New Beer Sunday (week 586)

I didn't know they were even allowed to sell Log Cabin in New England.
Be that as it may, the bacon is a work of art. (As is the beer.) Cheers!

 

First and probably only NBS beer today is this one from Hogback Mountain Brewery.



Pink Boots Gose With Blood Oranges

Hogback Mountain Brewing
Gose / 4.40% ABV

3.81/5 rDev n/a | Avg: 3.81
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

L- Pours a hazy yellow common to a lot of the Berliner's that I've scene. The head rises to about a finger and a half before quickly subsiding to a thin film. No lacing is present.
S-The nose is blood orange and stronger than I would have imagined.
T- Up front you get that initial tartness without being outright sour. The blood orange shows up in mid palate before the beer finishes with a soft salinity. The blood orange shows up stronger in the nose than in the flavor.
F-Carbonation is on the softer side. The overall mouthfeel is medium.
O- Not overly complex, but fairly well executed in it's application of fruit to the base Gose. The tartness and salinity are both clearly present without being overidden by the blood orange. A nice balance between all the elements.

 

Allright, I still can use a beer. Here's a good one that came to me thanks to the generosity of @ONovoMexicano -

La Cumbre's Slice of Hefen- a hefeweizen. There's a lot to like about this beer- the yeast signature is bold yet balanced (maybe 60% clove to 40% banana), the malt character has a lot of depth, there's hints of subtle citrus and apricot for added complexity, and the finish is dry and quenching. Unfortunately the carbonation/head retention misses the mark, at least with this particular can, and that really is needed in this style to hit that top tier. Still- quite enjoyable, and I'd gladly get it again (B+. 3.95)

 

I've salivated my way through 3/4 of this day reading other's posts. Great stuff. Lots of beers I want to drink. I was busy with family and saw a pretty stellar minor league baseball game as the Isotopes took down the Express out of Round Rock. We paid about $14 for first base line tickets and ended up moving with friends behind home base. Spent an extra $10 to take my daughter beyond the outfield to play in an inflatable bouncey deal, ride a carousel and some other carnival ride. I'm not sure I can ever pay Major League prices.

Anyway, I finally got to a beer and I really enjoyed this gem. Even more so because I enjoy it more than the mass public. More for me.

This is Dieu du Ciel's Equinoxe du Printemps:



Can someone tell me what the bottle date here translates too:



Here are my thoughts:

4.25/5 rDev +9.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

11.5 fluid ounce bottle into a snifter. Where'd that other half ounce go?

Pours a deep brown and amber...in the glass it's brown. Head is a bit thin, but sudsy and oatmeal-colored. A healthy pool of lace settles over the body. 4.25

Quite the sweet monster we have here. Tons of sweet bready malt that remind me of a doppelbock and the added sweetness of a tangy, fruity maple syrup. It's interesting how the maple has all of these dimensions of fruit to it. On top of all this I note some brown sugar, floral bouquet, and caramel. It's pretty rich all around. 4.25

I'll again remark how much fruitiness this scotch ale has. I'm finding a citrusy element that's pretty foreign to me as far as scotch ales but it's a great attribute here. Of course, this is big on the malts and they show their stripes with a dark bread flavor like a dunkel, some caramel and butterscotch, and occasional hints of brown sugar. A floral taste makes a subtle entrance close to the finish too. 4.25

Initially I was a bit disappointed in the body, finding it thin. But this beer gets progressively more smooth, sticky, and caramel-like. There are moments of fruitiness approaching citrus and floral qualities to boot, both of which I don't expect in a scotch ale but welcome openly here. 4.25


This beer exemplifies all that is good in the world. A shelf turd of a beer sitting in a liquor store in Los Angeles that I eagerly picked up (we don't see anything Shelton) and it's just great. It was the best of times....



Happy Sunday, BAs. I think I have one more in me and still have lots of fridge cleaning to do.

 

Hi NBS crew! Getting a bit of a late start, just got back in from out of town. Figured I would start with a nice refreshing brew that was recently sent tom me by the generous @lateralusbeer !


BEER STATS
Reviews: 17
Ratings: 121
Avg: 4.08
pDev: 18.87%

My rating:
4.29/5 rDev +5.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

I was expecting a ton of coconut. Lots of coconut beers come across as "sun tan lotion" flavored to me, but this just had a nice, up front, light coconut flavor. The lemon was bright and heavy, lots in the aroma including juice and zest. The lemon flavor was more zesty and fit nicely with the fairly high level of tartness.

Overall I found this to be a really pleasant tasting brew! Great, refreshing summer brew!

 

Glad to see you throw this up on NBS. I have to say, more recent visits have not wowed me as much as in the early days. Hard to ever know whether it's changed tastebuds, faulty memory, or a changed beer. Glad you got to try though.

I need to figure out a way to get you, @cavedave and anyone else in a stones throw of NYC together for a share this summer. I decided I'm going to haul out a bunch of Albuquerque beers I've been sitting on for ages and share them with New Yorkers. Help me help y'all by suggesting where we might hold such an event.

 

Omnipollo Aniara
Pale Ale Brewed with Lemon Juice
3/4 inch head sticks around for a little while.
Nose of lemon rind and pith. Orange after it warms.
Taste follows nose, so tart and refreshing.
A bit thin.
Overall, a great beer to pair with seafood!

 

I love going to minor league games- you get all of the great aspects of an afternoon in the ballpark without all of the hassle. I always wind up thinking that it's how baseball should be enjoyed. My son and I make sure we go to a few a year.

 

Another New Am. IPA Sunday
Greetings one last time NBSer's,
There are quite a few of smaller rural communities starting breweries in Mn and Ia and when I can I like to stop and take look. Yesterday I stopped in Montgomery MN to partake. A nice little place that was steady busy while I was there with a pretty good cross section of ages. Good for them.

This evening I'm enjoying the IPA and find it solid overall and pleasurable. I might be a little generous but there is not much to complain about here either.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/38353/230219/?ba=garymuchow#review

Best to all this week.

 

As I'm finishing it I am still impressed by the depth of malt character. If there's going to be a let-down in a hefeweizen that's where it usually is. So they got the hard part right....and then couldn't nail the carbonation to match. Maybe that's why you don't see to many hefeweizens in cans .

 

Sounds like fun! I'll put on my thinking cap, but in the meantime, where will you be staying?

 

New Beer Sunday: ESB American version.

Evenin' NBSers with special greetings to all of you buyers of brightly flavored bitters and other British style beers.

Well the weather today was not picture perfect for a BBQ or party on the porch, but was perfect for doing yard work involving heavy lifting, pruning and clearing dead branches, prepping plantings and so on. Started out Sunny but was mostly cloudy and quite breezy through out the day with an occasional dose of Sun breaking through the clouds. Just enough to remind that there is a Sun out there (maybe it will come out tomorrow ).

As planned, this evening's new beer is the Pabst Old Tankard Ale which is categorized here (and by the brewer's self description) as being a version of Extra Special Bitter (ESB).

As usual my review, subject to revision until the beer is finished, is in progress here:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/447/213607/?ba=drtth#review

Overall I'm pretty well pleased to have tried this beer. My top choice when I have a chance to visit a Pub in the UK is almost always "let me try the best local bitter." This is sure to both result in a tasty beer and to sometimes provoke bit of debate amongst a few of the regulars in that pub as to which local bitter is actually the best. (When I am flying solo it occasionally results both in some interesting chats and even having someone offer to buy the next round. . And that often seems likely to result in yet someone else joining in the chat also offering to buy another round. .)

But if you are a purist when it comes British cask ale you'll want to avoid this beer since there are a few differences between this and what might be on offer in a pub. The most notable of these differences involve the use of some American hops (which is less common in the UK), the carbonation level, and the initial temperature at which the beer is poured.

That said, as a US brewer's take on an ESB I'm finding this beer quite tasty. The brewers have kept a reasonable balance between hop and malt so it is possible to pick up both some malt and malt sweetness as well as some hop flavors and some well controlled bitterness that knows it's proper place in the grand scheme of things and doesn't try to run the whole show but is fine with being able to close out each sip.

In thinking about music to put on the player tonight I've been able to take advantage of a generous loan of some old vinyl from an old friend (in both senses of the word "old" ), and have picked some 1950s-60s folk music. One particular group from that era did one particular song that seemed to just fit right with the name of the beer, the image on the can and the notion that this beer is an ale.

The original Kingston Trio from about 1958.

 

Green from Tree House. Super hazy with a nice balance of bitterness and citrus.

 

Good evening NBS, hope everyone is doing well. One and done for me today so making it count with Mikkeller Forét de Tronçais Medium Toast. A great Barelywine and way too easy to drink for 19.3%.

4.31/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

375 ml bottle poured into a tulip

A- A murky dark amber with a two finger off white head.

S- Slightly boozy, dark fruits, figs, cherries, some oak, hints of vanilla, toffee and caramel.

T- Sweet and oaky, dark fruits, cherries, raisins, figs, oak, an herbal earthiness, caramel, toffee, leather, hints of vanilla, not much booze.

M- Smooth, full body, syrupy.

O- I had the light toast of this about two years year ago and enjoyed it, but this is better. Very easy to drink for how high ABV this is. Sweet and complex, worth trying if you get the chance.

Finally watching Game of Thrones, I know I'm really late to the party, but I'm enjoying it so far, cheers!

 

Hey gang! Late to the party today because of life. Kidding aside it was a good day with no chores involved. I took a break from landscaping and limited my physical activity to a short run at sunrise. Enough of that, let's drink beer!

I received a well packed box of goodies from BA extraordinaire @SammyJaxxxx for my bronze medal in the NBS/BIF voting for best box sent. Thank you to all involved for casting your vote. I'm humbled by your never ending generosity. Let's pop the top on one from Carton & Other Half appropriately labeled All Orange Everything that is packaged in a bright orange can with sparse labeling and no visible date. Let's pour this 10.5 percent orange can and see what awaits?

Pours a brilliant slightly hazy orange color leaving a finger of white foam in its wake. The smell is a mix of grapefruit, orange, mild passionfruit and mango. Flavor is comprised of orange zest, grapefruit, mild passionfruit and mango. There are some floral notes that poke through in the finish. The feel is rather light, crisp and dry. Easy drinking for such a big beer!



This is a more subdued and easy drinking version of a triple IPA compared to most I've had. The flavor is a pleasant mix of citrus/tropical that doesn't overpower the palate making it quite drinkable for the 10.5 abv. I liked it and would definitely recommend trying this to get your hop fix. My score was 4.29 / rDev -2.1%.

I may be back for another if I can muster the focus to do so. Either way, have a great week! Here's the scorecard....

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26817/225220/?ba=Prager62#review

 

Thanks for this review. I just picked up one of these but haven't tried it yet. Now I'm really looking forward to it.

 

I guess I'll add more scattered info. Even though I love the boos, note that I actually had nothing bad to say about the beer. The fact that I keep trying J'sA is a complement. When something doesn't click with me, I don't think that it's the same as a lack of quality. I do love "traditional" but don't think I'm bound by it... and perhaps one can call the House Lager "traditional." Regarding Von Trapp, a friend of mine went to Vermont and told me she brought back some beers. I got excited as anyone here would and was then surprised that she gave me two Von Trapp beers. I never heard of them before. I tried them with low expectations and was so pleasantly surprised. Great beers! I too had that Coronado Anniversary IPA. I had it in December and it was over a year old at that point. It was still great. Doesn't mean yours wasn't poor. Despite all the conventional wisdom, I've had a delicate beer left to age on a shelf that held up, and the same beer only fresher and in a cooler that tasted old.

Why do I love the boos? One side-effect of this great site is an unappealing homogeneousness. If I make an honest comment without the accustomed expectations, it's not a bad thing. It's in the lukewarm response to Jack Abby's, the claim that a refriderated beer can taste older than a older beer, that an old IPA can taste good, and that a Stoudt's beer can be the highlight of a night rather than a Hill Farmstead beer. None of these things are said to ruffle feathers, but as long as I'm honest, then I'm happy if they muddy the waters. Cheers.

 

It is going to be another lost Sunday for me. The pollen count in the kngdom is outrageous. Combined with the cats, it is overload city. Allergies are kickin' my butt and I know what happens when I mix beer with my antihistamine...saying I get irritable with that combo would be like calling an aircraft carrier a canoe...its bad...the queen despairs...not worth it.

Last Sunday was the Generation Axe guitar concert...it was kind of a too much of a good thing situation in some ways. Different styles from modern deconstructed heavy metal from Tosin Basi, technical wizardy from Ingwie Malmstein, rock from Zakk Wylde and Nuno Bettencourt...but three hours of guitar solos was a little too much. Zakk turned N.I.B. into a twenty-plus minute ordeal, losing momentum quickly in a repetitious solo snoozer. Sorry, man, but you showed everything you can do in five minutes...less is more. Cool high point...Nuno combined various recognizable riffs with short solos and then absolutely schredded an acoustic solo. Abasi's rhythms and deconstructed chord "structures"...yep that is next gen shit. Malmstein was flashy, showmanship, technically on point, and Vai was melodic and amazing with the effects pedals. But it could have been shorter or a better mix of song vs. just disconnected solos without context. Loved a lot of it, frankly bored by parts of it.

Ok...last week's music review is a poor substitute for beer, but its what I got for today. Cheers to Captain @cavedave for the superb kickoff. Until next week...

 

Wicked Weed Bourbon Barrel Aged Oblivion

So, first and foremost, I apologize for the lack of pictures. I just got home from shooting video for a concert and I did it all hand held. If any of you have done video before you know what an hour plus of steady hand held camera work can do to your arms. Suffice to say, I can barely lift my glass nevermind take a non-blurry photograph at this point. And man do I need a nice relaxing flavorful beer right now.

Now that we have that out of the way, as stated above, today's offering is a barrel aged sour from Wicked Weed. Wicked Weed is a fairly new entry to the Boston market and I am stoked to see shelves dedicated to these guys now. I've had three or four of their offerings prior to this and I've been impressed so far. With that out of the way, let's get tasting.

A: Pours a very dark amber, looks almost black unless held up to light. Decent, slightly tan colored head which dissipates into a slight film. Little lacing. 4.25
S: Odd though this may sound, and this is not a negative, this smells a lot like one of my curio cabinets did when we unpacked it. I assume this is owing somewhat to the woodiness of the barrel combined with the sourness. Regardless, this is an enticing smell and one that I have always enjoyed. Moving past this, I get some strong caramel, vanilla, and berry notes. I cannot stop smelling this. 5.0
T: Tart blackberries, bourbon barrel undertone; somewhat wine like. There is a slight disconnect for me between the bourbon barrel and the tart berry flavors. I think I would have preferred this more aged in a wine barrel that would better compliment the flavors of the base beer. Don't get me wrong though, I'm still really enjoying this, but there is some room for improvement here. 4.5
F: Decent carbonation. Some nice tingliness on the tongue. Drinks fairly light and I keep having to remind myself this is a higher ABV beer. 4.25
O: I am really liking this. The barrel aging is present, but subtle enough that it comes across as an accent piece rather than the star of the show. I would love to try this aged in other types of barrels but really, when the biggest negative is essentially "this is so good I want to try further permutations of it" then it is safe to say we have a winner. 4.5

Composite: 4.58 Average: 4.38 rDev: +4.6%

This really was the perfect beer to finsih my night with. It hides the alcohol amazingly well. And I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed the aroma here. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you ever get the chance to drink a beer that smells like a favorite piece of furniture, jump on it; I know I will.

 

seems like youre taking this personally and that was not my intention. That was a tongue in cheek boo and I respect evreyones opinion on this sight- whether I agree or not. Im no expert nor will pretend to ever be. In regards to JA I will say they I agree that their house lager is not their best effort. As far as Coronado goes the date - once I found it - was bottled 7/14. I take partial blame for this as I said, but I haven't really found a 2 yr old double that Ive thouroughly enjoyed unless I was looking for a barleywine. And IMHO this was just not good but spoiled. But evidently you are much more educated on this. My apologies for any unintentional insult.