New Beer Sunday (week 600)

I Hope I am your first like today as I have been waiting for this thread! Number 600 . If that don't beat all! Cheers @cavedave and NBS! Happy Sunday!

I got you man!

 

Mornin' NBSers and thanks to @cavedave for the kick off.

We've out of town family for guests today so I'm not sure when I'll be back with a new beer to report on.

But in answer to the question posed by CaveDave I'd suggest that "true advocacy" includes enjoying things for their own sake, not because others do or think you should, and being willing to share that enjoyment with others who express an interest. They won't all share your interest but at least you've made it possible.

Cheers, all!

 

Cheers you all and Happy New Beer Sunday. Today I have a beer that we have all been waiting for. Sierra Nevada's collboration with Mahr's Brau. Oktoberfest 2016!



Pours very pale, a 4 on the SRM chart. Clear, bright and just golden. It's not pale per se but it is not amber, and not orange. It's the color of fresh wood and quite beautiful. Creamy white cap that falls just in time for you to drink it. Nose is as though a gentleman has handed you a flower. It has earthy spice to sweeten it. The saphir hop is a cool air. No caramel, no fruity esters from yeast, no diacetyl, no dms. The herbal has a pungency just underneath it like musk but it's not too strong. The Steffi pilsner malt is golden. Smells like bread dough. Depth from a light biscuit must be the Vienna malt. There is just a shy sweetness on the nose and that is also from the Vienna. A very light toastiness that has to be the Munich malt. Crisp and hearty. smooth but layered.

For as much depth as the malts give the palate, the flavor is serene in a way. Mouthfeel is fuller than the color would suggest. But rather than orangey coppery colors, in the flavor we have a light grain and moderate herbal hop. The depth of flavor is all in a small margin and that is where the hops show all they have got. Firm lasting clean bitterness. That's German magnum hop. Before it gets sweet, or too full the bitterness comes and lasts to leave you with this dynamic texture from malt and just a hint at the graceful vienna malt flavor at the very end. In some authentic beer the alcohol is revealed. In this one it is. Right at the end you get a little bracing bitterness from the abv. I found that feature in stronger styles and because of the extra sweet tropical they thought they were going to get from the other bittering hop. Dry. For bittering hops they used a combination German and American. German magnum and Palisade. For flavor and aroma they used German Record hops and thank you @JackHorzempa for giving me the only information I could find on them at all. I'd say the hop character that maybe they resemble is weedy grassy like spalt, spalter , strisslepsalt. Those are the hops that came to mind but correct me if I am wrong. Saphir and crystal. The word Steffi tells me the variety of barley not the level of kilning.

This beer is so food friendly. On the website it is paired with a traditional German meal that includes my favorite cheese. So again this beer was a romance. Please pair it with sausages, Butterkasse cheese and apple struedel!

NBS number 600
Thank you for you

 

Thanks Dave for the great start as usual. I'm leaving in a few minutes for a day at the White Mountain Boogie Blues Festival but should be back in time to share the new beer I just put in the fridge.

I made an early morning trip to Maine yesterday to stand in line and grab a few beers with lots of others. I have had the beer before but know a couple of others that might not get the chance to try the beer. I'll be passing along a few of these this week. Why because I can I guess and more than that I like sharing great beer with others.

Hopefully I'm back in time to post but if not Cheers to all and may we all enjoy some great beer with friends when we have the chance.

 

Well, I'm a true believer anyway and speaking as one this has become my favorite thread. NBS is bring what 'cha got and say what you like about it. So here's my contribution . . .



6% ABV, lotsa hops.

Appearance is a beautiful lighter shade of gold, white cap with good lacing.

Aroma has a strong impression of floral, spicy hops with a clean sharpness. Little malt apparent.

Taste is hop forward resting on a malt base. Malt flavor doesn't intrude, hops are in the spotlight here, but does provide background for the hops. The earthy tone in the hops plays lightly in the flavor but the primary tastes are of clean, sharp hops that dance around the palate and linger in the aftertaste. This one marches up to the line between hop boldness and hop bitterness without crossing over into the bitter outfield. Good balancing act here.

Texture is medium with enough body to give it character.

Overall this is much better than some of the run-o-the mill IPAs out there. This one achieves where others fall short. Shoveling in more hops will cover some flaws but it's an effort in diminishing returns because at some point the whole is just a one note brew marred by bitterness. Yazoo has come up with a good balanced product here and I hope the label sticks around.

 

Wow @cavedave!!
Just reading that makes me want to take out a beer............
However I am hitting the road today so I don't know if I'll get a chance.
I would just like to say I agree with everything you say, and hopefully we continue through real Beer Advocacy to remove FOMO from this great hobby and interest.
Cheers and congrats on NBS #600

 

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.

 

I want one of these soon. They're obviously still selling through Summerfest- which I love- but this collab sounds like my kind of beer and I'm eager. "Nose is as though a gentleman has handed you a flower". Thank you for that perfect sentence!

 

Good Sunday morning to all! Thanks to @cavedave for some words of wisdom and reflection about our fine common interest. We are the stewards of this planet and everything on it. I try to live my life like the old camping phrase about leaving everything better than I found it. Simple, but some very sage advice.

On to the beer and a definition of beer advocacy with this 12oz. bottle of Rabid Duck Russian Imperial Stout by The Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery. It was sent as part of a generous box by the fine BA known as @guinness77 last week. Let's pour this enjoy by 2/2017 10% elixir in a 13oz. snifter for the occasion.

Pours a medium viscosity cola brown with a fat finger of creamy mocha colored foam. Thick lacing is left in it's aftermath. The smell is dark roasted malt, raisins, figs, char and a salami like spice. Taste is dark bitter chocolate, figs, char, tobacco and wood. The feel is medium thick and oily with a bite of alcohol in the finish.



A very solid stout that is on the side of dark roast and fruit as opposed to sweet. I'm down with that as it is my preferred flavor. The slick oily feel makes this 10 percenter a bit too easy and dangerous to drink. My score was 4.02 / rDev +2.0%. Thanks Chuck for this fine RIS that is money on this beautiful cool and breezy morning. The feel of fall lurking around the corner is here with growing shadows, falling choke cherries, and the animals foraging. Got a visit from a squirrel as I'm typing this!



And in the theme of the Duck Rabbit, a visitor that had the mutts going crazy!



Have a great Sunday gang, looking forward to reading your posts on this milestone edition of NBS. Here's the official scorecard....

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9790/27249/?ba=Prager62#review

 

Great intro, @cavedave! I hopefully will be back later but am not sure if my schedule will allow for it. Fingers crossed.

As far as advocacy goes, you can't get much better than NBS IMO. People sharing their thoughts, comparing, asking questions, learning, teaching, laughing, drinking, recommending, etc. As for FOMO, hoarding, grey markets, et al. As far as I am concerned, passion is a huge part of what separates advocacy from all of the other, less-pleasant stuff which is more tied to greed, envy, obsession, trendiness, bandwagoning, internet hype or whatever you want to call it.

Basically, more like being a true hippie! Just like you said. I mean, all of this stuff could easily be applied to Dead tour. Except that there the passion is for the music (hopefully) and here it is for great beer (hopefully)

 

-picked this up at Burial Brewing in Asheville last Saturday, transported cold and was waiting until New Beer Sunday to crack one.
Burial/Other Half collaboration -Prismatic Eye, a Double IPA

-bright yellow pour from can. 2 cm of foam dissipates quickly. The aroma is huuuge, a floral and citrus hop wave. Flavors are dominated by citrus and some pine. This is very Heady like, but with a slightly lighter body and drier. A bit of alcohol is detectable. This is a fantastic double IPA.
This can-art is begging for commensurate music. -The second set is perhaps my favorite 90 minutes

 

Summer of Pilsners – but a ‘New Wave’ APA this week

Yeah, I proclaimed that the summer of 2016 would be the Summer of Pilsners for NBS but I will be taking a short hiatus this week for a good reason (well, at least I think it is a good reason).

Lagunitas has recently come out with a new ‘revolutionary’ beer labeled as 12th of Never Ale. What is ‘revolutionary’ about this beer you might ask? Well:

Packaging

Somebody might say that packaging beers in cans is not revolutionary since beers have been packaged in cans since 1935. But… the owner of Lagunitas (Tony Magee) openly and ‘loudly’ proclaimed that he would never package Lagunitas beers in cans!! Well, it is now 2016 (81 years since the first canned beer was produced) and maybe the number of an 81st anniversary has special meaning to Tony since he changed his mind and decided to package a new brand of beer in a can.

Personally I am glad that Tony changed his mind on this particular matter since IMO the can is a superior package to bottles because:

· Cans are 100% impervious to air (oxygen)

· Cans are 100% impervious to light

· Cans are much lighter in weight and thereby save on energy costs during the transportation of the beer

A’New Wave” APA

When I personally think about the eponymous American Pale Ale I think of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale which features the aroma/flavor of Cascade hops. I still enjoy drinking SNPA beers!!

For the production of 12th of Never Ale the brewers of Lagunitas did, well let’s just let them describe this beer in their own words:

“Tropically Hoppy. Light, yet Full-Bodied. Bright and Citrusy. Word.

The magical, mystical 12th of Never is a blend of Old and New School hops that play bright citrus, rich coconut, and papaya-esque flavors, all on a solid stage of English puffed wheat. Tropically hoppy. Light, yet full-bodied. Bright and citrusy. The 12th of Never Ale is everything we’ve learned about making hop-forward beer expressed in a moderate voice. Pale, cold, slightly alcoholic and bitter. It’s all we know.

These 12oz mini-kegs (AKA cans) are an exciting new option for us, and we are stoopid stoked at the opportunity for y'all to take us to all those new, nelophobic locations.”

When is the last time you read/heard the word “nelophobic”!?!

At this point in time I am just salivating so: Time to Drink!!

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glass:

Appearance:

Golden colored with a big three-finger white head.

Aroma:

Hop aromas of citrus/grapefruit and then some tropical fruit aroma.

Taste:

Wow! A complex set of hop flavors that come in waves (did you see what I did there?). First is the flavors of citrus/grapefruit and then tropical fruit flavors appear which are followed by some pine notes and then there is a bit of resin/dank and…. There is moderate bitterness and just a bit of light malt backbone to provide a tiny bit of balance.

Mouthfeel:

Light to medium bodied with moderate amounts of carbonation.

Overall:

In one word: excellent! This beer is indeed a very tasty ‘New Wave’ APA.

Cheers to the Lagunitas folks for re-thinking their position about canning beers and for formulating an excellent APA beer!!!!

@rotsaruch @RobH @KOP_Beer_OUtlet

 

Good Morning, NBS!!

I have a few beers that are candidates for this day, but none of them were stepping forward to be the first. Not sure what they were scared of, but all their heads were down, looking at their feet, then at the other candidates' feet. So I decided, let's just go to the store and get breakfast, and we'll decide afterwards, ok?

Grabbed some lox and cream cheese, tomato, onions, and a simple little breakfast is at hand. But of interest to people here was the non-surprise that the store had a new Sierra Nevada beer in its cooler.

(Random side note, this is the same chain store that had yesterday's Speedway Stout and Firestone XIX of all things at one time or another. I do think they changed grocery managers or took away some leeway in purchasing, as the selection has gotten a lot more big grocery store generic).

Anyhow, after that great opening to this sescentensimus edition of this thread (yes, I had to look that up, hope the internet didn't lie to me) by @cavedave, I read @utopiajane's review of Sierra Nevada's Oktoberfest, 2016 Edition, and that beer stepped forward proud to be my first offering for today:


I can't match @utopiajane's nice mix of technical and sensory descriptions, but I will compare my thoughts side-by-side with hers, hope she doesn't mind:

Agree this is a very light-colored beer. I would go with light golden or yellow golden in my vocabulary. I would also consider it quite clear - probably almost completely, but with this damn humidty (and choice of glass) I cannot be 100% certain.


I also agree with the level of head, but mine had a certain soapy look to it at certain points, including once it settled. Or maybe a better descriptor would be sea foam, thickly gathered around the edges.

After cutting up that powerful onion, my nose had just recovered to get into a whiff of this beer. To me the earthy to sweet grassy spice comes out as the shining point. But it is shining against a light sweet bread and mountain field of flowers that provide the base of this beer's scent for me. I'd have to say that sweetness is the next most noticeable aspect. The nose is very delicate (which I mean differently than strength in ability to notice - this scent isn't strong, by any means, but it's not weak).

As I draw the beer over my lips and it hits my tongue, I get the flavor sensation of the light, sweet bread first. I agree there is a bit more oomph to this beer than you might think from the look or the nose. The sweetness seems to push a spicy bitterness out of the way and forces the tongue to soak in its flavor for a few fleeting seconds.

The bitterness will just not be held at bay for the duration of this taste, however. Prickly carbonation gives the spice a vehicle to join the party. But wait, just as I expect that bite to last, I wash the beer towards the back of my throat, and the sweetness makes a final little push. I want to say a different hop joins the fray here as well, the result being a slightly sweet floral note. In the end, though, a peppery spice bitterness ends my taste.

Perhaps there is a note of alcohol that is aiding what comes across as spicy to me in the mid taste, although the later note is definitely more peppery to me. I do get a lingering grassy somewhat dry aftertaste, though I find the beer leans a little sweet during the main event.



So, I think I am on board with the bulk of people that say they will be enjoying this during the upcoming season. Do I like it as much as last year's offering? My immediate thought is no - but since I don't have one of those (fresh or not) in front of me, I cannot say for certain. Needless to say, I am going to keep buying this each year that SN continues to put one out.

Cheers!!

 

"Cheers to the Lagunitas folks for re-thinking their position about canning beers and for formulating an excellent APA beer!!!!"

Victory BC exbeerienced a like CAN epiphany several years ago. I always recount the tale of The Brewers' Plate in PHL that I was "working" as a steward & I was asking Bill Covaleski when his beers might be put in CANs. "Woody, you & your freakin' CANs! Victory will be in CANs when Hell freezes over! Go peddle your nonsense to [Tom] Kehoe! Maybe he'll listen." Famous last words ...

 

Not quite ready for beer yet, but Great start CaveDave. I had to look up what FOMO was. FOMO is a major part of the "beer culture" unfortunately.

My feeling on beer:
Beer always tastes better when shared with others. Whether they are crazy about beer like me or someone just interested in trying something new.

I love trying something new and sharing it with others. That is why I post in the thread. This is the only place I have ever posted pictures on the Internet. Love this thread each week.

If does not matter if someone drinks Budweiser or cantilion, drinks out of the bottle or glass, waits in line for beer or does not, likes or dislikes any of my favorite beers or beers I have brewed.

We have too many people unfortunately that think the way they drink, collect, or think about beer is the right way and everyone else is wrong.

I will be back later with a new beer and with ribs slowly cooking on the grill. Cheers everyone and happy NBS.

PS: If anyone has a great idea what to do with a ton of Habanero peppers let me know. I have more then I know what to do with and already made 3 containers of hot sauce...

 

A beautiful late summer day here in Maine. We'll be spending the day packing cars and tomorrow taking the youngest back to college. Hard to believe he's starting his junior year. Sad to see him go, but at the same time happy to be empty nesters again.
My beer for NBS is Great Divide's 22nd Anniversary. I thought it was an apt choice, since we are celebrating our anniversary this week.
In a teku glass the beer had the appearance of a dark red wine, like a cabernet. There was no head.
Aroma of red wine vinegar and dark fruit.
Sour cherry taste, vinegar. Oak and tannins showed up late in the taste and lingered on.
Tart, medium-bodied.
Good beer but not sure I would buy it again.




Have a great Sunday!

 

Roast those peppers nice and crispy, crush them up, put them in jars and use them for years. Do not touch your eyes or face! I have "vintages" of various peppers that we love.

 

I love the comparison. This one is very different from last year. Cheers Lovely review! I like the bubbles in the photo .

 

I want to thank @Prager62 for tagging me in his post (by the way, the dogs looking out the window at the rabbit is a great picture) because I probably would have never read @cavedave spot on, 100 percent correct OP. I agree completely and in many aspects it's pretty sad. I see it in "real life" and I see it in some Mid-Atlantic threads.

I take solace in the fact that I believe the advocates outnumber the FOMO crowd. I also see that in "real life" and in the WBAYDN threads, which is my favorite thread on this site. The only thing the advocates can do is keep doing what they do, control what they can control, continue to enjoy having a beverage, no matter what it may be, and keep looking out for others no matter whether it's offering an opinion, offering someone a beer, or just lending an ear. Hopefully the FOMO crowd takes notice and realizes it's about what's in yours and your friends' glasses and not whatever it is they're chasing. I don't even think they know.

Thanks for having me at NBS and cheers!