New Beer Sunday (week 498)

I have only seen Bad Religion once back in 09, great show! I am still kicking myself that I have missed them the last few times they came to Philly.

 

Greetings All:

Checking in from the great northwest.

Today is Tour De Fall from New Belgium.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/131439/?ba=RJLarse

A decent pale ale, long on malt, great for the impending fall season. In my mind fall is already here.

I watched the Seahawks Thursday night. Hard to find any concerns there. I watched the WSU Cougars Friday night. Plenty of concerns there. This may be one of those years where we have to beat the Huskies and call it good.

End of summer warm here, blue skies and temps in the upper 80's. But I have seen morning lows in the 40's last week, so "Indian Summer" is upon us. I hope I can say that without being politically incorrect?

Happy Trails!

 

My first show was in '96. Man, I was feeling old yesterday. I never pictured myself removing booster seats to drive my friends to a concert.

 

Good evening NBS, hope it has been a great weekend for everyone. I stained my keezer collar this weekend after letting the sealant dry for a full 2 weeks, and the warping I had seems fixed now. It isn't making itself a gap anymore! So now I just need to lay out spacing for my taps. 3.5" spacing will do fine and I can buy a 14' drip tray to fit it perfectly.

Also today was a nice group ride with my bike riding friends and all. They do hilly dirt road rides to train for the Iceman race in November, which I am not signed up for, but I ride with them anyways. I havent ridden much lately other than indoor training due to work mostly. But I did 25 miles with the group and another 14 on the trail for 39 miles today. Felt amazing to get out there again. I am going to really try to ride more this week. Sun sets earlier every day. Night riding is coming soon (helmet lights are nice, I have a 700 lumen one)

New brews:

Very nice fruit beer! Taste of fresh tart raspberries with some moderate toast/biscuit/light caramel malts and a touch of floral hops. Minimal bitterness and light tartness on the finish. Very nice robustness of fruit flavor with well balanced malt presence. Great sweetness/tartness balance. Straight forward, but well executed. I have had some fruit beers in the past that are very bland in fruit flavor. 88/100; 3.9


Very nice Oktoberfest. Taste of caramel, toast, biscuit, toffee, light nuttiness, herbal, and some yeast earthiness. Light earthy balancing bitterness on the finish. Nice robust malt flavors with no cloying sweetness. Extremely clean, no esters. Smooth and crisp finish. A well made brew. Glad I got the 4 pack. 86/100; 3.8


This is an awesome smoked doppelbock. Huge beer. Taste of big caramel, toffee, toast, brown bread, brown sugar, light chocolate, nuttiness, wood smoke, raisin, fig, date, tobacco, and smokey earthiness. No real bitterness on the finish; big complexity of the dark/bready/smoked malt and dark fruit flavors. Zero cloying sweetness. Zero booze heat at 10.2%. I love it. 94/100; 4.2


Cheers, have a great night!

 

Nothing wrong with feeling a little older, me and my best friend are now going with balcony seats for non-21+ shows because kids don't know how to handle themselves in pits and we don't feel like putting up it any more!

 

Hiya, folks! I just finished some notes on a new (to me) beer, which a lot of you have probably already had. Sierra Nevada/Ninkasi's Double Latte collaboration from their Beer Camp box this year. It was delicious. Here are my thoughts:

Sierra Nevada/Ninkasi “Beer Camp” Collab: Double Latte (4.26/5.0)
Straight pour from a 12oz pry-off bottle to an oversized wineglass (JK stemware). This bottle’s got a packaging date of May 30, 2014 printed in light grey ink near the top of the back label (“05/30/2014”), making this beer a little over three months old at the time of consumption. Normally I’d drink a beer when it’s fresher, but it’s been refrigerated consistently and I intentionally saved the less hops-dependent beers in this mix pack for last, so as to review them more at my convenience. Should still be delicious.

Appearance (5.0): Nearly three fingers of dense, fluffy foam rise off the pour immediately and easily. The head is nearly the color of hot cocoa, and the body is, predicatably, black and effectively opaque. This beer displays outstanding retention, with the head dying down very slowly, leaving a solid film where it’s been and a slightly rocky, foamy surface where it’s going. Eventually the head leaves wide collars connected by tightly woven lacing around ¾ of the glass, and scattered suds on the nearest portion. Goddamn.

Smell (4.0): Italian roast coffee, cocoa powder, baker’s chocolate, sweetened espresso with cream, and way in the back there’s some molasses and a prune-like aroma. Really though, the nose is dominated by coffee and chocolate, mellowed by a creamy body—like when you put a packet of hot cocoa powder into a cup of black coffee and add a little cream. Which is to say, this smells fantastic.

Taste (4.25): The flavor largely comes off of as a smoother, somewhat lighter version of what’s in the nose. Mellowed out baker’s chocolate, a little coffee ice cream, vanilla pound cake, and a solid dose of whole milk latte make up the bulk of the flavor. As it warms up, some medium roast coffee acidity and a light tannic flavor, smoothed out by the cream and coffee components, come out some more. There’s a light bitterness on the finish imparted by bright, citrusy and grassy hops—a little citrus peel, and lightly floral. The aftertaste leaves a nice cocoa powder impression. Almost no sign of booze.

Mouthfeel (4.5): Soft carbonation starts with a light tingle and finishes with a soft, velvety foaming action as it washes out. The body is slightly fuller than medium-weight, but smooth and creamy without being particularly thick or heavy. It finishes barely dry. Overall it makes for a rich, satisfying, but not heavy or taxing feel that’s easy to drink.

Overall (4.25): This is an excellent beer, from start to finish. It’s not as big, rich, deep, or complex as a massive American Double/Russian Imperial Stout, but it retains a lot of the best qualities from those styles and imparts it on a (relatively) moderately-sized, extremely satisfying Milk Stout. It’s not syrupy or as sweet as some milk stouts can be. Instead, it’s a smoother, balanced take on an American-style coffee stout. It definitely benefits from being a little larger than other milk stouts, as it wraps in more coffee and chocolate flavor than others. Overall, it’s just an extremely good beer, and I wish it were a regular.
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It was delicious, and it's a nice compliment to my entertainment this evening, Jim Gaffigan's now-classic 2005 special, "Beyond the Pale." In short, awesome beer. Really wish it could become a regular offering. Saude!

 

You are most definitely doing it right. Tired Hands is a world-class, fascinating and always entertaining brewery . . . plus, that teku always makes me smile when I see it :-)

 

Damn C&C's! Had a great time with @Shroud0fdoom and @northstar23 finally got to Max's for the first time. The Ravens lost but the Orioles won, in ridiculous fashion, to keep from getting swept. My girl Serena won the U.S. Open for her 18th Grand Slam title, and I finished up my second trade with the very generous, @northstar23.

Warning: Huge Image

Thanks, for the Alewerks Pumpkin Ale, this thing is phenomenal. I think I'm falling more and more for a well-done Pumpkin Ale, the most distinctly seasonal of ales.

 

Absolutely perfect and gorgeous day here in the Chicago area today! Nice bike ride this morning and then a little beer run up to Wisconsin (grabbed that Cran-bic!). Home for a late dinner and a tasty beverage. Got a terrific and totally unexpected box from that awesome guy @wcu80 that included this--Westbrook/Charleston Beer Exchange Citrus Ninja.

According to the label, they added grapefruit zest (i.e., the outer, colored part of the grapefruit peel) to "pack as much grapefruity , hoppy goodness in as possible." I would say that they succeeded, though I think that the grapefruit flavor that comes through actually tastes much more like the pith (which is a bit more bitter) than the zest. In any event, as a grapefruit lover, I am liking the flavors quite a bit. The glowing orange color and lovely lacings are added bonuses. There is definitely a malty sweetness that is coming forward as it warms in my glass. Nice and unexpected treat! Happy late Sunday evening, NBSers!



Gratuitous cute cat pics--cat sitting for these two little nuts the past two weeks.

 

Oh my God. Are we twins beertunes? Haha

 

Hey NBS'ers,

This week saw the return to school and the shift from summer nights to fall nights here in Bend, which is welcome. That cooler nighttime air tells me fresh hop and pumpkin beers are imminent.

@beertunes has been busy, since my selection is also from his Whatcom Love care package:

Boundary Bay Traverse Red IPA pours with a nice strong white head leaving minimal lacing as it settles down. After warming a bit, the aroma and flavor resemble froot loops in their highly sweet base and citrus kick. Bitterness still makes a prominent appearance at the end, keeping the sweetness from becoming cloying or thick. The beer travels from one end of the spectrum to the other in record time, but the transition is not jarring which is impressive.



The return of school also means I have to help with math homework, so I wish you all a beery end to your weekend. Cheers!

 

Hello All NBSer's. Greeting to One and All

Fargin' hot here in Orange County, CA. I think we about kissed the 100 mark on the mercury today...and WITH some HUMIDITY!?!
Tried this little gem from the coast north of here. Pretty good IPA, lower ABV, and well priced.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25945/127089/?ba=2beerdogs

 

Prolly not. I suspect that I am so much more pretty than you.