New Beer Sunday (week 528)

Taking the week off from beer...Passover dietary restrictions

 

Bright, sunny and comfortable here. Helping wife prep for family dinner which we are hosting this year. Be back later to report on another new beer from a local brewery (Neshaminy Creek) that's steadily making a name for themselves and also seem to be upping their game as they go along.

 

Founders CBS - Canadian Breakfast Stout @ Trappeze in Athens Ga. O-M-G.

 

Morning @cavedave and thanks for getting us started on this holiday edition of NBS.


Cheers you all and a Happy Easter to you and a Happy New Beer Sunday. Today I am drinking Southern Tier's 2XONE. This is ST's single varietal and that means they use only one type of hops and one type of malt in this beer. This year it's equinox hops and I really like them. In fact I want to see these hops in saisons.

Pours orangey golden and with a slight haze. In the more shaded light it is a tangerine orange. It's a very delicate color and it reminds me of candy or of an orange freeze pop. Fat creamy head of bone white foam that fell slowly and left lace.

Nose is sweet and soft. Then out peeks some floral herbal and fern. Earth and fruit. taste is dry soft tropical fruit that is juicy like nectar. Herbal like prickly leaves. Mouthfeel is deceptively light as there is a lovely biscuit malt in this that simply melts in your mouth. Finishes like some kind of exotic desert fruit. light as a feather, mysteriously dry, juicy thin nectar, bell pepper.

 

We have our two grandsons visiting this weekend. Their mom (our daughter) is a single mom, and the boys (ages 4 and 8) are a handful (to say the least). We try to help out and give her a break when we can. They've been very well-behaved this weekend. I'm wondering who switched kids on us.
@SomethingClever was in town this week, and we had a nice dinner together. He brought me some beers from Ohio, and I am enjoying this Chillwave.


It has a really upfront citrus aroma, with some sweetness.
Grapefruit and orange taste, a little tropical fruit. Some honey.
Not a hop bomb.
Enjoyed the beer.
Thanks, Dave

 

Easter Spring weather – Battle of the Maibocks!!

Happy Easter everybody!!

The warm weather has got me inspired to drink some of my favorite spring seasonal beers – Maibock!

A few weeks ago I posted about one of my favorite Maibocks: Troegs Cultivator. I recently purchased for the first time a 6-pack of Straub Maibock. I have had Straub Maibock at tasting events in the past but drinking a whole bottle is a new experience for me.

I figured it would be fun to conduct a side-by-side tasting of Troegs Cultivator and Straub Maibock

Served in my 20 ounce Nonic glasses:

Appearance:

Troegs Cultivator: A nice golden color with a billowy white head.

Straub Maibock: A deep gold color with a thick white head.


Aroma:

Troegs Cultivator: The aroma is bready along with some biscuit/cracker qualities. There is also a noticeable herbal hop note.

Straub Maibock: A balance of light bready malt with spicy & floral hop notes.

Taste:

Troegs Cultivator: The flavor follows the nose with bready/biscuit/cracker flavors. The hops provide nice balance with low-moderate bitterness and a perceptible herbal hop flavor.

Straub Maibock: The flavor matches the aroma with bready malt flavor accompanied by herbal and spicy hop flavors.

Mouthfeel

Troegs Cultivator: Low-medium mouthfeel with a crisp yet soft finish. There is no residual sticky sweetness which I think is a BIG plus.

Straub Maibock: A light to medium body with medium-dry finish. Just like for Cultivator there was no sticky sweetness.

Overall

Troegs Cultivator: A very tasty Helles Bock (Maibock).

Straub Maibock: Also a very tasty Maibock.

I find Troegs Cultivator to have a cleaner/crisper quality; Straub Maibock has a bit fuller malt backbone. I have to give a slight nod to Cultivator in this battle.

Cheers to both Troegs and Straub for making high quality Maibocks!!

 

He Is Ris’n. A joyous Easter to you, NBS community. In light of the celebration that is the resurrection of My Lord (and to some of you, He’s yours, too) I find it only fitting to review for NBS a brew that originally, spent time in a cave, much like He did 2000 years ago. He spent three days there to achieve glory. I have a feeling weizenbocks required far more time. It’s a balmy 51 out here, the sun shines, and my windows will soon be open. Spring arrived with temerity, but I don’t mind it a bit.

On the docket for today? Southern Tier’s Goat Boy, their take on a great German style.

Poured with energy into a tall weizen glass.

Sight: A medium amber colored body, and a big tan head that reminds me of sea-sponge due to the large air pockets. It sports orange highlights when I hold it to the light. Head recedes to a small cap. Not a beer clean glass? Lacing is not the best, and I’ll chalk it up to human error on the critic’s side.

Aroma: Bubblegum and banana in the front. Wow. Malty sweetness. A bit of tang from the wheat. Oh, the booze is there… it’s so there.

Taste: Sweet malt up front, joined quickly by a blend of booze, banana, and a bit of bubblegum. A slight spiciness shows up in the middle, not quite “clovey,” but not not clovey. This bahhhhhhd boy finishes with a fair amount of hop bitterness and wheat twinge. Could there be a small piece of brown bread with the finish, too? The alcohol is there, but not overwhelming. This is a 7.5% brew, so I appreciate it not being too hot… I mean… it is an “imperial” weizenbock.

Feel: Medium plus, slick and oily coating. Decent carbonation and at least a three second finish. I’ve never made note of it that way, but it might be a new thing.

Overall: Once again, Southern Tier makes me happy. A repeat buy next year? Maybe. Glad I tried it today? Yes, definitely.


And now, in honor of My Risen Lord, and the metal that I love…

 

Hey what's going on?

Glad to be chillin on this weekend for those having their Seders, Easter egg hunts, services and so forth.

Finally feels like Spring is here too, so good for that! Ham is about ready, still thinking of some sides to prep to go with the feast later, but till then the beer will come first!

Missed out on some Dark Horse Plead the 5th. Oh well, if I had a nickel for every "special supposed" beer I missed I could just buy it overpriced online I guess... but that being said I was out of new wares to try of late and had to hit some goodies.

Going for some "local" theme stuff for the MD/DC/VA area this weekend, it was kind of slim picking for new beers as I found myself in NOVA pulling some interesting characters from the shelf. As far as "local" goes that is... seems to be a broad category.

So what is new for our hero this NBS?!? It's like every Sunday drinking... it's always a new beer and we'll sorta? keep it local.. Baltimore in the house.. just up the road sure why not?!

Heavy Seas - Phantom Ship Barrel Aged Tripel - Heavy Seas Beer


Heavy Seas Brewing - Phantom Ship Tripel 2015 by imbibehour, on Flickr

--------------

Poured from the bottle into a tulip glass. Vintage 2015.

Deep copper amber, with a real good hue from light chestnut brown to bright orange tangerine. Small column of rising carbonation in the middle hitting a thin one finger off white head that settles to a good and simple 3 millimeter creamy collar, and a little puck. Dark looking amber style tripel but fairly solid.

Creamy cookie and biscuit smelling. Lots of vanilla tones with soft digestive cookie biscuit like malt sweetness. Barely a hint, but just squeaks out some fruity esters more towards an almost mild sour sensing pear to apple. Doesn't seem to hint at much Belgian like character, as some caramel and vanilla biscuit really dominate, but has a nice aroma to it I'll admit.

Palate is a bit jumbled and all over. Much of the vanilla and biscuit tones fill the mid palate but also seem to clash with some of the fruit which seems a hard time trying to balance between tartness and sweetness and poke itself out. There is some hint of thick and round like oak aging, but there is a big amount of dry carbonation that really jumps out, unfortunately not being playful and coming up as more distracting. Caramel and apple seem to be the good amount of flavors after some time, a good amount of honey coating is really hitting the lips on the aftertaste as well which just gives some semblance there is a tripel going on here. Good amount of boozy in the pit stomach warmth, but luckily not too hot.

There's a lot of good qualities to this brew, but it's not that really appealing to me. Some of the flavors just don't fit for my style and I am also not the biggest fan of barrel aging this style. That being said, there are a lot of flavors and qualities though that will appeal to many, and things could be far worse.

look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75 | Final Score: 3.79

---------------------------

Good start to Sunday, going to be firing it up in the kitchen so don't know how much NBS following I'll be doing today...

Now I need to find some chocolate...

Cheers!

 

"Fern?" Never thought I'd see that as a descriptor. Cool.

 

BA Tripel? Sweet.

 

Not a hop bomb is right! I have 4 in my fridge, begging to be consumed. My first real exposure to DIPAs. Great example. Cheers!

 

Yeah me too. You know how I love the tripel. =)

 

For some reason, I love the whole concept of tripels from start to finish. Booze, flavor, dryness, carbonation, malt, complexity, it has it all. Gun to head, if I had to choose between English Barleywine or Belgian Tripel... I think I'd be a dead man.

 

In fact, I believe in tripels so much that I "argued" in my cicerone test essay question that it would go with lamb tagine and cous cous. Garret Oliver claims Belgian beer goes with everything. If I pass my written section, I might just send him a letter.

 

He says that about the saison too. lol

 

Aye, he does. I loved reading Brewmaster's Table. "Life-changing" read for me... in the sense that I always drank what I wanted, and ate what I wanted. Most of the time now, I try to pair. Most of the time. And the claim that beer does more for food than wine ever will? Yes, a thousand times yes. (My opinion, as well as Oliver's)

 

Wait, you lost me. Time to look this up... or do you mean Palm? lol