New Beer Sunday (week 574)

Hey, I'm leaving the 80 degree days we've been having in Albuquerque (believe it or not, that's very warm for this time of year) to head to NYC on Wednesday. Praying for nice weather so don't jinx me. haha.

 

Anyone else ever wake up with anxiety thinking, "I don't think I have a new beer in the fridge for New Beer Sunday!!!"

 

Love the review, but I think I have seen you post pics here and there. Would love to see this beer that you described. Not chastising, just requesting .

Hmm... I almost forgot I have this beer also for NBS. So now I have some notes to compare to. Love it!

 

That glass is awesome.

 

Great post and great music! I love Nina. She has such a unique voice--melancholy but always powerful. Her version of this song helps me get through these long Chicago winters!

 

YES! But wait! The beer crisper . . . I mean the vegetable crisper! Aaaaah Always hide at least two.

 

Raise your hand if you've broken your fridge crisper drawer at least once because you've packed it full of beer!

 

Hello NBS folks! My new beer for the day is Smitten, a Golden Rye Pale Ale by Bells. Basically, I love everything about this beer.

I love the name, "Smitten."
I love the 16 oz. can, and the daisy picture label art.
I love the clear gold color and three fingers of white head.
I love the citrusy smell.
And I love the taste: starts off with a citrusy snap, then some spicy rye, and finishes with the rye blending with hops for a very long, bitter close. An ABV (6.0) you can reason with.

This is a great beer, especially on a warm day. Cheers!

 

Astounding.

 

On to another, and another from Short's... interesting beer here.

Cheers!

Beer #864 is Short's Love Knife

Bottled 1/15 and poured 2/21. $2 single. Another new Short's beer... always an obligation to try them out.

Pours lookin' sexy. A modestly hazy copper red color with a tiny creamy ring of a head that leaves some nice lacing. The smell is crazy interesting... I say this in a not terrible way, although it'll certainly come off that way -- it smells a decent bit like cherry cough medicine. Surprising amount of cherry, a Belgian funk, and I also pick up... hops? Oily, resinous hops are definitely in the aroma for me, though I could be imagining it. There is a banana note in there as well. Either way, this smells interesting.

The taste is slightly more awesome. This has a strange sort of spiciness and Belgian character that make it taste quite unique.. it's hard to pinpoint. The more I sip, the more it changes. Strange. A green tea or something sort of flavor, maybe? Biscuity/bready on the finish... the flavor overall is something of banana with a citrus rind for bitterness, dark and maraschino cherries, and then some bread and biscuits near the end... some spiciness as well? An essence of bubblegum? It's like a hefeweizen/dunkelweizen combo with hops or something. The feel is moderate with a high-ish prickly carbonation.

This is a one-of-a-kind beer. One sip tastes one way, then the other seems entirely different. It's certainly not without its Belgian characteristics, that's for sure. This is an intriguing brew from Short's that definitely warrants a purchase. So many flavors going on.

3.96/5 (-0.5%)

 

Love her music also. I really enjoyed the documentary "What Happened, Miss Simone?".

I have beer in various corners of my fridge and the door is lined with them. Haha. Buuut, none of those that were already in the fridge qualified for NBS.

 

Mine rattles as the bottles roll around when I open it. It's like a an alarm. Sneaky beer hider.

 

Only once, but that was when I was on vacation. My beer buying addiction might be stronger than my beer drinking addiction .

Which leads me to this beer (foreshadowed a few posts back). I really ended up enjoying Sam Adams Nitro Coffee Stout, so when I saw Left Hand had one as well, I figured I might want to give it a go. I have not found many Left Hand brews I liked too much, including the ones I had at the brewery quite a few years back. I think my impression of them is that they make okay but uninteresting brews. Their Fade to Black was perhaps a turning point, and this beer is rated by the masses about the same as that, so I have high expectations of Hard Wired nitro coffee porter, at least to be as enjoyable as the SA.


The pour, perhaps b/c it is coming from a bottle without the fancy ball was not as exciting to watch as the Sam Adams (and Guinness Nitro), but there was a little bit of a slow roll to the buildup of head (note I failed at following directions of an aggressive pour (I did medium) into a pint glass. That creamy cap you see lasted a long time, though.

I think I need to set an alarm for NBS where I can pull my beers out of the fridge at least 15 minutes before I want to enjoy them so they can warm up. Unfortunately I never know when I will actually wake up on Sunday, so timing 15 minutes isn't so easy. Waiting for the warmth to come while wanting to write can be annoying . Or maybe I just need to better regulate my fridge temps.

Anyhow, very light coffee notes on a cold pour never really grow into what I was expecting. This beer actually doesn't change too much with warmth to me. There is a nice roasted to toasted malted grain in this beer, though the light coffee notes boost the roasted notes. This balance doesn't change much through the pour, even though I expected the coffee to grow.

The feel on this beer is close to if not perfect to me. Nitro can tend to give a beer a little watery feel. This beer gets enough smoothness from the gas without going too far. I think this "restrained nitro" feel works very well.

In the end, I enjoyed this beer and even though I thought Sam Adams version highlighted the coffee better, it didn't really match the feel of this brew. This beer was similar to my previous review in that it was a steady-tasting, not really complex, but solidly enjoyable beverage.

So, I wasn't able to get as much of the individual notes that @SawDog505 got, but I didn't find anything that really contradicted his impressions. And I think this line is about on point:

Cheers, all!

 

Hey what's going on?!

It's strangely raining here, and I don't trust none of it, I just know it's gonna snow again. In other news I already got heirloom tomatoes and other planters started for the Spring planting season to come. Can't wait!

Kind of a bit change... technically.. not new... but NEW IN THE BOTTLE!! Only had this on tap before LOooonng time ago.. So excited I found a bottle of this cause I have NEVER seen it around... EVER and as a big Tripel fan... I am very happy to be revisiting this...

what's new for our hero today?

Tripel Van De Garre - Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V.


Brouwerij Van Steenberge - De Garre Belgian Ale by imbibehour, on Flickr

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Poured from the bottle into a tulip glass.

Creamy tan and soapy head that is always getting populated with lots of fine white pinehead bubbles of carbonation all over the sides of the glass. Classic roaring fire of carbonation in the middle, reaching through a opaque dark rusty orange body. Head is filled with whipped topping and big soapy staying power. Not so much rocky as whipped up, with lots of trailing rings of coating lace all along the glass. Excellent looker, much darker out of the bottle than when I had it on tap, but a stunner either way.

Aroma is quite lively. Sprity lemon and lime like oils with excellent yeast punchiness. A good thick candied sugar that really balances out the strong estery quality. Very mineral and wine spritzy smelling, earth and slightly dry but with an almost pilsner like crispness sensation coming off as well. Slight dry barely and citrus fruit like wine tones just excellent.

Palate is just like I remember. Sharp and full of classic tripel richness. Mid palate has a big malt honey feel but the sweetness real comes more from the booze than the sugars. Spritzy champagne and tight carbonation front on the tongue, then some honey coating richness. Palate gives way to lemon and lime like flavors and a touch of small honey. Big stomach whomping but controlled alcohol heat, with a little boozy aftertaste that makes the beer just slightly less drinkable to finish. Sharp almost steely finish, which works with a citrus oil rush.

Real big beer, just a great Belgian example but also just a hair large too. Either way it's fantastic just as I remember.

Appearance: 4.5 Aroma: 4.5 Taste: 4.25 Mouthfeel: 4.5 Overall 4.25 Final Score: 4.34

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Looks like I far prefer it out of the bottle but lots of the character and things from my old review still stood out as well plus some new observations. Great comparison, and just a great friggin Belgian Tripel.

Cheers all!

 

Wow, an active early morning on the ol' NBS. Though I suppose it IS nearing noon on the other side...
Still, though.

Work kept me out of last weeks festivities, but I still like to pop in and lurk and read through the proceedings (usually taking almost the whole week to work my way through, ha). Almost kept me out today as well, but thankfully a timely carpool left me with almost a half hour more in the morning than I'd expected and that was a good enough excuse to me!
Almost ran into the concern expressed by @ONovoMexicano but, as @utopiajane shared I thankfully had a redundancy programmed into the system and was able to join in the fun after all.

Bitter Oats seemed like it was going to scratch an odd itch I developed some time ago. That sounds wrong. I got a weird hankering out of the blue sometime last summer for an IPA brewed with oats to balance some big tasty hops with the smoothe creaminess that oats tend to impart.

-The body on this fine beast is a clear amber with a massive soft head and oversized carbonation bubbles. Beautiful lacing on the sides of the glass. Oats starting their work early.
-Nose starts off with a delicate sweetness. It presents primarily as a floral/nectar verdancy. There's other elements of the hops to be found, but this is what stood out to me.
-Starts off mimicking this delicate outline; presenting floral nectar sweetness before a sharp bitter turn erupts and dominates from thereon out. Piercingly bitter.
-Carbonation came on a bit strong, but as I drink and the beer warms the carbonation becomes less pronounced and the body becomes a little thicker and hews a little closer to what I was hoping for. Still, a little too harsh for my preference, even at sipping speed. I think it's the combination of high alcohol, with piercingly bitter and sharply sweet... it's just all knives and cloying/sickly opulence. I'm kind of tempted to pick up another bottle and let it sit and think about what it's done until I dust it off from the shelf in another year or two, but who knows if there'll even be any left when I next return to the beer store.
Anyway, ultimately, I was a little disappointed in the final outcome here. I had high hopes based on the profile and the pedigree, but what is sitting in my glass right now is not something I would really try to drink again sooner. But later.... who knows.

Anyway, cheers!

 

One of the best stouts I've ever tried.

 

6.7% alcohol. 55 IBU.

4.1/5 rDev +4.1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Sierra Nevada Beer Camp 2016 has a medium, bone-white head, a mostly clear, orange-gold appearance, and some lacing arms left on the glass. The aroma is of tropical fruit hop resin, and the taste is of white bread, bread crust, sweetness, and mellow bitterness. Mouthfeel is high medium, and Beer Camp 2016 finishes mostly dry and mild.

RJT

 

That pic is awesome!!! To me, it feels steamy and sweaty, showing the sinew straining struggle of certain staff tasked with slopping slovenly through spent grains. Beautiful.

 

Happy NBS everyone!
My favorite day of the week! I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way tho haha.
started the my RX7 today since it was nice ended up burning off some old dry rotted tires on some rims I'm selling. So that was fun. Also managed to break the weld on my differential so back to open diff lol! Can't wait for drift season here!!!


Anyway on to the New beer for the day!
Dark Horse Brewings Plead The 5th Stout.
Never had it and saw a single of it so picked it up. Noticed tons of big dregs in the bottle which I've never seen in a stout. Not that I care. I'll drink it.



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4.06/5 rDev -4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

L: Thick deep black with noticeable sediment in the bottle and in the glass when put up to light.

S: Burnt sugar roasty malts some dark fruit. Bit of dark chocolate.

T: Roasted malts up front smooth dark chocolate hints of wood...Some hop bitterness.

F: Oily thick sticky velvety. All that fun stuff.

O: Above average stout id say. Really good stuff

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May be back later we will see!

 

Greetings fellow NBSers! Yes, I am still around, despite my lack of presence of late in this beloved thread. I'll try to check back in with a new brew later on this Daytona 500 Sunday, but I've another reason for this post. It's time for NBS BIF #3!!!!!!! We're going to kick around ides for time frames today, so feel free to jump in with thoughts. Many of our NBS regulars have participated in the first two, so anyone who hasn't joined in before will have plenty of helping hands to rely on.

I encourage everyone who loves NBS to participate, especially those who have never been in a Beer It Forward before. You get to surprise someone with tasty brews from your area, AND you receive a box of brews to help you add to your NBS tally. It's much fun, I promise.

Feel free to ask questions of myself, @2beerdogs , @ONovoMexicano , @kemoarps , @Shroud0fdoom , or @LehighAce06 . Any experienced BIFsters are also welcome to pitch in with answers as well. IIRC, we had almost 30 folks in the last one, and I'd like to top that number this time.

Cheers NBSers!