New Beer Sunday (week 609)

Been awhile. So I opened a new (for me) beer last night just after midnight, still celebrating the Cubs' historic win: Oscar Blues IPA.

Pours a very pretty gold from 12 oz can with three fingers white head. Really nice nose full of piney hops. Taste is quite bitter, piney, just a touch of sweet malt and orange. Crisp carbonation on the mouthfeel. Overall, a nice, bitter IPA, at 6.43 (?) ABV.

Cheers!

 

Got a couple of new brews on tap for today...

Both relatively elusive, Focal Banger from the Alchemist in Vermont, and Splish from Grimm, a NY-based gypsy brewery.

Cold and clear morning on LI, lotsa football ahead, including the Giants in London versus the Rams. OBJ gets a lot of face time in the media, as much for his poor behavior as for his stunning play - wonder which we'll see more of today?

Anyway, starting with the Focal Banger, because I am really excited to have gotten hold of one of these...


Citra and Mosaic IPA at 7% abv? That's cheating. Drank the bulk from the pint, but finished the remains from the can. I got big aromas of citrusy pine right off the bat. First sip packed a wallop of bitter hop action crashing across the tongue. Suggestions of earthy, musky citrus fruit followed, with herbal pine rounding the edges and keeping it tight with tongue-clenching bitterness. Medium-light body, ample carbonation, and a clean, crisp feel. Totally craving another, but alas, here in NY, I'm lucky I even got to try one. For the record, I like it more than Heady...

Cheers, NBS...

 

Not a grapefruit fan? I always hated grapefruit and honestly I think the only reason I can eat it and enjoy it now is because it reminds me of an IPA. And even then, it's far from my favorite. Tastes are weird.

 

Mmmm. Focal Banger is a hell of a tasty beer. It's torture to only have one!

 

I've had a lot of very tasty brews from Ithaca. Always a joy to see them.

Cheers!

 

This beer makes me wish that I owned a boat!!

Last month my wife and I went to the Jersey shore (Cape May) for a vacation. The first thing we did when we arrived was visit a liquor store.

The story went a bit like this:

Employee (owner?): I like your T-shirt (a Three Stooges T-shirt)



Me: Thanks! It was a birthday present from my sister,

Employee: I had a shirt like that but I gave it to my brother.

Me: Boy, you must really love your brother! N’yuk, n’yuk, n’yuk! (I didn’t really say the n-yuk stuff).

Employee: Can I help you find something.

Me: I have been looking all over for some Carton beer but I can’t seem to find it.

Employee: Well, we have Boat and O’Dub in the back. Which one would you like?

Me: Can I have a 4-pack of each?

Employee: (He looks at my T-shirt again) I guess we can sell you two 4-packs.



I will be drinking the Carton Boat beer today for NBS.

Below is from the BA description of this beer:

“Described by the brewer as more of an American Pale Ale. It's not an India Pale Ale.

Boat Beer is designed to be complex enough to merit drinking a few without being crippled by alcohol. Kolsch yeast and German malts are combined to be crisp and refreshing, while a generous amount of American hops have been added to keep it remarkable. Expect it to dance out of the glass with a whack of grapefruit and open into a crisp, stony tangle of white and yellow fruit with pine and moss notes. An IPA for everyday drinking, drink boat beer when you are thirsty from softball, fishing, or explaining why your team is best.

Session Ale
ABV: 4.2% | IBU: 35 | SRM: 3.5”

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glass”

Appearance:

Pours a hazy light yellow with two finger white head.

Aroma:

There is a complex hop aroma here. Some tropical fruit, some citrus, and even some resin.

Taste:

The flavors follows the nose: a tasty combination of tropical fruit & citrus with a again some resin. Just enough malt to provide some balance.

Mouthfeel:

A light-medium body with moderate carbonation

Overall:

This is a very flavorful beer for being low in alcohol. This is an excellent session beer!!

Lesson Learned:

If you are going shopping for a limited availability beer, make sure to wear a Three Stooges T-shirt!

Cheers to Carton for crafting such a flavorful low alcohol beer!!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @augiecarton @RobH @Sixpoint

 

Good morning New BSers! Maria, thank you for getting us started again - one of these days I'm going to travel north and find some Saranac again - I used to like their Black Forest (?) and Caramel Porter but nobody around here carries them any more.

Well, we're starting today off with some sunshine - unusual for fall in NW PA - usually just fog, overcast, or rain most of the day with some sun breaking through just in time to set. My goal for today is to add two more sets of shelves to Mrs. Lizard's sewing room, so she (but probably me) can get more things organized and up from the floor. Then, with another dry day, move another china closet from her mother's house to ours. Eventually, I'll be able to re-organize the turtle room into a shared facility between the turtles and me, getting my laptop off the kitchen table and on a desk. Meanwhile, hell will be freezing over, so figure around January - February here in the wilds of PA.

Today's beer offering is another from that super-generous BA @Josholson666 - he must have a walk-in cooler in his basement or at live above a massive cave system, based solely on the amount and volume of beer I received from him.



Bottle received from @Josholson666 in NBS BIF #4
Undated 750 mL bottle at 42 degrees into a hand washed and dried JK snifter
Aroma – malt
Head – Large (Maximum 4.8 cm, aggressive pour), light brown, creamy, diminishing to an irregular three to five mm ring with drag marks and a rocky heaped partial layer
Lacing good – thin rings of varying width, tiny to small bubbles, covers just over 50% of the inside surface
Body – dark brown/black, opaque
Flavor – Expresso! Starts off slightly sweet (malt) which ends immediately followed by a jaw-tightening bitterness that is felt more than tasted (Expresso!). Apparently no hops were harmed in making this beer: at least their presence is overwhelmed by the expresso to the point that they appear to be an afterthought although I think I finally taste a little hopishness around the edges. No diacetyl could survive the expresso onslaught.
Palate – full, almost creamy, soft carbonation

Wow! A BIG beer for sure, maybe not in alcohol content, but certainly in flavor. Bottled coffee with some alcohol added. A little sweeter and it would give Kahlua a run. Since expresso usually gives me the runs…

Appearance 4.25, Aroma 4, Flavor 4.5, Palate 4, Overall 4.25, Rating 4.27.

Avg 3.98, rDev +7.3%

In case you can't tell, I really liked this beer! Josh, you are one super-generous BA and you have good taste as well!

 

Good Morning, NBS! Been a decent weekend so far. The second installment of the Throwback series (Flashback Friday) went off pretty well, I feel. The Caps went 1-1 (unfortunately a loss to the Rangers was more bitter than the win over FL), Penn State upset Ohio State (though my own UVa team expectedly lost in the oldest rivalry in the south to UNC), and the Cubs make the series (I am more a sympathizer than a fan)!

Ok, sports report out of the way, I decided to go lighter for beer one this Sunday. I realized the other day that I had messed up my "W" breweries from the Carolinas in my mind and a few posts I had made. I am pretty sure it is Westbrook (SC) that made its way to NYC, bypassing the DC market, not Wicked Weed (NC). Of course, the first batch to hit the area went pretty fast. Some options lingered, those being quite expensive or that weren't IPAs or big stouts [aged in barrels]. My choice today is one of those "non-IPA/BBA/IS" offerings, Lunatic - a Belgian Blonde Ale.

There is no Belgian Blonde style here in BA, so the choice of the person who added the beer was Belgian Pale Ale (it wasn't until checking out the website during this write up that I saw this beer won silver for Belgian-Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale). I guess I would've gone that route myself, but after reading the various people contributing to @zid's Saison thread (including mainly the thread starter himself) - I would probably consider this beer more of a Saison.


The beer pours a little lighter and brighter than my pictures show, but there is a light tan tint to the yellow golden body (the backlit one is probably a little too light). The white head forced me to take a few pours back and forth between the glasses to empty the bottles. Receding ended with a thick collar and about 2/3 coverage of the surface with a thin sheen of bubbles.

The nose seems to support my argument to treat this as a saison - though it leans towards the fruity and floral side of the wide-ranging style. There is a light dry grass and peppery base to the nose, upon which wildflowers and a light sweet-tart note of green apple. That sweetness comes across stronger and more honey-like in some sniffs.

The taste doesn't quite support the saison style quite as well. I'm not sure it goes all the way to Belgian pale, though. It's not overly bitter, and is actually quite balanced. The honey note comes with the light biscuity malt up front. Adding to the sweet side is a pear/apple sort of flavor, along with the lightest hint of banana/clove. Effervescence doesn't seem to fully explain the prickly sensation upon my tongue, so there is likely a little peppery note in there as well.

Grassy bitterness is the main balancing component. As the beer warms, this seems to fade slightly, and there is a more tangy tart note that replaces it. The end of the taste is fairly clean - maybe the lightest lingering of a grassy to even piney bitterness.



So here is what the brewer says:

Ok - I got apple/pear with a tangy/tart note I didn't describe versus apricot. With a quick check, I think the numbering system is out of 5. Given that, I'd go more hoppy: 2, malty: 2, fruity: 2 - as this beer is not really in your face on anything, which is nice and truly different than being "weak" in everything. Going back to the quote on the bottle, I think Wicked Weed accomplished their "lunacy."

 

Yes indeed. I like Texas Red grapefruit or pink grapefruit but cannot stand regular old white grapefruit. I had an army buddy who used to sing:

Puff the magic grapefruit
Hanging on the vine
Take a bite
of his flesh
It tastes like turpentine!

And yes, we all know that grapefruit grow on trees - poetic license.

 

So you're saying that wearing a sign of mental aberration on your chest will help you get better beer???

 

The one Focal Banger I got to try (thanks to a generous BA to whom I still owe a beer) quite easily took its place at the top of all IPAs in my world. It's almost bittersweet that my local IPAs, while some are quite good, likely won't live up to that beer.

 

Carton makes some pretty tasty brews.

Cheers!

 

Poured slowly down the center of the glass at just above room temperature and got a beautiful two finger tan head that leaves wisps of lace behind as it slowly settles into a thin layer of bubbles showing off some very tight retention. Vintage 2016, but I know it fresh because it just barely came out. 4.5 Smell is roasty coffee grounds, vanilla, dark chocolate, molasses, leather, tobacco, and some warming oaky bourbon throughout. 4.75

Taste follows very well starting with a nice dry roasty strong coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla beans, a little dark fruit, hints of tobacco and leather, maybe some smoke, and a very balanced bourbon finish. 4.75

Mouthfeel is bigger than I was expecting for a 7.8% ABV base beer turning into 9.6% ABV after hanging around in the barrel for months, bigger than medium and a creamyness, moderate carbonation, slightly dry finish, and so dangerously drinkable. 4.5

Overall this is truly a great beer all around. The price of $15.99 a 4 pack and the quality of the final product, well done Long Trail. I had to stare at this beer all weekend waiting for NBS and it was even better than I hoped. I will say I think it helps that I let it sit out from the fridge for an hour plus, letting it warm to the perfect temperature. 4.5

 

Pretty sure I've seen some Wicked Weed brews around here. Gonna take another look.

Cheers!

 

I've had a few from LT in the past, pretty tasty stuff.

Cheers!

 

No kidding! That was an awesome beer, but I'm a gamer, so after cleansing my palate with a slice of pizza and a glass of water, I'm onto new beer number two...

Grimm is based in Brooklyn, but most of the beers I've had from them, including this one, are brewed at Beltway Brewing in Sterling, VA...

Watching the Giants in London, wondering if JPP had all his fingers, would he have made that interception?


This here beer is a different animal than the Focal Banger, presenting more of a juicy, plush DIPA vibe, coming in at 8% abv and featuring a markedly different hop bill of Galaxy, Motueka, Wai-iti, and Falconer’s Flight.

Aromas of citrus and tropical fruits come right up on the nose. Followed on the tongue with lots of juicy fruits of tropical and citrusy natures, and mild bitterness. Plush and soft and smooth-feeling, with moderate carbonation, and little bit of fleshy fruit on the aftertaste.

So far, so good, today, NBS. Onto familiar faves from here on out, though I'd like to throw a quick shout-out to a new beer I discovered earlier this week, Twin Pines Mall, a DIPA collab between Emporium and Pipeworks...

Featuring spruce tips and honey, it had a decidedly pine-like aroma and flavor, making it seem like they dipped a pine-scented car air freshener into the brew before bottling - and all of this was a good thing, assuming you like pine-forward beer. Medium-bodied, lightly sweetened, with moderate carbonation, it was an easy win for me. Actually scored a total of three bottles over the past few days, and I'm already down to one.

Here's to new beer in your glass - cheers, NBS...

 

Could be!

http://beerpulse.com/2016/08/wicked...distribution-into-the-state-of-colorado-4643/


Grab some, if you can (Pernicious would be my suggestion if there are multiple options).

Edit: Here's DC's:
https://www.beerconnoisseur.com/news/wicked-weed-opens-distribution-virginia-and-dc

So, you did get it a month earlier, supposedly . (Note: I know there's a lot of reasons that go into distribution decisions, legal, business, etc. - but a nearby market is also one ).

 

I passed on that yesterday. Now I'll have to go back and pick up a 4 pack.

 

I really hope it delivers for you like it did me. I am always on the prowl for quality and affordable BA beers and for me winner winner chicken dinner!