New Beer Sunday (week 524)

What's up nbs players. Almost halfway through March and we still have a good foot on snow on the ground here on the island. Still a nice sunny day today with temps breaking the 40's. Trying to get shit done round the house and deal with the slushy mess outside.

My new beer is another canned offering from Montauck Brewing co. Their session ipa which is clearly brewed and canned in Westminster ma. So local in name at least.

No canning date to be found but these just hit so I'm betting a month or two on it at best. It pours out a light golden color with semi-hazy clarity. Subtle nose of grasses, pine, and hops. The drinking starts light and hoppy. Very crisp and refreshing with a solid mouth feel. Not watery at all. Subtle notes of resin, pine, fresh grasses, continue over from the nose nicely. I am surprisingly impressed with this. I only grabbed one can but this is a solid 3.5/4 in my book.

 

I'm in the same boat. Last night was "Dinner Club" night. A semi-monthly gathering of friends involving good food and drink. This time it was Cioppino, and it was freaking delicious. There was also a lot of wine consumed and a growler of Iron Goat's Head Butt was made empty. I was on foot, and my path happened to take me near The Swamp, so a couple of coffee porters from Selkirk happened to find their way into my belly to close out the evening.

 

Good afternoon BA NBS folks! Beautiful day for new beer. Starting with this one. Haven't had a Wee Heavy in some time. First, a very nice deep copper look with a thin white top, decent carbonation. As soon as I poured I could smell the sweetness. The taste is pretty sweet also, a bit of molasses, caramel and fruity. The booze is hidden until it goes down(which I enjoy)..This is 10% abv, and my wife just took a few sips, leaving me to finish the bomber by myself (of course=) and it took me a while to finish because of the sweetness, but it seems to be balancing out as it goes. Very enjoyable, kind of wishing it was a bit bigger/bolder, like maybe Alesmith Wee Heavy, but would buy this again...for the price, it's hard to pass up. Cheers to all!

 

It'll be there tomorrow. Will that work?

 

Happy New Beer Sunday. Well, I've been waiting to try Hop Hunter from Sierra Nevada. Finally got my hands on some. Looks amazing in the glass. Big fluffy head atop a clear golden body. For me, the smell was disappointing after all I've heard about the hop oil. It did liven up as the beer warmed. I got some basic citrus from the nose. Taste similar. Nothing special, but it does have a nice, clean taste. Very drinkable. A good BBQ IPA at a very good price as well.

 

Happy NBS!

Today I've figured I will take a lazy day and watch some netflix. And of course enjoy a new beer.

Today's selection is Very Mad Cow by Revolution Breweing..


Pours a nice pitch black with a light tan colored head.

Smell begins with bourbon and sweet lactose sugars. I get a slight dark fruit/ raisin aroma as well as some semi-sweet chocolate.

Taste begins with sweet bourbon vanilla raisins, moving to a nice sweet, roasty chocolate flavor. Not overly complex, but still very good.

Mouthfeel isn't super rich, but also not watery. I've found that sometimes a barrel can water down a good beer. This isn't the case here. It's somewhere in the middle. I was a little worried about that after the smell.

Overall a very good beer. I'd give it a 4/5

 

A hearty hello to you, rye rogues and Munich mercenaries, it’s time once again for your weekly, awaited harangue from NWNJ’s Cicerone-in-studying, John. It’s a heatwave up here, reaching sultry temperatures of 40 degrees F˚. The icicles drip and the beer pours. I’ve recently been on a rye kick, or a rye barrel kick, so past endeavors included Garden State Rhapsody (NJ exclusive awesomeness) Rhye IPA by Smutty Nose, and last night, Black is the New Wit. Click for quick review. Today? A 2013 bottle of Ithaca’s Anniversary Fifteen. Labeled as a dark rye ale, it called to me.

Poured with energy into my pilsner glass, courtesy of my brother in Seattle, WA. He gave me three of them as a gift, each etched on the outside with the logo of the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command logo. Fun fact- he’s now a civilian. I raise this glass in his honor and honorable discharge.

Sight: Dark amber/brown with an SRM of maybe 24-26(?) body with tan head, fluffy and craggy. It looks like the inside of a volcano initially, but settles down. Small bubbles rise to the surface in a Sunday-driver like leisure. Lacing deposits thick rings around my glass.

Smell: Spicy phenols from either the yeast or the rye. Most of the aroma is subtle. This is a 2013 bottle, so maybe that explains it.

Taste: More tang and spice, with a good malt structure. Sweetness shows up too, and a small bitterness to the finish. Perhaps, since it’s an older bottle, it’s more balanced than Ithaca intended when fresh. One might also detect a little soy-sauce as stated by another reviewer.

Feel: Medium minus, with gentle carbonation. Good finish with the spice and tang.

Overall: I wish I had been able to try one of these fresh. It feels like a balanced German brown. Enjoyable, but I felt a little ambivalent. I mean, it’s good… but I can’ wait until next NBS when I open either:

A) River Horse’s Rye Barrel Aged Imperial Oatmeal Milk Stout

B) Firestone Walker’s Sucaba

or

C) Firestone Walker’s 18


Hey, let’s make it an unofficial poll. What do you want to see me review?


And now for something German that I also feel ambivalent about:

 

Here's the last beer from kemoarps in the BIF madness. Thanks again for your kindness. It has taken some months, but nice months indeed!
Two Beers High Divide Double Blonde Alta Series pours a beautiful amber with a tiny champagne-like bead that works well keeping a nice white-capped head alert. Peaches and cherries really do make an appearance, with dry and bracing hopping, keeping this interesting brew from being sweet. This is a beer to share and talk about. I would love to know what others think of the fruit.


King Crimson fix.

 

Happy new Trillium Brewing Co. beer Sunday everyone. Seems like I'm posting more of these than anything, but I'm not complaining. These guys/girls are putting out pale ales that are just out of this world. If you're a hop head then you have to seek these brews out.

Today's offering is Melcher Street IPA.

Full review here: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30654/125926/?ba=huddyball

Synopsis is that this is just another outstanding brew. Tons of hops. Very refreshing. Maybe it just tastes a bit better too because we can enjoy another day near 40 after a February that saw an average temp of 12.1 degrees.

Cheers all!

 

Nice! Steve Hackett is one of my all-time favorite musicians, as are virtually everyone else on stage in that clip, it was a pretty amazing band.

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers,
It’s 47 degrees and mostly sunny in the Lilac City. As I mentioned above, I’m now dealing with the aftereffects of much food and drink consumed last night. That’s okay, since I have the day off, but it will be a while before I crack open a new beer for today.

Until then, I’ll throw up some new beers from a new local brewery I had on Thursday:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39391/161728/?ba=woemad This was an Irish Red Ale that was very tasty.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39391/161729/?ba=woemad A not spectacular but still quite enjoyable coffee stout.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39391/161726/?ba=woemad A super-drinkable single malt and single hop pale ale (Marris Otter & Chinook).

I think they had about five of their own beers on in all, plus another five or so guest taps. All in all, while Black Label doesn't seem like a likely place to encounter any huge, barrel-aged flavor bombs, they seem to specialize in well-crafted beers that really deliver in terms of drinkability. Plus, they seem like really nice, cool people.

Thursday was a pretty outstanding beer day all around, as the bottleshop/store near my home had Iron Goat bottles for the first time. Iron Goat is my favorite local brewery, and I wasn’t expecting to see their first bottles hit the market for another few weeks. In terms of non-locals, I was thrilled to find bottles of Logsdon for the first time ever. Later on today I may be hitting Seizon Bretta for the first time!

 

+1 to Hop Hunter. That hop oil goodness snags me every time.

 

Greetings fellow NBSers! A warm, sunny, lovely day here in the Fourth Corner. NBS regulars will note that I volunteer with our local roller derby league. Last night they put on their annual Burlesque show at a local niteclub. Yes, I spent the evening watching my scantily clad female friends become even more scantily clad. There was drinking involved, thus my earlier post. I'm now several glasses of water and 5 aspirin deep, and after working a couple hours earlier, and I'm starting to feel a bit more. Enough so that will some fried chicken and waffles in front of me shortly.

First up, beerwise, is a unique take on a Belgian Pale from a local brewery: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32830/161991/ . Dill isn't really my thing, but it works pretty well in this beer.

 

LOL! We also have a local Roller Derby league. One of my fav players used to serve me at the local Old Chicago. Lots of free brews I got from her.

 

Sorry for the crappy pic. After the over aggressive pour, it started to foam out the top and I rushed to take a quick sip.
Upon the pour, I got a blast of pine and citrus hops. Smells like a great IPA.
Taste is similar. Smooth velvet mouthfeel, very stout like which I enjoy. Caramel, roast, and subtle smoke are present too. Finishes with that hop taste although a bit muted.

As usual Lagunitas does not disappoint. One of the better Black IPAs I've had.

 

Newb post to this thread for me. Popped open a Victory - Deep Cocoa, saw it on the shelf and had to give it a run.

Very dark brown in color, borderline black color with a creamy, thick toffee colored lacing ring. Aroma is mocha, dark cocoa, deep roast, milk. Has that Baltic Porter base coming through on the palate with dark chocolate roast from start to finish, sweet and bitter cocoa, some milk, and finishes with a lingering dark roasted chocolate bitterness. Medium body that's more on the light side of medium, gentle carbonation, very dry finish. Overall, the 8.5% is practically undetectable along with the roasty chocolate makes this one dangerously drinkable. It could stand to be a little thicker in the body, but has the potential to be a pretty sick beer if it spent some time hanging out in Mr. Barrel!

 

Good afternoon, all! Although I might have somewhat "cheated" to make it so, I wanted to review my 1000th beer with you guys today. (Cheat was I didn't review Earth & Flame last night because I have a second bottle against which I can review). NBS has been a fun way to interact a tad more closely with a subset of you beer lovers.

UVa closed out it's regular season with an unimportant loss on the road to Louisville yesterday. Happy they played tough, and not at all surprised by the loss. Ovi has continued his tear, and the Caps have won 3 of 4, helping in their attempt to solidify a post-season spot. A new brewery has opened in the Northern VA area (Lorton), one that I have been following for a while as they built up their location (acquaintance was aware of Fair Winds intentions to build a brewery). Fair Winds was not the brewery's original choice for a name, but Full Sail wasn't too keen on their original name. Haven't gotten down to the brewery yet, but plan on getting their soon.

So, on to the beer. I thought DFH Beer One Thousand would've been perfect for this review, but it came out about 200 or so reviews too early. I chose Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad because I had purchased a bottle in 2013, and it sat in the fridge, aging accidentally until I noticed the 2014 version was available. So I bought 2 2014, and moved the 2013 to the cellar with one of them. Now it's 2015, and the 2014 was still in the fridge; since I'd waited so long to enjoy it, I figured popping would require a special occasion. This seemed appropriate (attempted to account for the back-light while still having a slight view of the sunny day outside, but unsurprisingly affected quality of photo):


The beer pours a lovely chestnut color, with a preponderance of light tan/off-white head. The nose is brown sugar and bourbon, neither of which come through as strong in the taste. However, the bite of tartness from the barrel and cherries comes through up front. The longer taste is more mellow, with some dark fruits and more barrel. A very nice offering, will be interested in doing a vertical at some point.

Cheers, all!

 

ROFLMAO.

 

Play it again Sam on this NBS! Revisiting a beer I had some years back before I rated or kept notes. If memory serves me correctly, I thought it was a pretty tasty beer. Let's try this again.....

Pours a thin light brown color with ample foam and tiny carbonation bubbles.

Aroma is very cinnamon forward, along with some faint chocolate. Smells like a tasty dessert!

The flavor is decadent cinnamon and dark chocolate, followed by some chili pepper bite. I love the way these flavors compliment each other. None are really over powering, especially the pepper heat which is sometimes overdone with this type of beer. Pretty easy drinking for 9 percent.

Mouthfeel is thin. There is a tingle and a hint of heat in the end from the peppers.

In all a very nice beer from New Belgium. I don't drink as many of the Lips of Faith as I used to, but glad I revisited this one. Since I'm out of Stone's Xocoveza, I'll buy a couple more of these as it doesn't seem too far off. My rating came to a 4.14.

The turkey breast is nearly finished! What to drink next?



Have a great week gang!