New Beer Sunday (week 582)

How MUCH is that bottle in the window?
The one with the barreling age?
How MUCH is that bottle in the window?
I've heard bourbon is all the rage...

This PAIR made a trip here from Ohio...
sent off from @WesMantooth to me...
But TRUST the box heee got was a good one...
So thank you once again Coreyyyyyy....

I won't force a second runthrough of the chorus and a second verse upon you. That is my gift. You are welcome.

The beer(s): Thirsty Dog. Siberian Night & Bourbon Barrel Aged Siberian Night IN SUPER FANCY SIDE BY SIDE ACTION!
The thematic tie-in: My dog! My parents live on an island, and they take her in when I have to leave town. For her it's a grand vacation where she gets to escape the city life and run around in big country fields and chase deer and rabbits and play with her best friend and get spoiled rotten by my folks. My mom is bringing her back down to my tonight. Also it's her 2nd birthday today (my dogs, not my moms).



Appearance
-Both beers pour an inky depth of black that invites investigation and courts madness. Both have a dark brown head. The base beer has a head that is a little more watery and disapperates much more rapidly. Some lacing, but really more patching. The BBA version, however has a much creamier head, that maintains its luft for much longer and leaves a much more hearty mark along the sides of the glass as the liquid mysteriously goes away.
Aroma
Now things really start to diverge.
-The base beer presents primarily as a rich creamy dark chocolate paradise, with smouldering eyes and beckoning hands. The chocolate backs into a creamy/roasty rich base with a furtive glance towards smoky hints that may just be my imagination, and a playfully subtle wink of alcohol on the very finish.
-Alcohol you say? Bourbon you say? Creamy sweet caramel and vanilla and oak form the first greeting to the nose of this BBA edition. Smoothe still, the creamy chocolate reminds you of its presence, but steps back to let the bourbon take front and center.
Once it hits your lips...
-Upon oral examination, the base edition introduces a strikingly bold rich coffee component, adding bitter and balance to the creamy chocolate above, layering the two and adding nuance and innuendo. These two really take the forefront, but not in a 'HERE IS CHOCOLATE. HERE IS COFFEE. COEXIST. I AM ROBOT.' type of sense, no they are meant to be together, and come together to bring out the somethings more that each half have hidden away, even from themselves.
-BBA on the other hand does not seem to have this natural ease to it. It reminds me of a movie sequel that can't really capture the easy magic and natural chemistry of the original, but instead infuses it with MORE and BIGGER and CHECK OUT THE LATEST DIGITAL EFFECTS! Or something. The bourbon here again predominates. @ONovoMexicano seemed to have a similar experience, and to paraphrase his assessment: it feels like instead of having aged in bourbon barrels and subtly picking up the bourbon notes, it was just straight dipped in bourbon itself. Like when I've experimented dropping a capfull of actual bourbon into my beers because, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. There is no coffee here as there was on the original, and while the chocolate tries to come in and help tie things together the rest of the band seems to just kind of go 'eh, forget about it, let bourbon have their time in the limelight. at least we're still getting paid.'

Both versions have this odd 'tweener type body to them. It hits all the marks of being creamy and coating your tongue like creamy hot chocolate and that. The base though feels like it may not need quite as much carbonation as it got, although the BBA version captures this creaminess and purity a little better. Somewhere stuck between medium full and just sort of medium body, but with odd characteristics of the rich thick bodiness. I don't know. I can't explain it very well and I'm done trying. And I'm sure you're sick of hearing me try.



It might sound like I'm being quite harsh on the BBA version. I don't mean to. I am enjoying both. Just in contrasting the two, the BBA edition was a little bit of a let down. Honestly, I as expecting to enjoy the base version, and be blown away by the BBA version. In reality, the base impressed me quite a bit and exceeded my expectations, while the BBA version fell a little shy of my lofty expectations.
I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to have tried them both and once again offer my gratitude to Corey for his generosity in putting together that awesome box. And yes, I have actually been drinking that BLiS syrup straight out of the bottle. DON'T JUDGE ME!

 

Call my name in front of the mirror and I appear. Just like Christopher Wallace. But with beer. Not guns.

 

Cheers and good morning @cavedave and thanks for getting us out of the gate this morning. I am happy to see some sunny weather here and get my windows open. I like spring and I like wheat beer in the spring and summer. I noticed that lots of brewers, well two, had blood orange hefes on the shelf so I picked up my regional. That is the right place for me to make that choice I think. It's not that I won't buy the nationally distributed brand at all but before I get really tired of all the blood orange hefes I am going to try my closest brewers first. Then as I notice the take on the style is everywhere I will switch down to singles.

New American Blood Orange Hefeweizen



Pours a handsome milky orange yellow with a uniform head of white foam that lasted well. Hazy soft golden glow form the beer. Nose is banana and lots of breaddy wheat. Tall crisp and the wheat smells of sunshine. AT first a scent of bubble gum pricks the nose then you notice that ester is firm banana peel. None of this mushy or overly ripe banana. Well defined and crisp. Excellent. There is clove and spice. Hops are a but a peppery breath of herbal . The orange is like a bright bit of pulp on the nose. The beer does not smell like orange. it smells like a hefeweizen.

Taste is breaddy , crisp and firm. Flavors are sharp and well defined. The orange is at once a bit sweet, pithy and zesty but it never outpaces the hops and that is important to the balance of this beer. it also stays shyly behind the spice and the clove as well. Remember I told you the hops were not prominent. Phenols are present and also not over or underdone. They really make the hefe. Without them you do not have the same style. Coriander, earth, clove. This beer is so precise it is hard to describe.

Ellicottville has showed you that they can make a darn good hefe alright. ANd they even put fruit in it and the integrity of the style never waned at all. I loved this. Well done!

I think they got a little California Soul over there in Ellicottville! Cheers everyone and Happy New Beer Sunday!

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and thanks to @cavedave for getting things underway,

43 degrees and dark outside, so I can’t really comment on the weather except that it isn’t raining. Today I’m all discombobulated due to having worked graveyard yesterday and not getting the proper amount of sleep beforehand. I tried to power through yesterday afterward and failed, and now I’m up at 4:30, so I figured I’d see if NBS was underway. It would seem Washington state is well represented in the wee hours of the morning this NBS (hi, @kemoarps).

Since I’m still on the fence as to whether I should go back to bed or fire up the coffeemaker, I shan’t be having any new beer for a while yet, but I have a couple new beers from the tail end of the week, coming from the generous boxes of beer sent me by @Ri0 and @SammyJaxxx. @SammyJaxxx, you say? Wasn’t @Ri0 @woemad’s sender (curious if I’ll get an alert that I’m quoting myself)? Yes, but then @SammyJaxxx fired off a totally unexpected strike force of 100oz of canned beer, virtually all of it new to me, and none at all available in Washington: mostly Carton, but also some Rushing Duck, some Forgotten Boardwalk, and even some Surly.

Thursday, I decided I could wait no more and hit this barrel aged beauty from @Ri0:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/652/41300/?ba=woemad#review

My first from Central Waters, this is the most complex barleywine I’ve had in ages. For a 2016 vintage, I was expecting something really boozy, and while there’s a background taste of pure bourbon menace, it was just held off from dominating things. Damn, this was smooth. I’d love to see what another year or two would do to this. Great stuff!

And on Saturday, I poured myself this, from @SammyJaxxx:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26817/159257/?ba=woemad#review

I found it quite drinkable, yet not my cup of tea. I suspect it’s the old east coast vs west coast IPA thing at work. I’d have preferred it a little more bold and bitter. Or maybe there was something up with my palate when I drank it after I got home from work, yesterday. Anyway, I received two of them, so I’ll hit it again soon and will alter my review if I feel I need to.

 

It's funny you mention being discombobulated by working an unexpected graveyard shift because I'm on the opposite end of it: I usually work overnight, but yesterday I stayed until almost noon turning a long 12 hour shift into and almost 17 hour slog. The struggle is real!

 

Thank you, @cavedave, for the early start. Is 7:05 am a record?
Saturday was a beautiful spring day in southern Maine. I did some more (neverending) yard work, and decided to go for a drive with my wife with the top down (the car's, not hers). We ended up at Deciduous Brewing in Newmarket, NH. This is a fairly new (less than a year I think) brewery. It's a very comfortable place and the owners are great to talk to. I learned something about New Hampshire liquor laws. Since Deciduous is a brewery and we were in the "tasting room", we could only have four ounce pours. Weird. My wife had Auroral, a mango/lychee Berliner weissbier, and liked it. She had a couple of Cumulation, a gose, which she really enjoyed. I had Dimorphic, a nice DIPA. Growlers and bottles were on sale, so I bought a couple of porters.
Which brings me to my NBS review. This is the first of two Dormancy bottles I brought home. It is a porter brewed with Mission fig and maple.
Poured into my brand new Deciduous glass the beer was a very dark brown with a tiny tan head.
It had a sweet fig aroma with some roasted malt. I could not appreciate the maple in the nose.
Fig and maple taste. Dark chocolate late.
Medium mouth feel.
A nice beer, maybe a bit too sweet for me.

 

Bourbon County Cherry Rye

What's old is what's new again!

Not exactly a new beer but certainly new for me. Have had this in the cellar for 3+ years waiting for a special occasion and it seemed my girlfriend's birthday was it.

In the midst of all the talk of Bourbon County "infections" I was a little leary about this beer because it's intended taste profile is cherry and I wasn't sure I wanted to be left with that memory whenever I drank BCBS in the future.

At any rate, the beer was very enjoyable and tasty in a good way rather than in an infectious way. Of course the base beer had that unmistakable Bourbon County flavor profile so I shouldn't need to describe that, suffice it to say this beer was no exception to that. It had that trademark sweet barrel presence in all of its glory. The Cherry Rye was certainly not overbearing and whether it has faded with age or was consistent with the brewer's target profile is not clear but the Cherry Rye sits peacefully in the background and just adds a subtle layer of cherry tartness.

The beer was very enjoyable, as is every Borbon County for me, but just seemed a little more down to earth and more normal than maybe I was expecting. I will say that I've had a good number of the special variants through the years and to me this rates more in the middle of the pack.

All in all, a special and enjoyable beer for a special and enjoyable occasion. As it was meant to be!

Cheers!

 

Nicely done! Your prose, as usual, is a joy to read. Love a good side-by-side, and always interesting when the less-expected-from beer "wins."

 

Good morning New BSers! Thanks @cavedave for getting us started and good luck at work today! Pix would be welcome. Today is another sunny and probably warm day so I'll be dragging my wife's hibiscus tree back outside so it can enjoy the sun after overwintering in the house. Its upper leaves nearly touch the ceiling. It'll have to find a new home next winter.

Well, the working through @superspak's NBS BIF #3 box continues: today's goodie is :



Received from @superspak in NBS BIF #3
Undated can at 42 degrees into hand washed and dried JK snifter, allowed to warm to 50 degrees
Aroma - roasted malt, hints of chocolate and coffee
Head large (Five cm, aggressive pour), light brown, frothy, diminishing to an irregular three to five mm ring and thin layer
Lacing – some drag from the ring but no bands or curtains
Body dark brown/black, opaque
Flavor – begins with roasted malt, some coffee, a hint of licorice. No hops, no alcohol, no diacetyl. Ends slightly bitter
Palate medium, almost creamy, soft carbonation

Appearance 3.75, Aroma 4, Flavor 4, Palate 4, Overall 4. Rating 3.99, Avg 4.01, rDev -0.2%.

Overall, a decent porter. Although my favorite brew to date from this BIF box has to be Blow Your Face Out, a DIPA from Roak in Royal Oak, MI. Unfortunately I enjoyed this on a non-Sunday so it isn't strictly eligible for NBS and I didn't photograph it. It has to be the BEST DIPA EVER! Looks like I'll be extending my MI mileage next month to include both Royal Oak and Marquette!

 

Poured into a 16 oz snifter bottled on 3/2/16. Pours a slick almost completely black with a 1 and a half inch tan head, that leaves behind nice lines of lace, with excellent retention that took 4 minutes to settle into a thin layer of bubbles.4.75 Smell is roasty coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, oak, leather, some smoke, hints of peppery spice, and some warming bourbon. 4.25 Taste follows perfectly starts with big roasty coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, leather, a little heat from the peppers, smoke, oak, and bourbon. 4.5

Mouthfeel is medium with a fairly creamy feel, moderate carbonation no complaints here, a little on the dry side because of the roasty ness, and for 11% it drinks way to easy. 4.75 Overall this is another world class, under the radar BA beer from Clown Shoes. They make an excellent product and at $12.99 a 22 oz bottle it really is a steal. 4.5 Plus this is a great BA beer that you don't have to run through hoops to obtain.

 

Happy Anniversary (for the beer traditionalist out there)!

In another few days (April 23rd) it will be the 500th anniversary of the German Beer Purity Law: Reinheitsgebot. This is the law that dictated that beer only be made from water, barley malt and hops (and later amended to include yeast).

I appreciate the history aspects of the Reinheitsgebot but personally I prefer brewing to not be so restrictive. For example I enjoy Belgian style beers and the fact that candi sugar is used in brewing some of the Belgian beer styles does not bother me one iota.

Back to the Reinheitsgebot, to celebrate this 500th anniversary the Weihenstephaner brewery has produced a special beer of Weihenstephan 1516. On the beer label it lists: “Kellerbier – Unfiltered”. The label of Kellerbier is not a style per se but more so an acknowledgement that it is a beer (lager) that has not been filtered. In Germany a Kellerbier is also often served on cask and it can be a young beer (i.e., not extensively aged). Well, needless to say the Weihenstephan 1516 is bottled and I am not sure of how long this beer was lagered.

Let’s just pop the cap and see what we shall see!

Served in my Polish Pilsner glass:

Appearance:

Pours a medium golden color with a fluffy white head. Despite being unfiltered the beer is clear. A beautiful Belgian lace is formed as the beer is consumed.

Aroma:

The predominant feature of the nose is a bready malt aroma. I also pick up some herbal notes from the hops.

Taste:

The flavors pretty much follows the nose. The bready flavors are at the fore but there are hoppy flavors of herbal as well. A nice balance of malt and hop flavors!

Mouthfeel:

Medium body with a dry finish.

Overall:

This is a nicely balanced beer deserving of the German expression of süffig (drinkable). This beer is somewhere between a Pilsner and a Vienna Lager. It reminds me a little of the Pale Kellerbier that homebrewed last year.

Cheers!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @zid @Ranbot @yemenmocha

 

Hey what's going on!?

What a great weekend, real nice right now for the weather. Moved the kiwi vine, fenced off some stuff in the yard... gotta mow the lawn... which meant... I GET BEER for reward!

What a good excuse to drink more new beer... Like I needed another excuse...

So what's new for our hero today?!? I think @JackHorzempa might get a kick out of this...

Heurich's Lager | DC Brau Brewing Co.


D.C. Brau Brewing Co. - Heurich's Lager by imbibehour, on Flickr

-------------------------------

Poured from the can into a can glass, and also a Libbey style pilsner. Throwback! 1860DOB03813 on the bottom of the can. Great now we aren't even using standard can dating any more apparently.

In the pils glass, a brassy 14 carat gold body color, more dull looking in the can glass, with excellent rising carbonation, very fine, slight slow creep and then some faster racing towards the top. Real nice existing head for a lager, simple bleach white and at two fingers. Leaves a light creamed puck, thin, and small soaped ring. More whipped and flattened creamy quality but also good staying power.

Aroma is pretty basic, not too exciting, but also hardly faulty or terrible. Light malts and a bit of very faint toast hiding in the background. Clean, not much sticky yeast quality, or heavy sugar sensing. Has a basic classic American lager quality but more subtle and not completely dumbed down. Pretty keeping it safe here.

Palate takes a very interesting turn. There's a very herbal hop sting at first, then followed with some sweet character. Slightly syrupy but also with a real honey and green herb bitterness in the mix. Real mid palate and front forward flavors that are thick, virtually no aftertaste. No crispness, but an almost ale like body that forgoes clean lager finish, for more thicker malt and possible adjunct tones. Eventually repeated sips bring out a VERY noticeable hop bitterness that meets with some honey character, and dextrose like sensing sugars. A bit of strangely boozy warmth in the stomach but not so much in flavor at least.

This is quite an interesting take on a historic ale, It is far more hop forward than I was anticipating. It doesn't remind me so much of clean lager, but far thicker and aggressive. I do enjoy this, but it's also just a bit too sweet for me, but it's a fun brew, totally drinkable, and stands out easily amongst the large mass produced stuff of the same "style".

look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75 | BA Generated Score: 3.77

----------------------------------------------

Cheers!

 

Trade you a Keller for a Huerich!

 

Happy Sunday NBS players. A repeat of yesterday here on the island. Sunny, warm, and with a real feel of spring in the air. Not doing all that much today. Probably going to knock out some yard work, take a long walk down to the deli for lunch, and watch/listen to some baseball for the rest of the afternoon.

My first, new beer today is Espressway, a coffee oatmeal stout, from Two Roads brewing in Ct. The bottle describes it as "coffee steeped in oatmeal stout for several days using a locally roasted Ethiopian/Sumatran blend." A nice bottle date of 3/17/16, and 6.5% abv.

The pour is black with subtle carbonation and not much of a head. The nose is all fresh roasted coffee. A really floral and lovely smell. A rather light start on the drinking with malt and faint coffee flavors. The nose really doesn't carry over at all and I'm rather surprised by it. Nice subtle roast flavors hang in the background with espresso, chocolate, and oats. Slightly bitter on the finish with a definite cold brew feel. The mouth feel is rather light and even a bit on thin at times.

Overall, this is good but nothing great. I would have no problem drinking more, and probably will, but this just can't hang with the big boys (Fbs, bells etc. ). I'm all over the place in terms of scores, with my high being the nose and the low being the mouth feel. I would probably put it in the mid to slightly high 3's.

 

Sounds like a plan!!

Cheers!

 

One more fine treat sent by @beerloserLI , BIF 3! It's going to be 70 in SE Michigan with full sunshine and we have friends coming in from Fl, with some Jai Lai for me, going to be a fine day, thank you Lord.

Central Waters, Brewers Reserve, Bourbon Barrel Scotch Ale, that gets points for a sophisticated sounding beer, must be good.

Pours a deep mahogany, with a nice head of small bubbles. Smell is very sweet fruit, dates, raisin, the taste follows well with just a hint of bourbon in the background. This one maintained its flavor throughout even as it warmed. A very nice offering, right there with Backwoods. Thanks Brian

 

Greetings, NBS from sunny CLT. I'm waiting for my flight back to CAK after a lovely weekend visiting family in Minnesota. Yesterday I visited Forager in Rochester (very impressed!) and of course Surly. They also had a beer I had heard if but never seen in person sitting on several store shelves. I'm not checking a bag so of course this had to be consumed at the hotel before I got to the airport.
Everything you want an an IPA- citrus, pine, earth and some floral notes. Of course the glassware wasn't ideal, hell not even glass but I have my ways of getting some back to do a proper review back home I would agree with its 4.5 overall, even in a hotel cup it's delicious. Especially paired with a morning cup of java.
More new beer awaits shortly after I land as I'm stopping by Akron's R Shea which I've heard great things about but haven't visited. CHEERS!

 

Ok, hoping to round out my BIF beers today, although I have three bigger and/or darker ones left, so we'll have to see. A very fun BIF this go 'round. Spring is here - chilly but nice morns and eves and unoppressively warm days. Green and yellow (pollen) is becoming the norm.

New job is going along just fine and I am enjoying being a little more judicious with my eating (and to a certain degree, drinking). Hoping I can stick with it for a while; these things have a tendency to fall by the wayside quickly. My GF has been doing it for about a month, and has stuck with it, so I think that helps. Part of the problem is I still have my beer buying addiction, even if I am holding my beer drinking a tad in check - the basement is getting more full than usual.

Anyhow, today's beer, courtesy of @RoninTK3 is Otter Creek Brewing's Russian Imperial Stout:


Hmm... coulda rotated the bottle better. Oh, well.
This beer poured nicely into my glass - the black liquid rolling out and bringing a little beige froth towards me. Letting the beer warm while I set up this post, I am still looking at a thick ring that isn't much different than the photo below. I love to see the head expand in depth with a little agitation. The body itself seems a last gasp effort shy of black, hard to tell clarity (although as I drink it down, it does appear a little more brown and fairly clear).

Nose is quite nice, cocoa and coffee morning beverage notes hit me, and I am thinking this was the wise choice for the AM offering. The cocoa might be a little more on the powdery side, but the coffee is brewed already. Subsequent whiffs bring the chocolate the brewers' notes talk about, mainly in brownie form. Other notes include a prick of licorice spice and there is a little tang in there that seems to be the only scent to escape the darkness of the rest of the aromas. Gonna give this aroma a 5 (something I don't do often for whatever reason).

The taste is mostly expected. There seemed to be no sweetness emanating from the glass as I sniffed it, and there is very little as I probe the depths with my palate. Bitter, bitter chocolate and coffee notes attack first. My tongue darts around and ducks at the barrage, and eventually shrinks into a ball to await the end. That tang from the nose sort of signals it's okay for it to peek and see if all is well.

Even giving it some time, the beer was still a little cold, so I employed the two-hand enveloping the glass to share my warmth. Doing so helped coax that little tang (and in some cases a little bit of that bitter chocolate) towards the front of the taste. My tongue was happier, but then a little sneak attack of bitterness caught him from behind. Perhaps tired from the previous onslaught, the bitter coffee and nutty/wood resin-like bitterness did not do as much damage this time around.

This was a bitter monster, in my opinion, especially before it warmed. I loved the nose and appreciated the bitter flavors that came from the belly of the beast, but I did miss a little more malt sweetness (it became a tad more balanced with warmth, at least) and a little softer feel. I'm more of a "get my bitterness from my IPAs" kinda guy, I guess. But if you like your darker and/or bigger beers with a healthy dose of bitterness, I think you may like this.

I did get to burn a few calories flipping this thing twice while I did this review :

 

Howdy all! I'm gonna pop up a couple reviews of BIF brews that I cracked while sitting with my nephew this last week. I already miss the big, hairy goofball.

From @richj1970 : http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23966/222591/?ba=beertunes#review and

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22655/110053/?ba=beertunes#review

From @beatjunkee : http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25327/68978/?ba=beertunes#review

I've still got some bottles left, and I'll see if I can get knock one off, and find a wifi connection, later. Happy NBS all!