New Beer Sunday (week 580)

Greetings fellow NBSers! A sunny morning here in the Fourth Corner, and a damn fine week weather-wise. The parkas and fleeces have been traded in for snugger, more form-fitting clothes, thus making the visuals a bit more enjoyable on my daily excursions around my fair city. Don't get me wrong, "Sweater season" has it's attributes, but give me the spring/summer styles.

I worked my volunteer gig at the local roller derby last night, I'm currently dog-sitting a sweet yellow lab, and I'm heading over to a friends later to throw some meat on the grill, and watch some rasslin' on the TV. Oh yeah, IT'S OPENING DAY!!!! Hurray baseball is back!!

I don't know if y'all are aware, but there's a nasty bug going around, it's called NBS BIF#3, and I am currently in the throes. My shipper was @richj1970 , and I received a nice box of beer from the South. A description of my hauls is reply #2296, on page 58 of the BIF thread, and @jhavs posted the pics for on reply #2303, on the same page.

My first entry (I've drank several of the beers, but haven't gotten reviews written up yet) is a very nice Berlinerweisse from the home of REM: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/34456/118862/

 

This brew pours a solid black with a little purple when held up to the light. There is a small mocha colored head some of which sticks around until the end as a collar. Moderate lacing.

The smell is loaded with cocoa powder, chocolate, bready malts, banana as well as brown sugar and a little vanilla. Maybe some plums and dates too.


The taste follows the nose with the bread, chocolate, banana and sugar all forward. The finish is full of smoke, this brew really delivers on the smoke. The feel is silky smooth with on aftertaste. Lightly hopped. Slightly warming but no boozy taste leaks through. This is a great beer for this unusually cold and windy Spring day.

 

I'm still not entirely sold on barrel-aged IPAs. There's a local brewery that was the first around here to start barrel-aging, before it got to be seen to be "cool" by everyone else around town, and they put stuff in all sorts of barrels. Maybe it was before they adopted a more sympathetic yeast strain, but the BA IPA they did just seemed odd to me. Then again, I'm mostly used to stouts and porter, plus the occaisional Belgiany thing from Selkirk Abbey, when it comes to beers spending time in barrels.

 

Actually I just read the wiki link you put up and it looks like what I got was a synthetic made one, o well it's still friggin tasty
Yeah the food is unreal too!!

 

My part of New Hampshire got about a half-inch of snow in the open areas but the sun came out by mid-morning and a lot of it is melting away. Just in time for the 1-3 inches of snow that is predicted for tomorrow.

This is New Hampshire Craft Beer Week. It began April 2 and runs until April 10. So it is more like New Hampshire Craft Beer Ten-Days. Many of the state's micro breweries are participating with gusto by unveiling new beers and offering sales and other activities. My hometown brewery is Oddball Brewing. They released their Pale Ale Cascade on Friday as a small batch one-off exclusively for this week. They plan to release a Gose later this week.

I picked up a growler of the Pale Ale Cascade. It is 5.4% ABV and pours a cloudy medium amber. Little to no head, which could have been my fault. Aroma of caramel, grass, and a little fruitiness. Medium smooth body. Bitter bite to finish but still with the fruity aspects. I was thinking of adding this beer to the BA database but changed my mind. This one-off will not be available anywhere else but at the brewery for a few days in April.

 

Turning about to be a nice day in these parts, so cracking open a new beer before tackling some yard work.

This is Forgotten Boardwalk's Morro Castle which comes to me as part of @TongoRad 's BIF box.

Just the right amount of smoke coming through in aroma and flavor. This is a very well crafted porter.

Very enjoyable! Hope to be back later with another.



http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/36798/140171/?ba=richj1970

 

Well guys Back with number 2, It's another one of Brasseurs Illimites' IPA's this one is their Cascade IPA. It still didn't look as nice as most of the IPA's I drink had a lot of floaters and was extremely resinous ( I like my IPA's Juicy XD) that said, this one beats their english IPA But I probably wont drink either again. I do remember their Imperial stout being good and people say their Imperial IPA is really good, Maybe I just need to stick with them on Doubles. cheers!

3.76/5 rDev +1.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

Appearance - This beer pours a clear dark amber color with 2 fingers slightly off white head, the head fades leaving a thick layer of foam above the beer itself. There are some pretty big chunks in the beer.

Aroma - earthy hops, floral hops, some grapefruit and pine resin, The hop characther really seems to come out in this beer and its pitted up against a bready malt smell.

Taste - Way more earthy and Piney than Juicy I get, eathy tasting hops some floral hops, pine resin backbone. A light grapefruit and some crackery bread malts.

Feel - Medium body, refreshing carbonation on the front of the tongue and creamy in the back of the mouth.

Overall - This is definitely better than their english IPA The flavors mesh better. It still has a ton of floaters and the aroma could be nicer. I'm also slightly biased towards Juicy american IPA's so that could be affecting my judgement a bit. But all in all this seems quite average.

★939 characters

 

Happy NBS BA's. Sorry to see all the snow back East as we're looking at a high of 84° today...

All of the breakfast stout posts gave me the inspiration for this week's keg.

The Beer: Kona Brewing DaGrind Buzz Stout





A little NaCl for the wound:





And a Sunday morning funny...

 

Damn, now I feel bad for taking part of fun away from your 'unreal' price. At least it is tasting good.
It'd be really bad if you paid the real price (which can go upto a 1000$ a pound of coffee) and then not be given the real stuff.

 

I really liked your selection of the Sunday morning funny!!

 

And, my second entry, in a shocking development, is also from @richj1970 's big box of fun: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39467/162366/

 

That's what SHE said!!!

 

Tossed you a soft ball, eh?

 

Happy Sunday NBS! Lazy start to the day for me watching some hockey and cracked this pineapple bomb open.


Pour is pretty nice. Golden yellow with a nice looking head that leaves little lacing. Smell is more on the subtle side but I can detect pineapple and citrus which is no surprise. Taste is tart, lots of pineapple, lemon/orange zest, and a hint of pine notes. Feel is low carbonation and has a slight bitterness to it. Definitely a great beer for a hot day but the flavor does taste a little too forced in my opinion. They sure weren't shy with the pineapple though, so gotta give them that!

3.78/5 rDev -4.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

 

somehow even a cool day in Cali sounds nice to me XD

 

I'll chime in here to add that I pretty much agree with you. They're hit or miss with me. Founders Doom probably ranks as the best I've had. Oddside Ales Nihilist was pretty solid as well. Greenbush did a barrel aged version of their Brother Benjamin a couple of years ago that was good, but once again like Cassius, a bit barleywine-like. Being of curious mind, I'll never give up the search for Doom's equivalent. I wish Founders would bring that Backstage beer back for an encore!

 

I haven't seen any others in my neck of the woods, but will try more of them when I see 'em. I don't tend to give up on a style (or rather sub-style, I suppose) after one beer. I'm just not sure they are my cup of tea, based on my (admittedly small) sample size of one.

 

A friend brought me this a while ago and apparently I liked the level of smoke (though maybe a notch less would be okay). My main complaint was the feel, as my can was quite light on carbonation, yielding a more watery feel than I wished. Still rated it near what you did.