What beer are you drinking now? #1109

Very middle of the road beer.

 

Good morning, everybody. Starting with a new single addition to the fridge.



3.27/5 rDev -9.7%
look: 4 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.25

Appearance : The crack of the can yields more gurgle than fizz, and because of the dent needed to be popped open with the butt of a knife. As it poured almost no head formed, but once I let it sit awhile, a Guinness-like 1/2 finger creamy cap formed like cappuccino, thanks to the widget in the can. The body is dark chocolate brown, and 100% opaque. I could have done with a bigger head and a darker shade in the body.

Smell : Dark roasted cocoa malts, a little bit of tobacco. Nothing more beyond that. Also requires quite a bit of inhalation to nose.

Taste : This reminds me of the Korean black stout I had in Portland. Some dark roast malts, coffee bean, rubber, light alcohol (which is surprising to taste at 4.2%), and kidney bean. A light touch of caramel in there as well.

Feel : Very creamy, mildly carbonated, and ends roasty and semi-dry.

Overall : Not a fan. Too many off flavors and what's right is not that impressive. I'll probably dump the rest of this one. Sad as I was expecting a better stout from Belhaven.

 

Victory Vital IPA

 

How's this finding you? I really, really wanted to like it - in part because I love Victory and in part because of how the flavor profile was depicted on the canning notes - but to me it drank like Prima Pils hopped to high hell. It sells itself as fruity, crisp and clean, but to me it was somewhat muted with a pretty aggressive bitterness. This, of course, might just be my palate.

 

Cheers everyone.

I have Anchor Liberty.There is a date code on the bottle. It's 3 digits. Looks like 2 letters and a number or some semblance of that. The M in the middle means March and according to anchor this beer is special because it's dry hopped. At first the beer a smells like nothing. Mild malty nose. Cracker. No fruitiness really. Every now and then I think I get a leftover waft of lemon. then it starts to come out a little as the beer warms. It does not smell that hoppy and certainly there is no evidence of the dry hopping on the nose. Taste is caramel and citrusy and I am quite happy when I taste it. There is a little sugary malt sweetness and it turns out the part of the IPA that held up is the part I am tasting. A bit of pine. Caramel and a nice quenching little bitter. Body is soft and it's not well carbonated. It is a crisp malt and you can tell. I think that no matter how old this beer is it drinks pretty well because it's a well made beer that held up in the parts that usually do. The bitter is starting to seem a little harsh and the citrus is pithy grapefruit, but it demonstrates to me the meaning of the word "solid" in beer reviewing.

How many months old and you can still drink it but meh. They should put a real date on it

 

Scored some of this in their lottery the other day and I can't wait for them to get here!!

 

For me, i can pick up a fruitiness but its a general fruit sweetness very subtle. I actually like it out of the can better because its more bitter and dry. For its price point i got it for $9.50 id buy it regularly. I can see the body being like prima pils but this is less "clean" to me.

 

Sipping a barrel aged Unicorn Killer at the Greenbush Annex. I had some reservations about this beer since the score was so low for the base beer. I'm happy to report that I'm quite satisfied with the BA version. A mild pumpkin spice interwoven with solid barrel presence. A very tasty fall beer!

 

Agreed. That bitterness is more of a muddled joint that really grows in something of an unpleasant way. I'm glad I tried this one - a friend kicked me a can - but I don't think I'd seek it out or pick up a sixer.

 

I had it at a tasting and wasn't that blown away by it I thought what little fruitiness it had was pretty muted so I think your take is spot on.

 

Again, I love Victory, but I don't understand their need to introduce a new IPA that seems to be doing very little given how wonderful Dirt Wolf is, you know? Now, on the other hand, Oskar Blues new IPA? To me, that offers a completely different take on what they've done before with that style - an attempt at a New England-style IPA, which I thought was really, really wonderful.

Glad to hear my take on Vital isn't too off the mark.

 

Very good cream ale, brewed with amaranth and orange peel. Bottle conditioned with amaranth seeds, cheers!!!

 

5.5% 'session' in a 24oz can. hah.



trying not to let it bother me too much.

 

Have a great day BA... We are eagles of one nest, the nest is in our soul

 

I don't think Oskar Blues new IPA is that great (smells amazing) but I am like you I agree that at least they went another direction than their other hoppy offerings. However, in defense of Victory for putting out more of the same isn't the fruity hop profile what everyone is after anyway? So why make an onion bomb IPA?

 

This year's Hop Stalker has just blown me away. Of all the fresh hop ales I've tried this year, this has by far been my favorite.

 

Exactly right on! I usually remember how to interpret their cryptic date stamp, but I grumble every time. And often enough the stamp fails to be legible at all. They are lucky they make good beer, or I wouldn't put up with that nonsense at all!

 

From yesterday.



From today:


Digging the brownie one. It's a bit thin, but then again it is only a brown ale. Mad elf is always amazing, even more so this year it seems, or I could just be blinded by how happy I am that it's out.


Has anyone tried Depth Charred by Stone here yet? Saw it yesterday but passed since I couldn't find a lot of info on it. Double Bastard with espresso, sounded interesting but also a bit weird. Kind of wishing I'd of picked one up.