What beer are you drinking now? #1401

Good Morning.

 

It's like a tart fruit juice for breakfast.
At least that's what I'm telling myself.

You can keep UFC and the Irish guy who is, to paraphrase, "the size of one of Brock Lesnar's sh*ts". I had to stay up late last night just to watch this guy, and his entrance alone was worth it.

 

Starting the day with last night's leftovers and Hoptimum

 

Good morning BA, have a great Sunday! Still recovering a bit from yesterdays homebrew fest, but I am feeling just fine overall.

Excellent pale ale. Flavors of big grapefruit, tangerine, lemon zest, orange peel, mango, melon, peach, pineapple, berry, pepper, wood, and pine; with some moderate malts of honey, light caramel, and toasted bread; with herbal/floral/grassy hop earthiness. Good amount of pine/citrus rind/spicy bitterness; with a very smooth finish; with a good amount of hop stickiness and light bready creaminess in the mouthfeel. Fairly dry after the finish from bitterness; but not astringent at all. Great mix of juicy Citra/Experimental hops; with a solid malt backbone like most Deschutes IPAs.



Insane IPA as always. Flavors of grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, peach, mango, lemon zest, orange peel, and pine hops; with some toasted bread/light caramel malt balance; and floral/grassy hop earthiness. Good sized pine/rind bitterness; medium body; sticky/resinous with a fair amount of bready Munich creaminess in the mouthfeel. Moderate increasing dryness from resins; with minimal lingering hop astringency. Really bright on hops with tons of complexity. Good malt backbone, but still very dry. A definite top favorite IPA now, along with all the Bear Republic stuff that came back recently to the state.



This is excellent! Not quite as huge on the raspberry notes as the raspberry-only version, though. Flavors of lightly tart raspberry, lemon zest, caramel, brown sugar, toffee, chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, bourbon, toasted oak, and light coffee. Light roast bitterness and bourbon/oak spice on the finish. Medium-full bodied; with a really great creamy/silky mouthfeel; minimal chalky/drying roasted character. Slight hint of fruit acidity. Pleasantly warming finish, with zero barrel booze. Overall, everything is just really well balanced together: fruit, malt, barrel. Well rounded complexity. I'd put this right on par with the base beer overall. Can never go wrong with any Dragons Milk. Always love it, base beer and variations.



Insane stuff! Flavors of huge milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, toffee, fudge brownie, vanilla, cinnamon, chili pepper, smoke, toasted dark bread, and light dark fruit/char; with some herbal spice earthiness as well. Bittersweet balanced finish; very full body, with an amazing creamy/silky mouthfeel; with light touches of sticky/chalky roast and slickness as well. Minimal dryness, but zero cloying sweetness. Minimal pepper heat, but really great flavor presence. Very rich/decadent with spot on balance of spices. This has a thicker/fuller body and better mouthfeel than regular Bomb!, which makes this just a bit better overall for me; but I always love both. Wouldn't mind seeing this made again in the future.



Cheers

 

Friends!
I am done with my hike up Katahdin. Baring a few scratches and both great toes stubbed well enough to have ended up with both nailbeds turning blue, me and my friends came back in one piece. We took what's called the knife's edge trail on our way to summit. Hiking on the very top of the range in a track barely few feet wide and with drops of couple three thousand feet besides you was an incredible interesting yet anal sphincter tightening experience!! Took us 13 hours total, so by the time we came back to hotel, we had absolutely no energy to partake in anything. Gives me tremendous respect for folks who do this hike like it was nothing.
Enjoying this awesomely refreshing brew this morning as we are greatly appreciating our intact extremities. Cheers.

Here's a few shots from the hike.
This is chimney pond lake, one the most crystal clear water I have seen. This is probably at 2000 feet elevation. The summit is little over 5000 ft from the bottom.
This is about midway. No flat land to hike on. Just huge boulders to walk and meander ones way through.

A good view close to summit. The knife's edge is seen here.

Close up of the knifes edge trail. It is the part towards the left of pic.

 

Sunday I drink in honor of the Great Commander.




Sometimes picking a song related to your beer is embarrassing.

 

Oakshire • Goes to 11

 

Great pictures!
Haven't been to Katahdin in years. Thanks for the memories!

 

Awesome post, congrats on surviving such an ambitious endeavor! Breathtaking photography as well.

 

Falco by Evil Twin

Artwork: Typical Scandinavian minimalism (like in most of their labels). This is what I assume to be the abstract/modern-art representation of a bird of pray (Falcon?). I'm usually not a fan of the style but for some reason I don't mind it on their cans/bottles.

Appearance: Huge frothy head with nice retention and lacing. The color is amber and clear.

Nose: Tons of hops. Not too tropical or floral. Grassy or herbaceous are perhaps better words.

Taste: Fairly bitter (even more so than your average American IPA). The hops are fairly straightforward and do not offer notes of anything other that what they are. Hops.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with a decent carbonation bite.

Overall: A great IPA, despite the high bitterness which I got tired of after the 4-5th sip.

 

Last night did not go as planned only one beer, kind of nodded off watching sports center. Great weather this morning, 55 degrees in August in Oklahoma, unheard of... Anderson Valley Briney Melon Gose in the hot tub. All misty on the lake right now...

 

Morning,Sunday beer peeps

Feeling a nice cooler breeze coming off my lake - refreshing after all the hot ass and humid weather this summer has brought....I am looking forward to fall, my favorite time of year for sure

Saturday was a spectacular day in the "new beer glass dept"....a friend found some cool new German glasses for me at a local flea market, and I found 20 - also all German - glasses from a private party on Craigslist....20 glasses for $10! Whoa....great deal...also got a small taster / flight paddle with 4 glasses for $2 at my local Goodwill store....crazy good glass day !



This is one my friend found for me - it looks "normal" from the front, and then you turn it sideways...looks like a stick shift lever! Awesome

 

Absolutely awesome pics!

 

Today's prediction? Hopefully not pain.

 

Session IPA & IRRA
Fábrica Maravillas - Madrid

 

Quality and price, Lagunitas is one of the best! Cheers BA'S.