New Beer Sunday (week 579)

Great Review as always Maria! About time you tagged Kerry "The Beer Beast" for those lovely Victory Drinking Vessels!

 

Early morning start @utopiajane ?? On Easter Sunday !? No new beers for me till tonite, as I have to work for a few hours today where I will consume the beers left over from last nites thimble island tasting!!! So for now I leave y'all with this

Happy Easter everyone!!! And more important enjoy some good beer and be safe!!!

 

finishing off this now. very, very good. had heard good things about these for years, but, far as i know, only 1 store here has access to Bell's stuff. color me impressed!

 

Good morning New BSers! Maria, as always, thank you for the great opening. Just one question - where's the food? I live vicariously through your breakfasts (mine consist of corn chips, salsa, and beer while watching old Perry Masons). Anyway, speaking of woodpeckers, a few minutes ago a flicker was attacking my neighbor's red maple. Of course, when I opened the back door to look at it, it flew into the sun. Now I'll be seeing blue spots for 15 minutes.

Anyway, today's new breakfast beer is:



I picked this up last week at the brewery while accruing brews for NBS BIF #3. Generally speaking, I like wild ales but I don't particularly care for raspberry beers. This may be the exception - to not liking raspberry beers that is. Can't wait to hear what @2beerdogs has to say about it. Anyway,

Purchased at the brewery
Undated 25.4 oz bottle at 42 degrees into a hand washed and dried JK snifter
Aroma – raspberries
Head small (< one cm, careful pour), off white, fizzy, gone in 60 seconds, no ring, no layer
Lacing – none
Body – reddish-brown, opaque, effervescent, sediment in bottom of bottle. Clears slightly as it warms.
Flavor – moderately tart, some raspberry but (fortunately) not overpowering. A little wild ale funk (What, exactly, does "horse blanket" taste like and who tastes them?). No malt, no hops, no diacetyl
Palate – medium, dry, lively carbonation

Leaves my lips slightly sticky, but otherwise not atypical for a wild ale, just not a fan of raspberries.

Appearance 4, Aroma 4.5, Flavor 4, Palate 4, Overall 4, Rating 4.19. Avg 3.97, rDev +3.8

Anyway, NBSers, enjoy your day! Cheers!

 

Good morning all and happy Easter,
The wagon has carried me around for 26 days, so I'm loving indulging in the myriad vicarious beer options of NBS. I've made lots of headway in multiple projects, so my vacation from beer has been very productive. I love keeping busy.
Andy Griffith was from Mt. Airy, N.C. deep in bluegrass and old time music territory. I caught this tune from The Darlings (The Dillards in real life) while getting a Mayberry fix earlier this week. I love this tune and marvel that this episode is from 1963. Cheers friends. Maggie Peterson/vocals.

 

Many thanks @WesMantooth for this dankly tropical treat. Poured into my favorite Lost Abbey stemmed tulip glass bottled on 2/8/16. Pours a gorgeous bright orange a 1 inch head, that clings to the sides of the glass like my kids to there chocolate Easter Bunny. 4.25 Smell mango, marijuana, papaya, tangerine, pine trees, and a hit of grapefruit. 4.5

Taste follows immediately a hit of marijuana, mango, papaya, tangerine, pine pitch, and a nice subtle hit of grapefruit that lingers on the tongue, like hard boiled eggs in your kitchen on Easter weekend. 4.75 Mouthfeel on this baby is devine. Body is on the large side for the style, moderate carbonation which is perfect, maybe a tiny bit dry, and the drinkability is amazing for 9% ABV. 5

Overall this beer had my highest expectations and it delivered as a former pot head, this is probably the dankest DIPA I have ever sipped. 4.5

 

Can you tell us more about what that beer is like so others can learn from your experience with it?

 

In celebration of another year disappearing from my life, this week my special new beer is Firestone Walker's 14th Anniversary Ale. This was the fifth release from there barrel aged program, and it has probably aged more gracefully than I have since 2010. The brew clocks in at 12.5%, but you'd never guess that by taste and mouthfeel.

Per the information sheet in the box: "The blend consists of: 31% Double Double Barrel Ale, 29% Sticky Monkey, 27% Parabola, 7% Velvet Merkin, 3% Good Foot, and 3% Black Xantus. As a finished beer, 14 is brimming with amazing flavors and textures. DDBA leads the blend lending American toasted oak, English caramel toffee and light leather nuances. Newcomer, Sticky Monkey, folds in the taste of brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger and ripe figs. Parabola brings the familiar flavors of bitter dark chocolate and cherry pit. Velvet Merkin carries silky bourbon soaked chocolate cake goodness to the party while a touch of Black Xantus teases coffee and tobacco. Last, but not least, Good Foot brings the hops... hints of citrus zest and tangerine, which adds a pop to the aroma and nice finish to this big, sexy brew."

The coffee and hops have, of course, walked away like Sam and Frodo taking the one ring to Mordor. The flavor that I felt most survived is that of the figs and cherry. Those dark fruits hit you in the nose and follow on the tongue in a manner that reminded me a lot of smoked bourbon. Beyond that, the nose was such a pleasant mix of bourbon, dark fruits, and molasses that my birthday celebrators and I had a conversation about just that for almost 10 minutes.

Like many superior blended beers, it was dangerously drinkable. While we sometimes like to hoard our good stuff, I was glad to have a few friends with which to share this. Having it alone would have left me blitz out of my mind, and I don't know that I would have felt right drinking a bottle like this without some friends to enjoy it with me. I realize that such a statement is not the greatest way to empirically describe a beverage, but sometimes the intangibles are what help us to enjoy what we're drinking. Honestly, think to yourself about the beers you've celebrated in the company of good friends, only to find that they didn't have the same level of enjoyment on your own. This is not to say that I would not have found FW14 delightful on my own, merely that this goes into a class of beer that is best enjoyed with people that help you smile, people that help you laugh, and, quite simply, people that deserve to share your best bottles.

Cheers, advocators!

 

Appreciate hearing about this one as it was a sad day when they discontinued their Raspberry Stout.

BTW, smell a horse blanket and you'll pretty much know what it would taste like. Sounds gross, but....

 

Happy Easter! I received this gem thanks to @beerloserLI, and NBS BIF, my first time with this great system of getting new beers.

Troegs Nugget Nectar, poured hard to generate a frothy head, but could only get one finger which dissipated quickly. Good carb but not enough to sustain a head. Smelled piney, sweet not too strong, Taste of grapefruit, mango, smooth upfront with a little bitter after taste. The malt balance was a nice offset to the hoppiness. Overall, quite a nice IPA. Thanks Brian

 

Too cool!

 

Smashing Easter beers – a tale with a beginning and an end!

Happy Easter everybody!!

My original intent for today was to just review one beer (Southern Tier DIPA 2XSMASH) but since I had another similar beer in the fridge it seemed to make sense to conduct a twofer today.

As likely most of you know SMASH stands for Single Malt And Single Hop beer.

The Southern Tier 2XSMASH beer is the last of that 6-pack (the end) and it was brewed using Mosaic hops and Special Ale Malt. I have no idea what Special Ale Malt is but through my homebrewing I am very familiar with Mosaic hops.

The ‘challenger’ is Founders Mosaic Promise which I discussed in a past New Beer Sunday thread: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-565.367630/#post-4351786

From that past thread:

“Mosaic Promise showcases two unique ingredients: Mosaic Hops and Golden Promise Malt. The versatility of the hops pleasing aroma and flavor characteristics and the traditional barley’s depth of flavor comprise this clean, rich, golden beer. We can complex with the best of them, but we recognize that there is also beauty in simplicity.”

This Founders beer is the first of my recently purchased 6-pack: the beginning.

I think it will be exciting to conduct this side-by-side tasting.

In the immortal words of Mr. T “quit your jibber jabber” and get down to drinking.

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glasses:

Appearance:

ST: Medium gold in color with a thin white head which dissipates quickly.

Founders: Light gold in color with a big fluffy white head.

Aroma:

ST: I pick up a moderate amount of fruity hop aroma; not really anything malt wise.

Founders: Whoa! A BIG hop aroma of dank!! I was not expecting that at all. There is also a bit of fruity from the hops but very much in the background compared to the dank. As the beer opens up I pick up some malt aroma as well.

Taste:

ST: I am picking up some dank on the flavor along with fruity. There is a bit of noticeable alcohol (this beer is 8.1% ABV) and also a touch of sweetness.

Founders: The flavor very much follows the nose with dank being the dominant flavor. There is some malt flavor as the beer opens up.

Mouthfeel:

ST: Medium body, lightly carbonated with a semi-dry finish.

Founders: Medium body, moderate carbonation with a dry finish

Overall:

ST: A very good Mosaic hopped DIPA

Founders: If you want a beer that features dank, this batch of Mosaic Promise is for you!!

A post mortem on this tasting event:

This batch of Founder Mosaic Promise (bottled on 02/29/16; 17:40:18) is very different from my last batch (read my other NBS post linked above). In this batch the aroma/flavor is dominated by dank which is not one of my personal favorite hop flavors.

I have homebrewed several times where I featured Mosaic hops. All of those beers were similar to the previous version of Founders Mosaic Promise where the dominant flavors were fruity (e.g., berry fruits). I really liked those Mosaic beers.

Hops are akin to wine grapes where there is a strong terroir effect; hops (wine grapes) grown in geographically different places will taste differently. My guess is that the difference I am noting here with this batch of Founders Mosaic Promise (and even the Southern Tier beer too from a flavor perspective) is due to differing hop crops (location and maybe even hop crop year as well).

Drinking beer can often be a surprising hobby!?!

Cheers!

 

One of my favorite shelf imperial stouts. Always buy a sixer to let sit and enjoy the following year.

 

I remember the tv episode well, and have seen it several times over the years. Growing up in WV my second instrument was a 5 string banjo as a youngster, and I have a soft spot for bluegrass...thanks for a fine tune and a happy memory!

 

Do you think that the relative freshness of the two Mosaic Promises might have some effect on the difference bottle vs bottle (batch vs batch)? Your older post didn't mention a bottle date. Although from your description, not sure if a few extra weeks would make that big a difference.

After seeing these beers around more and more, I've been toying with the idea of, when I do motivate myself to some new batches, trying some one-gallon SMaSH beers in an attempt to better understand how the different malts and hops affect a beer. As I think it through I have been debating how to control the hops, by volume or by expected IBU, or something else - as your review shows, the same featured hop can still produce different profiles (although in this case, there was also a difference in malt).

 

8% alcohol. Brewed in Belgium.

3.36/5 rDev -13%
look: 3 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.25

My bottle, I'm afraid was almost three years past the best-buy date. Arend Tripel had almost no head (just a cream-colored, very thin layer). No lacing to speak of. The aroma was of almost overripe fruit, fruit cake, tropical fruit, candy sugar, and possibly a hint of alcohol. Taste is of all that, with no bitterness or booze. Mouthfeel is medium, and this Arend Tripel finished semi-sweet and seemed quite aged.

RJT