New Beer Sunday (week 508)

2013 Deschutes The Abyss. Very complex and smooth. I'm surprised more breweries do not do partial barrel aging. Now most barrel aged beers are 100% barrel aged, but the partial barrel aging can do wonders for a beer, as this one shows. Wonderful flavors of molasses, vanilla, licorice, dark chocolate, slight coffee, peat, black cherry, oak, bourbon, and vinous qualities from the wine barrel.

The partial barrel aging of various spirits and barrels allows for more subtle complexities from the spirits and barrels to be put into the beer, instead of having the entire beer sit in one spirit, which can sometimes let that one spirit and barrel hinder and take over the base beer. All the subtle complexities combine to form a very intense melange of flavors; whereas, some 100% barrel aged beers are intense in flavor, but the flavors do not meld together and it becomes a mess. Beer is all about balance, and this beer's subtle complexities from the various spirits, barrels, and adjuncts are all balanced together tremendously.

I've had some older versions of this and was disappointed, but they were all at least 2 years old when I had them. Both times I previously had it, it was very musty and old. The flavors seemed worn out. I feel that the fresher this beer is drank, the better. Now I understand the hype behind this. Cheers!

 

This one would make an awesome float with some French Vanilla Ice Cream, it's so sweet. The one time I tried it, I could only drink half the bottle in one session!

 

Thought I'd have this one for New Beer Sunday.

Infiniti Elderberry Brett

Large, foamy head atop an orange body. Hint of pink when the light catches it. I get a whiff of oak. Smells a bit like white wine. Very dry taste. The funk comes in at the end. Don't get much elderberry here. Just a bit of tartness. Interesting but I can't say I love it. Pretty good overall.

 

Spent the last week week freezing my ass off, taking my rifle for several long walks up and down the mountains of western CO, drinking lots and lots of shitty beer and cheap whiskey, eating lots of bad food and generally having a great time hunting. Got to see some of the most beautiful countryside anywhere in the world too! Life is good. Last night I got to celebrate by best bud's 50th birthday so it's been a helluva good week all in all. Back home again now, so I get to drink good beer again, which leads to this week's new beer, one of the Sierra Nevada Snowpack beers:

Sierra Nevada Coffee Stout

Dark, cola looking, opaque with a fluffy head, nice lacing to the end. Smell is certainly coffee with some cocoa and caramel. Flavor is like a cold cup of espresso, with a bit of the chocolate flavors, as well a some sweet caramel and roasty dark malt. The mouthfeel was thinner than I expected for such a dark stout, but very clean and creamy. Overall, I really like this beer, hope that Sierra Nevada makes this a year-round offering.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!

 

Man, I thought it was cold here at 28 degrees for most of the last couple of days, but @Bitterbill takes the cake with almost the same thing in negatives!

Gotta agree with @woemad too, about the 'Hawks game: well played Chiefs. They controlled the lines and won that game, though the no-call on that Baldwin 4th down was turrible. Two thoughts predominate related to that play: A: You can't let something that egregious go, ESPECIALLY in that kind of scenario. 2: As soon as he felt the contact Baldwin gave up on the play, assuming that a flag was forthcoming. He still had an opportunity to make a play on that ball, even with the contact, and he absolutely has to do what he can to try to still catch it, (ir)regardless of whether he expects a flag or not.
Also, as superlative as he's been to this point, Russell Wilson has all of a sudden started to have trouble with putting the ball where he wants to. It seems the last couple of weeks he's been sending his throws slightly high or slightly low consistently more than he ever has in his career. I'll ask him when he comes in on Tuesday

Though I still have all my anxieties about being in over my head at the new job, the second day on the floor was a significant step forward from the first, and I'm still absolutely in love with my job (and since there's a roughly three or four month orientation/probationary period, my preceptor keeps telling me I'm well on track and shouldn't worry about feeling over my head, especially so early, and especially with such a specialty population). I'm sorry, I don't mean to brag or whatever, but it's just such a new experience for me to actually feel like I've got my life on track and to love what I'm doing. I've got the job that I've dreamed about for the last five years or so (since I started working towards a career in healthcare), and if anything the first two weeks have only served to elevate my excitement at being able to do what I do where I do. Great work environment, great coworkers, great patients...

Anyway.

Today's new beer continues the random pumpkin odyssey I've been undertaking for the past couple of weeks, and introduces yet another unique twist on the theme, with (once again) positive results. Their recent sale to the big dogs notwithstanding, 10 Barrel's Jamaican Me Pumpkin is a concoction I never would have thought up, and one that may seem really random at first blush, but... it works, regardless of who owns the bottom line.
Barrel aging a pumpkin beer makes enough sense, but RUM barrel aging seems kind of out of the blue (at least to this fool who feels that rum is probably the least of the main liquors [yes even moreso than vodka... it's just too sweet for the most part]). The first thing that jumped out to me about this beer was that it smelled almost like a mild sour. This is not reflected in the flavour, really, but I couldn't escape that on the nose. The other big thing was that, per my experience, most brews start with flavour, then the carbonation plays a supporting role starting maybe two thirds of the way through the sipping experience. This one (for whatever odd reason) is decisively out of order. The carbonation is the first things I noticed, but instead of just leading ot overcarbonation throughout, it gives way pretty quickly to a thick chewy brew, with flavours of creamy sweet pumpkin meat and rum alcohol. It's an interesting take on the tradition, and actually works better than you'd expect. I really enjoyed it, and if I were more rum-inclined, I'd probably like it even more.


(it was the best Jamaincan-ish tie in I could think of.... )
This is what I would have otherwise posted, as it's been stuck in my head for the last week or two. Why DID Billie Joe jump off the Tallahatchee Bridge?

 

Wasn't going to post again, but split this beer with the girlfriend. Picked up only one in a mixed six-pack with 3 Olde School Barleywines, an Edmund Fitzgerald, and a DuClaw/Mad Fox beer. Haven't had many DuClaw I really liked, and didn't really care for Sweet Baby Jesus, and this beer was vaguely reminiscent of it (smell especially).



However, I really liked this beer (4.51), so much I couldn't even save enough for the picture. I did let it warm a bit before I poured it, which was probably the right thing to do. It had a nice light sweetness to it, a smooth feel (if a smidge thin), a nice bitterness that did no more than balance the light sweetness (meaning it never took over the beer). To me, this almost embodies what I want in a stout (it says imperial, but at 7.7%, it's gotta be low end of that scale, I think), smoothness with a little sweetness, but overall well balanced. Gonna have to find some more of it, and skip mixing it with other beers.

 

Here is a beer new to me and the site. A limited edition inspired by the grape harvest festival in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris

I was hoping for a chewier, sweeter beer seeing that it had raisins added. It initially had a very interesting after taste/sensation. Unfortunately it is coming up short. Cest la vie

 

Good evening NBS! Hope everyone is enjoying their new beers for the end of this weekend. I kicked a brown ale keg last night and luckily I had a full 5.5 gallons of Scottish 90/- waiting for a 4th keg I needed to buy, but now I need to brew another beer. So I have 2 new beers at the least to brew in the next month. I am going to rack my Barleywine onto a Wild Turkey double soaked oak spiral by the end of this week and monitor it over the course of the next couple months.

As for the Scottish ale, it is awesome. Very nice bready/caramel and slight roasty malt flavors. Restrained yeast fruitiness with no real bitterness detectable(flat), but a very clean finish with zero cloying flavors. Pretty spot on if you ask me. We will see how the carbonated version turns out. I am going to throw some prepared gelatin in there later on when it's cold.


New Brews:

This is a nice and pleasant pumpkin ale. Taste of caramel, toast, brown sugar, molasses, biscuit, pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and some earthy yeast notes. Aromas were much of the same with a slight anise note as well, weak on strength. Really well balanced spice flavors with a well represented malt profile with the brown sugar/molasses sweetness. Very minimal bitterness; but no cloying sweetness present at all. Nice creamy mouthfeel, very smooth and no alcohol presence. Light carbonation. Overall very pleasant and not overly spiced; and was quite tasty. 3.68


Holy moley this is awesome. Huge fricking juicy hop nose on this one. Taste follows suit with big grapefruit, tangerine, lemon zest, pineapple, peach, mango, orange peel, pine, caramel, toffee, toast, and floral/grassy hop earthiness. Modest pine/grassy bitterness on the finish. Seriously great balance of flavors here. Balanced bitterness/sweetness with a huge amount of juicy citrus/tropical hops on the front and a good amount of dark malty sweetness on the back without it being overpowering on the hop profile. Finish is very smooth, moderately creamy, and lightly hop resin sticky. Extremely well done imperial red. 4.2


Bottled a year ago last Wednesday. This is absolutely amazing. Taste of huge milk chocolate, cocoa, coffee, toast, dark bread, molasses, raisin, plum, fig, nuttiness, toffee, vanilla, oak, bourbon, tobacco, and light smoke/char earthy notes. Incredible complexity and balance of the malt, coffee, and oak barrel flavors. No real bitterness on the finish, but no cloying either. Extremely smooth for 11% with only a light warming presence of alcohol after the finish. Very creamy, and moderately slick mouthfeel. The integration and balance of flavors here is just insane. Wow, just wow. 4.43


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Trying another new beer from the SN Snowpack. This one's not quite as good as the coffee stout.

Sierra Nevada Porter

Bottled 10-17-14. Pours dark brown, not quite opaque with just a little light shining through. Nice fluffy head that settled quickly to a quarter inch. Aroma is slight coffee and chocolate, and a little light all around. Flavor is slight dark roast malt with a slight sweet caramel, almost cola flavor. Mouthfeel was pretty thin, with very little carbonation. Overall, not bad at all, but not great.

 

Hey Maria, This has been a go-tp for more than 2 decades for me. Still a sold Oatmeal Stout.

 

Big want finally obtained thanks to @IowaBiertrinker

Big juicy citrus bomb on both smell and taste. Took me a few minutes to take a drink because I couldn't stop smelling it. The body is creamy but light and incredibly drinkable. Nice bitterness to finish the beer off. I could drink a lot of this.

 

Hey NBSers,

We're in the midst of a genuine cold snap here in Bend; single digit temps are not unheard of in the high desert, but this may be the coldest it'll get this year. Time to cozy up with an old belly-warmer that's new to me.

2008 Thomas Hardy's Ale by O'Hanlons Brewing Co. Ltd. of Devon, England


I had a 2008 JW Lee's Harvest Ale last night and had to follow it up with this. I have always thought of these two beers as being very similar, vintage English old ale/barleywines in similar sized bottles. I've had both bottles since 2010 and bought them both from the same bottleshop, so I have reason to think they've lived comparable lives. While they share some of the same flavor characteristics, my two bottles had some surprising differences. The Harvest Ale poured with more carbonation than I expected and had a lot of floaties, while this poured with almost no carbonation and no sediment. Both had a very sweet toffee aroma, but upon the first sip the "two peas in a pod" theory fell apart. The Harvest ale had the classic old ale flavors, but added a mild chile element- no heat but a deep green pepperiness which was welcome in adding a dimension to the sweetness. In comparison, the Hardy's Ale seems less complex and satisfying, a bit on the thin side (but what do I really know about how thin 6 year old beers should be?).

The Hardy's Ale lost out to the Harvest Ale in my opinion, but it was interesting to see how these vintages compared. 3/5.

 

Expedition...Blows the mind.

 

Couldn't just drink new beers today, so I followed Avery Tweak with a La Cumbre Malpais Stout (delicious as ever despite following the Tweak monster) before trying my second new beer of this Sunday:

Almanac Sourdough Wild Ale

Seems folks are a bit down on this beer, but it's pretty good. Not spectacular nor without flaws, but delicious tropical flavors.

Here's my review: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24940/111574/?ba=ONovoMexicano

 

Nice pull @TongoRad !!! I haven't lestened to any of my old Sonny TerrY and Brownie McGhee for a long time. I really love their early recordings, pure Piedmont style, before the folk revival. Thanks, this was cool too.

 

Grettings, NBS
Well. It's been a beautiful week here in SoCal. We're actually geittin' a bit o' seasonal change. But today we woke to some of the famous (infamous, if you're a firefighter) Santa Ana Winds. They transformed agorgeous blue sky into a dusty, hazy mess.

As for beer...tried a an IPA from a somewhat local brewery (60 miles away or so). Really nice, and damned good for the price.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22937/94378/?ba=2beerdogs

Warlock IPA fom Craft Brewing, Lake Elsinore, CA

3.7/5 rDev +16.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

22oz bottle
First off, the pour gives a beautiful, darker than expected, amber hue topped by a frothy off-white head. There is a slight cloud of debris that swirls for a moment and quickly dissipates.

Smell has a blend of bright citrus notes, bready malt, and slight bitterness.

The taste shines through better than the nose. Here you get a bit more citrus notes, as well as the malt backbone. Really nicely balanced.

The mouthfell has an interesting and somewhat pleasant "grittiness" to it. Reminds me of some DIPA's i've enjoyed.

The finish is consistent with the taste and adds an ever so light hint of resiny dankness.

Overall, this is a damn good IPA. And the price being near $5 a bomber will have me grabbing more.

 

Good Evening NBS! Its been a long day and I just got home on this snowy evening from a meeting. Its technically 1237AM EST time but today I am trying and reviewing a new Belgian IPA- Why Can't IBU by Stillwater. Belgian IPA is pretty much my favorite style and I am really really digging this one.


3.98/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4

A- Body is a uniformly very hazy straw yellow color. Pours with a 1-2 finger soapy white head that has decent retention and leaves behind some lacing in the glass.

S- Floral Hops, bread, funk, yeast, sugary sweetness.

T- Flavor profile is very similar to the nose. Floral hop overtones, funk, and bready yeast upfront. A lot more floral hop bitterness and a but more funk come through for the finish. The finish is on the dry side but floral hop bitterness lingers on.

F- High tingly carbonation, light to medium weight dry body.

O- Overall this is a nice belgian IPA. Its pretty dry in character but nice and hoppy with a good amount of funk thrown in there too. I really like what stillwater does in general. This isn't my favorite of the Belgian IPAs-but it sure is a nice one.

 

Hey All,
I'm riding pretty high right now. My buddy and I just won a Bruery blending competition! These events are awesome. Basically, the Bruery hosts about 50 people who are placed on teams. Then the Bruery provides some of their beers, french presses and other equipment, and some great snacks. We, the guests, bring whatever ingredients we want to experiment with for blending a Bruery variant. I participated in a Black Tuesday blending a few months ago and my team came in 3rd.

This time the purpose was to come up with a recipe for Melange 10. I have been trying to come up with a Día de los Muertos inspired Black Tuesday but couldn't get it quite right (it was good, but Black Tuesday is an expensive bottle to continue experimenting with at home). We were allowed to use any of the following beers for our blend: Black Tuesday, Sucre, Mash, Loakal Red, Mischief, and 7 Swans-a-Swimming.

So our version, Mash o Muertos, is a blend of Mash (Englsh Barleywine) and Sucre (the latest anniversary ale), with Abuelita brand Mexican chocolate, Ancho chile (pureéd), cinnamon, French Oak chips soaked in Brandy, and a tiny bit of sugar from a calavera (candy skull used to decorate during the holiday).

These events are always a great time, but to win is truly exciting. Patrick Rue, owner of the Bruery, as well as some of the Bruery crew were the judges. My buddy was so focused on what we were going for and our pairing made for a solid collaboration. Just had to share this on NBS.

Cheers!