.

We are just marking time waiting for the Superbowl.

Until next week and GO SEAHAWKS!

Happy Trails!

 

Hey everyone, happy Sunday and it's good to be back on one of my favorite threads! I Ventured out to Gulfport, MS yesterday afternoon to check out a new nano brewery and brewpub - Mississippi Brewing Company. Really cool place that I suggest checking out if you live nearby or get into the area! I really dug their Double IPA.

Anyway, I obviously stopped in a supermarket and picked up some new beers. One was a sixer of this IPA out of Tennessee. I love me a good IPA but I've certainly had better. This is good, not great, but definitely worth a try:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9020/109648/?ba=Mikecap

Cheers, all!

 

New English Barley Wine Sunday (week 466)

Greetings NBS'ers. A frigid and windy morning spent preserving resources and sorting what we in America discard too rapidly and without care.

Now enjoying a warming beer I find is an ironic entry for New Beer Sunday. Am cleaning the cellar and this baby popped up. It isn't on BA, and the other site has it as retired, so it is indeed a new beer, and one that would be pointless to try to add. I am going to give it a review right now, as I enjoy it, and 6 ounces in I am certainly enjoying. Will try to be more concise here with this than my usual wordy style:

Beautiful amber beer with barely a head, and that gone quickly, to a thin ring and almost bare cap. Hmmm looks like this baby might be packing heat.

Not a heavy aroma, but thick with sweet caramel, some deep and spicy alcohol, and a faint fruitiness that is delicious.

Simple and wonderful taste, sweet and clean, but carrying toffee and caramel, ripe fruit, and sweet alcohol spice that ends with that slow and mild "burn" of English hops.

Reallly low carb., highly viscous, yet light for all that. Really clean finish, and linger, that leaves me longing the next sip.

Doubtful this is still available, but it is one of the finer English BW's I have had in some time.

 

New Black Saison Sunday

It's Snowmaggedon 2014 in West MI. Cold temps, high winds, and snow coming in heavy spurts. Once the driveway was clear, I did everything in my power to stay home today.

Today's beer was decent. It strays from the typical saison a bit too much for me. That said, it's a perfectly drinkable stout.


http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22150/96965/?ba=GRPunk

 

Happy New American Porter Sunday!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1924/88269/?ba=MadCat

So yesterday I was finally able to pick up some Sweet Baby Jesus from DuClaw. My first from DuClaw (new brewery Sunday!) Distribution in the area is unusual, so it is not available at my usual spots, and I had to travel a little bit to get it. But, it was worth picking up, as it is delicious. It reminds me of Reese's peanut butter cup cereal mostly, mixed with a good porter. Porter was a good base beer choice, because you don't get too much roast flavors trying to overpower the peanut butter. This is unusual, but fantastic.

As for Sunday stuff... where does the weekend go? I can't believe I have to go back to work already! Disappointed in hockey today... and I just had a pretty busy weekend. Hoping I can get some more snow here and get some time off from work.

 

Another new one for me tonight, picked up a four pack yesterday on my Mississippi trip. Boy, is Buffalo Sweat not a great name for an oatmeal stout in a tall boy can? After having the original and enjoying it a few months back, I was happy to see this guy sitting in the store yesterday:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16333/88933/?ba=Mikecap

So much vanilla deliciousness. This stuff is screaming vanilla ice cream beer float...I just might have to...

Anyway, cheers everyone and have a great week!

 

New Saison Sunday

Hello again NBSers, today I opened up a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace hopped saison. After a longer than it should be day at work, where I was doing the job of many more people than just myself, it felt like as good a reason as ever to open up a beer like this one. Just finished my first week back to school and am anticipating another. Huge courseload, a mix of interesting and mundane, of easy and difficult. Per the recommendation of some guy I met at Whole Foods, I picked up a bottle on Thursday, and after remembering that today was NBS, I stuck this bottle and a Rum barrel eclipse in my fridge before work so I could make up my mind which to drink. I decided on the Sorachi Ace.

So what did I think? Well, it was okay. The Sorachi Ace had a really interesting flavor profile, but it felt a bit weak. The unique hops had this very different floral flavor, perhaps gardenia is a good comparison for the flavor. Perhaps I had too old a bottle, but the flavor didn't linger at all and it felt like it could have had a bit more depth. Happy to try it, but I'm not sure I'll go back for it.

Review here: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/45/51480/?ba=WTKeene

Think I still might open up that Rum Eclipse tonight, in which case I'll be back here later tonight with another post.

Cheers, NBSers!

 

Howdy NBSers!

Before I get into my review, I've noticed a small amount of trash talking about the Pro Bowl, and it is well deserved. All-Star events should have been dismissed for football when Robert Edwards almost lost his leg.

Now that I have let that off me chest, it's time to discuss a beer that I didn't expect much from, but was pleasantly surprised about indeed. Even though I was aware that Unibroue brewed this beer, Trader Joe's 2013 Vintage Ale didn't really excite me. I bought it because a buddy recommended it to me, and I am sure glad he did. Here's what I thought about it:

Pours a hazy, muddy brown color with a creamy, finger length tan head that dissipates very slowly into a cap that leaves a mild amount of lacing. There is a small amount of sediment on the bottom of the glass. It really is a beautiful beer. Brown sugar and molasses overpower the coriander and belgian yeast notes on the nose, but do not even make an appearance on the tongue! The tongue is very yeasty and lightly malty, but not sweet. Coriander and honey are what's left behind, and they stick around for a while. There is a decent amount of carbonation on this one, and it is a bigger bodied beer.

My only critique of this one is that I would've enjoyed tasting some of those brown sugar and molasses notes that I got on the nose because I found those to be very pleasant. With that said, I really like this beer.

I found myself humming this tune earlier today, and I would like to share this tune with you. It's from the score of one of my favorite movies. Enjoy!


I'll be back shortly with one more brew. Until then, Cheers!

 

And we're back! Solstice d'hiver by Brasserie Dieu du Ciel
My second new brew for the day is a Canadian American-style barleywine. This bottle is very fresh having been brewed on the 8th according to the notches on the side of the label. As such, the hop profile is more pronounced than I was expecting. I can dig it. This was actually a bit of a relief as my excitement was vastly tempered after pouring and smelling it. Overall I'd call it an OK barleywine. Does not, in my opinion, live up to the hype I had for it following the enthusiasm of the girl at the liquor store who works on the floor and talked it up (after I had already added it to my cart, so I think she genuinely enjoys it and wasn't just trying to sell it...). Maybe I've just been spoiled in having Bigfoot be my go to for so long.

Sounds like there's been a preponderance of good brews enjoyed today, and in many ways it's been a reminder for me not to take for granted my local high quality material (for someone born and raised in the PNW, the idea of any Deschutes beer - least of all Black Butte - being new for someone with Mr. Crill's experience fairly boggles the mind. Kind of jealous that you get the new experience of it, though, Matt! Glad you enjoyed it!). I suppose many of you probably would feel the same about your own local legends. Let's all just be glad we have great beer close at hand, and the miracle of technology to be able to virtually share the experience!

 

Back again with new beer number 2. If you are familiar with this one, and I'm pretty sure you are, you are correct in assuming this is the last one of the night. I shelled out the big bucks to try Dogfish Head's World Wide Stout, and I'm glad I did. Here's what I think of it a little over half way through:

Pours pitch black with a fizzy, brown head that dissipates quickly. Had aromas of milk chocolate and licorice up front, but I found raisins, vanilla, and some piney notes lingering in the background. The taste is very sweet, even with the decent amount of bitterness on the back end. The sweetness works well with the lactose like mouthfeel and the vanilla and milk chocolate that linger in the aftertaste. The carbonation level is very low, and the beer goes down about as easily as syrup. With that said, it is absurd how 18% ABV does not make an appearance on the nose or the tongue, which makes it dangerously drinkable.

This is a very special beer to me. I like imperial stouts that have dominant flavors with a little bit of something going on in the background. This is has just enough going on to really excite me, and they meld together extremely well. The lack of alcohol contributing to the flavor is also a big plus for me. I think this may be one of the best imperial stouts I've ever had!

Well now it's time for me to retire for the evening. I'm going to be spending the next week finishing up a book I've recently picked up. It's called Beer Blast by Philip Van Munching. While I'm not really gaining anything in terms of beer knowledge, it really is very interesting if you are into marketing as much as I am. I'd recommend it to any BA, especially to you NBSers out there.

Have a great week indoors everyone (except to you lucky schmucks further south)!
Cheers!

 

New Second Beer Sunday

And here I am, also back with New Beer #2. Probably should have saved this for next weekend, but oh well. I'm a drunk (not really). I did open up that 18 year Rum barrel aged Eclipse from Fifty Fifty, and poured myself a few ounces in a tasting glass. Too cold at first, and I couldn't smell it at all, but the beer did get better as it warmed. Low on the carb, like many barrel aged stouts, and with a good amount of bitter coffee and dark chocolate. I just didn't notice much in the way of rum. Oh well. I think I'll stick to bourbon/whiskey/whisky aged stouts, the pirate bomb and now this were both disappointing. I wanted rum flavor and didn't get any.

Here's my review: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14936/98580/?ba=WTKeene

And New Beer Sunday is nearly over, so I'm sure this post won't be the likebait that the last one was, but anyways. Looking forward to next week's NBS, when I'll need something that goes well with the Superbowl. I was thinking lager, but unless I'll be NBSing Bud Light, it will probably have to be something else.

See y'all next week!