New Beer Sunday (week 523)

Good evening NBS! Hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend once again. Finally stopped slacking and made a white IPA today. Took a nap in the afternoon yesterday, and ended up staying up all night; so I rode my trainer bike at 2 in the morning and watched Chuck on Netflix for 2 hours haha. Laundry was done as well at 5. Brewed it at 8 am. I've accumulated 4 cases of bottles now and they need filled. Once again I am not happy with my mash efficiency, and it is putting me towards the last straw to buying a barley crusher. Anyways, it is a standard witbier malt bill, and I used Hallertau Blanc and Belma hops in it. Wort tasted extremely unique not like anything I've ever tasted. Strawberry, melon, peach, pineapple, grapes, and some herbal/grassy earthy notes. It almost tasted like a creamsicle or something. It was really interesting. I'm sure that's not all, after it ferments I will be able to taste them more distinctly and of course get some nice wit yeast fruity/spiciness along the way. https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/belma-blanc-white-ipa


Got a nice selection beers lined up for tonight, another milestone I would love to share with you all:

This is a great Helles. Nice head retention and some lightly spotty clinging lacing down the glass. Nice prominent and balanced aromas of lemon, cracker, biscuit, herbal, straw, grass, light pepper, and a small amount of yeast earthiness. Taste follows the same as the aromas state. Fair amount herbal/spicy bitterness on the finish. Very nice robustness and balance of pale malt and earthy hop flavors; well balanced bitterness. Very smooth and crisp finish, with some light bready creaminess and hop stickiness. Medum bodied. Very clean with minimal yeast ester presence. Maybe just a slight bit hoppier than I expected, but not by any seriously detrimental margin. Seriously just really spot on, I'd totally drink this again. 4.1


This was really nice. Not quite opaque, dark brown in color. Clear with good head retention, and light spotty lacing. Prominent aromas of milk chocolate/cocoa/coffee with some caramel/toasted bread notes, light smoke/dark fruit, and a bit of herbal hops. Really well balanced. Taste of milk chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, molasses, toast, brown bread, light smoke, light dark fruit and some herbal hop earthiness. Light herbal/roast bitterness on the finish. Very nicely robust flavors; good bitter/sweet balance of roasted character with nice bready/molasses malt complexity. Light-moderate carbonation; with a moderately creamy and very smooth mouthfeel. Overall really well balanced and enjoyable. I will definitely pick up a six, after I drink the last of my Big Mountain APA. 3.9


This is outstanding. Wonderful aromas with tart lemon, lime, green apple, peach, pineapple, mango fruitiness with pepper, hay, straw, grass, white viniegar and musty funky notes; with some light wheat/cracker malt presence. Great strength and balance. Great hop and yeast complexity. Taste of tart lemon, lime, green apple, pineapple, peach, mango, pepper, hay, straw, grass, white vinegar, musty funk, and light wheat/cracker malts. Moderate earthy yeast spice and fruity tartness on the finish. Really good prominence of yeast and hop flavors; even with the light pale malt presence, it doesn't really feel watery or bland. Very smooth and crisp finish; nicely balanced acidity as well. Just really all around very awesome stuff here. Feels a lot like a sour saison for sure; with the prominent peppery spice in the aromas and taste. Love it. I'd drink a growler of this, the acidity has nice prominence but causes zero palate fatigue. They really nailed the idea of a sour table beer right here. 4.22


Review #3000. 2014 vintage. Head retention was decent, I wasn't expecting much at this gravity; but the color is a nice deep ruby red, moderate haze. Very nice aromas with raisin, plum, fig, caramel, toffee, brown sugar, coconut, toast, bourbon, oak, vanilla, leather, and some slight chocolate. A light-moderate amount of booziness appears as it warms, seems to muddle some of the darker complexities, but no complaints otherwise. Taste of huge raisin, plum, fig, butterscotch, caramel, toffee, brown sugar, toast, coconut, molasses, brown bread, bourbon, oak, leather, and light chocolate. Absolutely amazing flavors. An intense wide array of complexity all around, and very well balanced malt and barrel flavors. As it warms the initial booziness subsides, but you are left with a fairly lengthy warming finish. Dense/full mouthfeel and light carbonation; with very creamy/moderately slick mouthfeel that is never cloying. Very smooth slow sipper for sure, and the deep malt complexity is simply amazing and balanced. Outstanding. 4.3


Cheers! Have a good night NBS.

New Track from Slice the Cake. This is incredible. They fell off my radar for a while, but I have all of their other albums

 

Bear Republic: Racer X Double IPA


4.18/5 rDev -1.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Look 4.0 cloudy amber, with thin off white short lived head Lots of sediment in the 22 oz. bottle,that I am looking forward to getting in the second glass.

Smell 4.0 lots of big citrus grapefruit, lemons and a little bit of sweet malt.

Taste 4.25 Lots of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice citrus. and orange rind. It's well balanced with crystal malt backbone sweetness. ending with a touch of bitter hops. No noticeable alcohol.

Feel 4.25 Medium carbonation, sticky with a long lasting touch of bitter.

Overall 4.25 I like It, I probably wont be returning to it often, due to the price point and so many other IPA bombers always competing for that dollar. But it is definitely not one to be missed if you have not had it before.

 

"No head with an agressive pour and not getting a creamy mouthfeel"? That seems odd. I pour mine hard from the get go, but I can float a cap in this beer routinely. I would probably pick it as the creamiest beer I've had (Left Hand Nitro and Ten Fidy in the mix). This is why I like Black Note so much. No other barrel aged beer has that body and creamy texture. Maybe someone else has some input. Sounds like a potential carbonation problem to me.

 

I've got five more bottles to try but yes it had little carbonation, I hope it's just a bad bottle because it's really tasty.

 

happy NBS!

Whew....I'm fairly late to the party this week. Drove down to Bloomington this morning. Met up with some friends from Memphis and picked up my Upland sours. A little dicey on the way down through a snow storm, but I made it, had a great time and returned safely. Figured while I was out, might as well hit up three floyds. Had a few new brews there with dinner (the thai pizza is awesome) and returned home for a short night watching some netflix. Anyway, onto my new beer...

Black Xantus by Humboldt brewing


The other day I ran over to a certain brewery in munster. On the way back I figured I would hit up the best liquor store in the area. Found this puppy sitting on the shelf. Been wanting this for awhile, so I immediately grabbed it. Very glad I did.

Pours a pitch black, with a slight cappuccino colored head.

Nice rich smell. Rich dark Chocolate, slightly bitter bakers chocolate. Awesome. Rich roasty smell as well.

Taste is rich. Very rich. Nice chocolatey viscous taste. Very one dimensional to me. But I love the rich roasty chocolate. Damn good end to a long day.

Mouthfeel is rich and viscous. Velvety smooth for 11% too.

Overall an amazing beer and a great cap to an awesome day spent driving around Indiana and spending time with some good friends.

Looking forward to reading through the rest of today's new beers!

 

Hey guys, i'm pretty damn late today, but before it's too late i just want to add what i tried today for the first time.

http://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/medi...5/pimages/SchneiderAventinusWeizenEisbock.jpg

Aventinus Weizen Eisbock - 4.26/5

I didn't realize when i picked it up that this beer was 12%! Gawt dayum.

I had heard good things, and i heard right. Absolutely fantastic beer, LOTS of prunes/dark fruit, definite alcohol warmth in the back of the throat all the way down to the stomach. They make little effort to hide that 12%, but not in a bad way.

If you haven't tried this go get one ASAP! I just made a thread about overlooked imports, and i think this is a pretty good example.

 

G

Get better!

 

Exactly. We need to get Bill Murray in there to make an assessment!

 

Been a long time since I had the time to sit down and write a proper review for NBS. I am glad to be back.

Spent the day with the fam sledding and the local SoCal moutains actually got some good snow. It was kinda torturous sledding instead of boarding but seeing my son's face riding the hill made it all worth it. Next year I get the chance to trade in my son's sled and put him on skis. I can't wait!


Back home and got the slippers, and fireplace on and just fired up The Walking Dead and cracked this beauty. Beer pours out a dark like cola color with some ruby tinged at the top. Slight head that's faded quickly and settles on the rim. I can smell the beer as soon as I pour it. Sweet oak, vanilla, caramel, bready malt and some booze. The taste is spot on to the nose. Good barrel character, notes of bourbon and some heat. Mild carbonation that bubbles in the tongue just slightly and finishes smooth. Overall I am very surprised how good this is. It's top of the class good. Kinda pricing but well worth it and I need to pickup another.

 

Welcome aboard. You seem to have the right idea.

 

Good Luck on the Cicerone Exam! I've always enjoyed your loquacious reviews. I sometimes can't exactly explain the sensations in a beer I taste, but I always find your reviews colorful and helpful.

 

Happy New American Wild Ale Sunday!

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/863/22227/?ba=MadCat



Happy NBS everyone from San Diego. Of course we get a rainy day when I'm here... but it sure beats the snow back home. Fortunately yesterday was beautiful, I managed to get over to Point Loma and see some amazing sights. Today I took advantage of the locale and got a bottle of Russian River Supplication with dinner. Accidentally got something that didn't pair well with it, so I just drank most of the beer after I finished my food. This was an excellent brew to order, well worth the price tag. Almost glad I can't get it easily so that I'm not tempted to buy it more.

Cheers!

 

Finally getting around to the last of four new beers (well, okay, technically three new-new beers and one "new when fresh" beer) that I picked up six-packs of last week, thanks to a random $20 bill I found lying in the snow making me feel less bad about plunking down such a big chunk of money at once when I'm just getting out of a tough spot money-wise. Probably would have had one earlier, but after two "two beer days" in a row earlier in the week I decided to slow down for a bit. XD



Also pictured: my new bottle opener, with which the "put a quarter on the cap" trick actually works perfectly... unlike the old one, which tended to mangle the sides of the cap pretty bad when that was attempted.

This is one that my sister tried before (and she really liked it), and I had considered picking some up toward the end of last year when I first noticed it in the store, but I ended up going for something else instead (I think that may have been the trip to the store where I ended up trying Pilsner Urquell.) Now I'm finally getting around to trying this one!

Only the second porter I've ever had (the first being New Belgium's Portage), and already I'm surprised by just how different two beers in the same style can taste. Portage had a lot of coffee and chocolate-like flavors going on, while this one's hovering more in the range of toasted grain and raisins, maybe a little almond-like nuttiness too. It actually is kinda reminding me of Raisin Bran, weirdly enough. A bit surprised that I'm not really picking up much vanilla; my sister described this as having a lot of vanilla flavor going on and it seems a lot of the reviews mention it being pretty prominent too. I'm picking up a bit in the smell but it's not really carrying over to the taste as much... maybe it's one of those things that comes out a lot more as the beer warms up, though--still pretty close to fridge-temperature right now. It could also be that it's blending in with the other flavors enough that I'm not really picking it up as "vanilla" right now but would notice the difference if it was gone.

So far: a bit different than I was expecting (was thinking more "chocolate+vanilla" rather than "slightly nutty, slightly vanilla-y liquid Raisin Bran"), but still pretty good! Out of the two porters I've tried now, I think I liked Portage more (I still have one last bottle of that one in the fridge... maybe I could do a "have a glass of both and compare" sort of thing at some point if I'm feeling like having a two-beer day? maybe the vanilla might stand out more when compared directly to a beer in a similar style with no vanilla), but this is definitely not bad at all, just different.

 

So I see you got your Alpine box. Exponential is one of my favs. It's a big boy though.

 

I was gonna head up to the new Toronado Seattle for this evening's nightcap (slash wake up call... Being nocturnal throws all these time-specific terms to the wind!), but a combination of factors inspired me to sit home and contemplate cleaning my apartment instead. Roughly in order: I can't bring myself to leave the little goober home alone in her kennel any more than I absolutely have to, and she gets enough of that while I'm at work. I don't know how Toronado feels about dogs, but I'm not ready to take her out into the morasse of humanity yet, and I don't feel comfortable leaving her tied up outside (more because she hasn't been spayed yet [and is in heat. The less said about that, the better] than because I'm worried about her/somebody stealing her/whatever). Plus I'm feeling SUPREMELY lazy, spent a bunch on groceries* last night, and while the taplist has some stuff I'm already planning to get when I finally DO head in, none of it was enough to counteract the above points. And lastly, my apartment is gross right now. It's amazing how much more cleaning it takes with the dog vs without, even without any rain/mud for her to track in yet. C'est la vie!
The grocery bill tends to go up whenever I get a wild hare and decide to cook something specific/needs a lot of ingredients that either need to be fresh or that I don't have laying around otherwise (I try not to let the latter thing happen!). I find cooking is the other great stress-reliever in my life (other than the obvious raison d'être for this site, and, of course, the inimitable Porter) The inspiration for last night's trip was pizza. Humble ol' pizza. Except I LOVE getting really into deep dish pizzas from the ground up. That means sauce from scratch starting with tomatoes, red wine, onions, herbs, etc and dough made from scratch (mainly cornmeal/flour/oil), and I will shamelessly admit that I get into the whole fresh/local/other buzzwords for toppings (mainly sausage/basil/feta/MOZZARELLLAAAAAAAAAAA). Bah, enough of my douchy self-indulgence. I'm hungry, and want food to take to lunch at work too. Anyway, that's my big plan for tonight.

My fridge, aside from being full of veggies and cheese and meat (I saw some pork shoulder that spoke to me as well, and so bought a couple of pounds to turn into pulled pork), has a number of beers in it (who would have guessed??). My first two choices for NBS-glory were ones I had forgotten I'd had before. Hmmm... what to do, what to do...
Good thing I had a growler of Auld Heritage, that I picked up at the brewery. Honestly? I was disappointed. The nose held very little other than a roasted grain. It tasted ok, starting off with a halfhearted nod towards raisins, etc, before rushing to that same grainy underwhelm, before finally settling into something resembling what I was looking for in a long almost tannic tobacco/leather that I always associate with the style. Really, if I had picked this up randomly on a shelf somewhere I'd probably be a little more satisfied, but Reuben's has impressed me so thoroughly in most of their other endeavours that my bar for them is a bit higher. And this one did not clear it, for me.


@Bitterbill inspired me. With all the truly CLASSIC classics recently available on netflix, I think I'm going to revisit some greats from an earlier era of cinema. I remember watching Battleship Potemkin and Nosferatu and Cabinet of Caligari and other similar films as part of an english elective in college, but my focus was.... elsewhere.


Jesus, even when I've ALREADY filled your screen with text I STILL can't keep it concise the second time around.
And you'll notice I didn't do anything about it. BLOAT!

 

Great Divide Claymore Scotch Ale. Enjoying this beer right now. Nothing better for me than a scotch ale for when I wanna get my malt fix, and I tend to be craving malty beers a lot more in the winter time (as I'm sure others do also.) Unfortunately this probably won't make it's way into my rotation since great wee heavies like Dirty Bastard and Old Chub are so easy to come by here.

 

Oh, yeah- they are training me very well, it seems.

 

Hardywood Brewing Rasberry Stout was really tasty - a little thin but great overall : )

Also had Kane Brewing Morning Bell Porter - a great beer : )