New Beer Sunday (week 562)

Good afternoon, fellow NBSers! Next week is going to be fun...ish. Good news, I'll be heading for Ocean City this Tuesday. Bad news, it's to attend a two-day Tax Seminar. Worse news, it lasts for eight hours on both Thursday and Friday. Better news, I'll have a free day to do what-the-fuck-ever I want on Wednesday.

Anyhoo...



Southern Tier's 2XMAS - as I just recently noticed - has one of my highest deviations of any beer I've reviewed. I haven't had it in three years, so I figured now was the time to get a single again to see if it was just a fluky experience.

Nope. I still stand by my high score. This is a great beer, one of the best spiced beers I've ever had.

 

Your new place sounds awesome =) Heater Allen! WooHOO!

 

Greetings from paradise, NBS. Today in the mansion, we are progressing with Thanksgiving Dinner II. If you are going to have one turkey dinner you might as well have another that cant be beat. Now I did dump the spent brine containing the bottles of Really Old Brown Dog (the ones that escaped consumption, anyway) in my compost pile, but I did not leave a slip of paper with my name on it under the pile. So Officer Obie won't be calling me kid and I wont end up on the Group W bench playin with the pencils...

And it beautiful in the kingdom today...fair wearther, high light blue wintery skies but can already feel the air changing to cold. but it is an awesome sort of bonus day as winter struggles to settle in.

In my glass is a Belgian Tripel from Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, Straffe Drieling. The brew poured a golden apple juice color, very clear but i see some sediment lurking in the rest of the bottle. An enormous head from a moderate pour, but fortunatelt short lived. Collapses to a thin layer of dense foam fed by ample bubbles. The aroma initially hints of sweetness and malt, but opens up into substantial spice that i would say is typical Belgian. The taste is pretty typical for the style, spicy, a little phenolic bite, well managed bitterness, slight earthiness, and a hint of acidity. Good so far, but things go slightly askew for me. The spice builds and creates a tingle and the astringency is high, so it is very drying. The effect is kind of numbing. I do like the flavor and the acid component is coming through more as it warms. Which is helping reduce that numbing sensation. Im feeling this will come in around a 3.7 or so.

Nothing to do now but read two threads, wait for the oven to do its thing , eat turkey, and hope to stay concious for the Pats game because damn... these two early games are heinous.

 

How was that? Did you like it?

 

How was that? Can you tell us a little something about it?

 

Larry I agree! One bird is never enough. I have a second turkey coming up any day now myself. =) Cheers!

 

I love that beer ... and the great southern migration of Jolly Pumpkin is awesome. For what it's worth, I haven't had a bad beer from them yet, and most of them have been truly fantastic.

The weather's been cold and rainy since Turkey Day down here in the Brazos Valley, truly nasty stuff, but on Saturday morning a few of us brave, proud (and incredibly stupid) Bearkat alumni said who cares? We got FCS playoff football!

The walk in to Bowers Stadium, Huntsville, TX, about 1 p.m.:


Plenty of good seats still available:

(a commuter school on Thanksgiving Weekend with rain and 40-degree temperatures in the forecast = that kind of crowd)

An early march on the Southern Utah end zone:


And the score:


I had to bail for work at halftime, but getting to see my old college boss in sports information and hanging out on the sidelines with a good college buddy was worth the effort, rain and cold be damned! (and it *did* suck ... what a soaking! ... I had the heater cranked up to 11 on the drive back to Bryan-College Station trying to dry out shoes and such )

SHSU 42, Southern Utah 39, btw ... the teams combined for 202 (TWO HUNDRED AND TWO!!!) offensive snaps ... 118/84 in SHSU's favor.

OK, sorry ... I know, I'm wasting time here ... on to the BEEEEER!!!

Karbach's 012 Trigave, a tripel aged in tequila and red wine barrels:



Needless to say, this one's a sipper.

Trigave could easily be titled Attack of the Barrels. One whiff, even in my air freshener-infested home, is all you need to confirm that, yes, there is red wine *and* tequila in this glass ... somehow. And one taste does it, too. I took a sip, let out a "whew!", slammed the snifter down Old West shot-glass style and told the barkeep "another".

My cat looked at me, yawned and went back to sleep.

But you get the point ... this sucker's hot, full of that tingly combustible feel of a shot of tequila. What it doesn't have is much tripel taste. The banana/fruity sweetness isn't there, no clove or all-spice notes, no hop flavor of any major note ... nothing I would typically associate with a tripel shows up here. Instead it seems like all of that tripel sweetness is serving only to balance out the "dirty water" tequila flavor and blunt the red wine tartness while sharpening and highlighting the grape sweetness from those barrels. The end result is a juicy red wine tasting beer with some spirit burn.

I like it. I'm not sure of what use it is other than a fun sidetrip from traditional beer lane, but it's been very fun to sip on while reading through so many fantastic NBS posts.

The review:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26762/199491/?ba=Premo88
4.08 (+12.4%)

Hope you boys and girls are having some enjoyable Sundays ...

Cheers!

 

Mean Old Tom from Maine Beer Company. I think it drinks more like a porter than a stout.

3.77/5 rDev -4.6%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Poured from pint bottle into snifter glass. The color is mohogany-black as coffee and totally opaque with a thin, light tan head and lacing that slowly dissipated as the glass warmed to room temperature. Nice fragrance of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and roasted malt. As it warmed, i also caught a whiff of raisin. The first taste sensation was dark chocolate, with some burnt coffee. As it warmed in the glass, the vanilla and raisin began to be noticeable. It finishes with a subtle bitterness. it's medium-bodied with a lot of carbonation. At 6.5% ABV, it's very drinkable. Overall, this stout drinks more like a porter; in fact, I can best describe it as a poor-man's Victory at Sea. For a stout, I would expect more body. It is enjoyable but there are both better stouts and better porters on the market. This is sort of betwixt and between.

 

New Toledo DIPA Sunday

Enjoyed this one during the second half of the Bengals game. Both were excellent.

4.28/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

It is a mostly clear gold with a very large, long lasting, off white foamy head. Lots of lacing. Exceptional looking brew. S

Kind of boozy smelling for under 9%. Otherwise, pungent hops, grapefruit, pine, and sweet malts.

It is loaded with flavor. Crisp grapefruit, tangerine/orange, and mango on the citrus side with some resinous pine and slightly herbal green on the other. Sweet caramel malts provide some balance. A solid, lingering bitterness.

Pretty drying/ raw feel. It is not gentle. Could use a touch more body. I would say it is on the far lighter end of medium. It is still fairly creamy and very resinous. A lot more great aspects than not.

In a state full of killer hoppy beers it is easy to see how some slip through the cracks, but I'm not sure how or why I have not heard any talk of this one. It is extremley similar to Revolutions Unsessionable. Just dialed back a hair. I will be grabbing more of these.

 

Moo Joe for me... No pictures but a great little beer

 

Victory Harvest Ale

Lazy last day of the four-day weekend. Not even watching football after getting killed early Thursday. Ghostbusters is on TV. Decided it was time for a new beer. This is one I haven't tried from a long-time favorite brewery.

It pours dark orange-copper color with only a finger of tan-tinted white head. Looks good, but not much different than others. It does leave behind heavy lacing.

Smells good. Grapefruit and pine duke it out to dominate the aroma.

They both continue to the taste, along with a strong green pepper note, as well as some orange crush, slight pepperiness and a sweet malt backbone. Relatively little hop bitterness for the style. Medium bodied.

The bottle says it's tea-like. I'm definitely getting wet leaves in there, but more vegetal than tea. Fresh garden vegetables aren't what I'm looking for in an IPA. Not my thing. Think I'll stick with Hop Devil, Dirt Wolf, Vital...

 

Happy New Maibock Sunday!

Pretty nice day here on the Western Slope, mid 30s, sunny/cloudy/snowing, we got a little bit of snow the last 2 days, and my place faces north, so the snow is really sticking around by my patio. A tasty brew, but not like other's from this series.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/413/110949/?ba=Wasatch



Cheers!

 

Headed out for a late lunch, and decided to stop by a few places to check out their bottle selection. Then learned of an accident that occurred blocking the way home. So, stopped a a watering hole to wait out the cleanup. I grabbed a new version of a beer from Old Bust Head, out of VA:


The GF chose the Pacific Gravity from Ithaca (background). She really enjoyed it and the few sips I had I thought had a light alcohol-heat onion note, but that was outweighed by lightly tart tropical fruit notes. Definitely one to try for myself at some point.

I had Gold Cup - Coconut. Short version: I found this about the same as I felt about the base beer, which holds up against the added adjunct. A rich roasted malt beer, coffee in the nose, but more dark chocolate in the taste. Coconut comes out eventually in the nose, seems a tad forced in the taste. A general albeit light nuttiness appears in both. Feel is pretty full, definitely a sipper. Solid but not wowing, like the base. Give either a try if you get a chance.

 

Rare Sunday afternoon at home lately.


Magnify Brewing - Pollinator
Farmhouse IPA brewed with honey.
4.05/5 rDev 0%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a growler into a tulip glass.
Pours a translucent golden orange with about a finger of white head that dissipates quickly to a tiny ring. Minimal lacing.
Smells of stone fruit with a bit of added sweetness.
Taste follows the nose with a noticeable hint of funk.
Moderately carbonated with a nice dry, bitter finish.
Quite a nice beer. It's nice to see a beer brewed with an extra ingredient that makes your taste buds worn out by the added flavor profile.

 

If I knew you were going to be in Fell's Point, I'd love to grab a Pint with you. Especially at Max's, that's my home away from home.

 

I had no idea I was going to be in the area, but I was out entertaining the family and ended up in the area.

Wasn't going to be able to take them to Max's anyway (unless they wanted to, which would have been a stretch).

I'll be up there again someday, it's not that far away and always a nice change of pace from the DC area.

 

New Doppelbock Sunday
Greeting from soggy Tennessee! After watching the Titans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, I decided to crack open my first new beer today: Ameliorator, a Doppelbock from Wiseacre Brewing Co. in Memphis. I have mixed feelings about Wiseacre: widely considered the best brewery in the state, I've enjoyed many of their beers, but their inconsistency keeps me from getting their stuff regularly. Anyway, the cool bottle artwork hooked me.

look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Slightly hazy caramel color out of the bottle and a nice-looking opaque dark reddish brown in the glass. Enticing thick light tan head that retreated fairly quickly. Aromas of plum, raisins, dark bread and subtle spicy German hop notes. Great taste: big chocolate sweet malty sensations with dark fruit, some mild hop flavor and then a big cocoa finish. It was more sweet than I expected, but I appreciate that on this shitty weather day. Medium bodied with a pleasing creamy feel on the finish. Overall I really enjoyed this - might give Wiseacre some more love soon. Cheers!

Here are some more bottle pics.

 

New Scotch Ale / Wee Heavy Sunday

Hello all! Chilly day (upper 30's), but sunny and calm, here in Milwaukee today! Glad I got to see my hometown team of the Jets win today! (In case you are wondering how my home team is Jets in Milwaukee - I moved here two years ago this month.) After the game (or near enough to the blow-out game) I had a very nice brew that I picked up in Madison on Friday. It was my first time in Madison. It's a nice town with a great, beautiful capitol building and a great beer and food scene! I stopped in Great Dane and bought some beer to bring back. Interestingly, they put it in cans (though, they did have growlers too). I never saw the can from a tap before (that I remember). The bartender said it's good for a month to month and a half (no worries there). Anyway, it's a very nice Scotch Ale - Stone of Scotch. Nice malt character, esp. in the aroma. Nice touch of peat. Alcohol well-covered making it smooth and easy to drink. It was a bit aggressive in carbonation at the very start, but soon settled. I scored it a 4.1 (above the current average of 3.66).

Here's the link to the review:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/952/4132/

Cheers!