New Beer Sunday (week 613)

It's been a while, but that's exactly how I would have described Southern Tier's Old Man Winter as well. Same prescription to 'fix' it, too- more robust English yeast signature. Oh well, but thanks for the heads-up.

FWIW- I've been looking for the Ommegang/Urban Chestnut collab since you mentioned it to me, but no luck so far. After your review, I'm even more intrigued . Hopefully it happens this week.

 

Getting a late start today. We had to make a road trip earlier for the first of several family Thanksgiving meals. I know it's early, but scheduling conflicts meant that one of these get togethers had to be this weekend.

Today's new beer and glass come to me from @smanson56's MWK BIF box. I've had the chance to try a couple of Night Shift beers but never anything from the barrel society for sure!

This is Matterhorn - a white wine barrel aged sour saison.

Straw yellow with smallish one finger white head that settles immediately. Zero lacing.

Aromas and flavors are dominated by tart lemon and white grapes. There is an earthy note to the aroma that reminds me of tea leaves, and some fruit notes with pear and apricot. Hints of oak just barely noticeable.

Crisp and dry with some lingering acidity. Just about the right amount of tartness, but I wish more saison funk came through.

Overall very enjoyable and refreshing. Big thanks to @smanson56 for the chance to try this beer!






https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28609/245520/?ba=richj1970#review

 

Great review. And one of the most overlooked Trillium beers. I really like that one.

 

Well, it is a cold and dreary day here in the kingdom. Just started a light drizzle that feels almost frozen. Good day for sitting and watching football.

An interesting week spent in Wisconsin. Sick as a dog for most of it, functional enough for work but shouldn't have been there. Picked up a six pack of Central Waters Mudpuppy Porter which was probably unwise. It was an OK porter in my opinion.

I did finally manage to visit New Glarus. This is just an incredible spot with the building pretty much integrated into the surroundings. Beautiful biergarten, and the brewery itself was top notch, state of the art awesome with enough stainless steel shininess that I needed a cigarette and cold shower after walking through...looooove me some beautiful stainless work. Got me to thinking about how great beer is and about contrasts. You can brew beer in a state-of-the art muti-million dollar brewery. You can have used equipment; you can have equipment that is barely cobbled together and rescued from the pit of despair. You can brew it in a soup pot and bucket. In any of these situations, you can brew great beer, OK beer, or horrible beer. Regardless how you go about it, it still comes down to the skill of the brewer and understanding the ingredients and how to manipulate and get the best from each one then integrating that understandng into the process.


Some days ya just want something comforting to eat and dreary Sunday is one of them. The concoction on the plate is a Portuguese bolo with sausage and eggs, you can't see the hot sauce I drizzled on mine. A Portuguese bolo is basically a big ol' English muffin but made with a denser, slighty sweet dough. It is chewier than an English muffin and don't look for nooks and crannies. Kind of a throwback - my grandmother used to make malasadas and eggs when we were kids, usually on a Sunday night. Some people call the fried doughboys like you find at the fair malasadas but they are nowhere near the same thing. A true one is about the size of a doughnut and fried to a deep brown and we never had sugar or toppings or fillings, although they can have either or both. We'd just crack them open piping hot and slather them with butter, dip them in Karo syrup and the runny egg yolk.

Oh yeah... The beer is Newburgh Brewing Brown Ale poured as you see into my Goodfellow's pint glass. Held up to the light, it is more of a mahogany color with ample reddish tints. I was a little surprised by the lack of head, but OK. There is a raft of itty bitty bubbles on top that look like a spider web. There wasn't much of a hiss when I opened the can.

Aroma is very nice and quite intense - sweet toffee, roasted malts. Chocolate comes in and it's reminding me somewhat of a Heath bar. A touch of lightly roasted coffee. Nice.

Taste follows along pretty well, but is not as rich as the nose would imply. The flavors are sweet, toffee, coffee, cocoa in the background. Maybe a bit of vanilla, caramel, maple (?). Not overwhelming, just a nicely blended profile that is almost dessert-like except it is pretty light and not as intense as the aroma led me to think.

Feel...well, the carbonation is low, that is for certain, almost flat. The body is light to medium, the flavors clean and well-defined. So it tastes great, smells great, just lacks carbonation. I'm thinking that isn't correct. I'm thinking I probably shouldn't do the formal review at this point - if it is supposed to be low-carbonation, then I will write it up. It'd land around 3.8 - 4.2 just on the flavor and aroma.

@utopiajane - what a start to today's festivities!

Hope you all have great plans for Thanksgiving however you choose to celebrate. Unfortunately, Monday is in the way, but we'll get there!

 

Good evening, NBSers. I'm down to the next to last beer from @beerloserLI that I received in "the gift that keeps on giving," otherwise known as BIF #4 MWK, and also known as "as much fun as you can ever possibly have with your clothes on." Okay, maybe that was TMI, to keep up with the acronym theme of my post. Anywho, here's the beer.



This is the 2nd beer @beerloserLI sent me from Barrier, and it's magnificent. It's a DIPA hop bomb (doh!!!), but it is one of the the smoothest drinking DIPA's I've ever had. There are ginormous citrus flavors throughout the taste, but there is literally no trace of alcohol, which is next to impossible to do with a beer that packs a 9.8% ABV punch.

I have one more beer left from the BIF treasure chest. If it's as good as its predecessors, I'll be the happiest beer nerd on the planet. Rated 4.32.

 

Good evening NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend once again. Thanks to @utopiajane for getting us started off this morning. Did some work at home today and ran into an IT related issue that I can't do anything about; so it looks like my manager is going to have to hold off on reporting status updates for the SUV program for a few days . I gave it my best effort anyhow. Other than that I have been moving through my new beers daily as usual. Planning on going to Ohio for the Holiday, so I should be able to find some more fun stuff to try now thanks to the new ABV cap removal. Haven't been down there in quite some time.

New Beers:

Been loving these English brews. This was really good. Not much in the way of head or lacing. Low carb, but acceptable(cask experience?). Aromas and flavors of caramel, brown sugar, toasted dark bread, and herbal/peppery hops; with lighter notes of chocolate, cocoa, coffee, toffee, nuttiness, and yeast fruits. Moderate herbal/spicy hop and roast bitterness on the finish. Medium bodied; balanced grainy malt creaminess and hop stickiness in the mouthfeel. A bit resinous and chalky from roast. Increasingly drying, and a touch astringent from roast/hop bitterness; but very drinkable. Kind of like a cross between an ESB and English brown. A little rough around the edges, but a nice English beer. 3.7


Fantastic IPA! Aromas and flavors of huge tangerine, pineapple, peach, grapefruit, passion fruit, mango, melon, lemon/orange peel, citrus rind, light pepper, and pine hops; with a bit of honey/bready malts; herbal, floral, and grassy hop earthiness. Good sized pine/rind/spicy bitterness on the finish. Medium bodied; very crisp and sticky/resinous finish; bit of grainy/creamy malts in the mouthfeel. Moderately dry, and increasingly lingering resinous finish; no hop astringency at all. Refreshing as hell. The hops are bright and dank like I dream about. After getting Elysian Space Dust and now this, InBev seems a little bit alright with me. Will be returning to this again. Dead on West coast style IPA, with all my favorite hops. 4.3


Excellent porter! Aromas and flavors of big buttered pecans, caramel, honey, brown sugar, toasted brown bread, toffee, vanilla, and milk chocolate; with light cocoa/coffee notes in the background. Light herbal/spicy hop and roast bitterness on the finish. Medium-plus bodied; nicely creamy and lightly silky in the mouthfeel. Slight chalky roast, but zero dryness. Never overly sweet. Min warming ABV. By far the best variation of all of their Pecan Porters yet! Truly dessert-like; nice uppage of the sweetness with the honey malt. Big and authentic on the pecans, but not overwhelming. They nailed it this time. Would get another. 4.1


Cheers, have a good night NBS!

 

#2, I love rye, I love porters, let's serve up an imperial rye porter.



I have really enjoyed discovering Modern Times, and this beer is another example why. The base porter has all the typical porter check marks (roasty chocolatey flavors), and then the rye jumps on top with a welcome spice addition. Great fall beer, IMHO.

Rated 4.17.

 

New Beer Sunday: A New Wild Ale

Evening NBSers,

Today was a mixed bag weatherwise. We were visiting some relatives who have a brand new baby to show off and started the morning down in southern Virgnia's Shanendoah Valley. The long drive back home took us through some very faint but noticable touches of rain, a light dusting of snow, through patches of sun and periods of fully overcast skys with dark threatening clouds. That all would have been OK except for the fact that there were also strong, bitter cold winds all the way up the Valley and into PA. The gusts were strong enough to made driving fairly stressful because of the extra attention and tension required to ensure safety at 70 mph. (In addition, if you've never driven much on I-81, think heavy traffic with lots and lots of big trucks the whole way, even on Sunday.)

So now it's time to unwind with a new beer on Sunday. This evening's beer is a Wild Ale from a small, but promising brewery over in Western PA called Draai Laag that is living up to it's theme/motto, "Wild by Design." The beer is call R2 Koelschip and it is brewed using spontaneous fermentation created by the air borne yeast in the area where it is located. (R2 is apparently the designated name of the Koelschip.)

On the whole I’ve been enjoying this beer quite a bit since it is clean and full of light, fresh flavors and aromas. There’s some tart green apple, a bit of sweetness and a light touch of earthy mustiness. Since I did two 250ml pours I got to sample it without and with a bit of yeast from the bottom sediment. While the second pour was less clean and sharp it was smoother and almost as enjoyable to drink as the first. As I said in an earlier discussion of a different beer from this same brewery, I think there’s a lot of potential both in the brewery's existing line up and new beers I expect we'll be seeing from them in the future.

On the player tonight is a collection of classic (but not classical) pieces that are considered by some to be masterpieces. One such piece is called "Stardust," which is being performed by the musician-composer who wrote it. This particular song was composed in the late 20s and is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th Century

Hoagy Carmichael: Stardust

Cheers, all!

 

Hello all! At the moment I am basking in the aftermath of a big party day at Casa Rad. Lotsa hard work, but lotsa fun. And food- and boy did I pig out. All worth it, of course. After all of that cleanup, I still think I have a bit of room for just one more snack and a beer. But first, and action shot of earlier because I promised @PatrickCT -

Some baked ziti and ancho chile stew on this cold wintry day, alongside an appropriately autumnal seasonal offering.

And now, a few hours later, a light, spritzy nightcap-

Kent Falls Alternate World, a dry hopped gose, which also comes to me by way of @PatrickCT , with much appreciation.

The aroma is stunning- brightly floral, spicy and fruity, all in an amazingly harmonious blend. I am most reminded of Kumquat, so much so that I can't believe it's not an ingredient, but guava, berries and lavendar are not that far behind. On first sip those elements take a back seat to the bready crackery malt and peppery spice. It's far more delicate than the aroma lets on. And the crisp, dry slightly salty finish is exactly as one would expect from a gose. Tartness has a moderate presence, if that, but is nicely quenching nonetheless. A splendid beer overall. I wish the fruitiness was expressed more on the palate, but that's just a minor quibble based on how enjoyable it is. A- (4.15). Thanks again, Patrick!

 

Back again folks..

Another one from that box from @beertunes

Skookum Brewery: Murder of Crows

Imperial Stout aged on Seasoned Oak.

Poured from a 12 oz bottle into a Snorkel glass. Bottled on 09/28/16.

Appearance: Pours out a jet black body, aggressive pour and no head formed whatsoever! Just a small little island of bubbles in the center of the body formed on top.

Aroma: Dark roasted malts, char, french roasted coffee, molasses, vanilla.

Taste: Well there's quite a bit going on here. Dark chocolate, vanilla, black strap molasses, oak, espresso.

Mouthfeel: Full mouthfeel. Tongue is just coated in that roasted malt and molasses taste, only a little bit of bitterness on the tongue.

Overall: This is a really great Imperial Stout! The Old Crow Whiskey seasoned oak they age this on adds a nice rounded flavor to it with vanilla shining through. This is a sipper, not because of the 9% abv, but just to enjoy the complexity. I wish I could put better into words everything that is coming through with this beer. Sometimes Imperial Stouts can be too bitter, but this is very pleasant.

Thanks again Terry! Another winner!

 

Greetings All:

Dawn of the Red IPA today.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14400/241405/

A nice brew from Ninkasi, but the Believer is better.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14400/37381/

Another nice win for the Seahawks today. Looks like maybe a collision course with Dallas in January? It would be nice to have home field for that, but the Cowboys are going to have to stumble to make that happen.

Seasonal here in the northwest. Gray and rainy. We saw a little snow last Tuesday. Sunrise after 7 AM sunset around 4:30 PM. I hate this time of year. I just keep the fridge stocked and wait....

Until next time,

Happy Trails!

 

Gotta admit, this Apple Cup is gonna be one for the ages, @RJLarse .

 

About time I cracked this one...



Semi vigorous pour yields a one and a half inch tan head which after some time succumbs to my palate's invasion and becomes a very thin ring. Strong raspberry on the nose with very little bourbon to speak of. Chocolate and almond notes are present but definitely take a back seat to the raspberry. Taste is where the chocolate comes out along with the raspberry and almond with slight vanilla, from the bourbon, as well as a little coffee. Just a tad thin but very nice overall.

4.21/5 rDev -1.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.2

 

Not my style , but im thinking beer brewed with bacon. Might not be true of course but in me demented mind I'm saying yuck. But I like Islay Whiskey. .

 

Ah yes, KBS Friday! It was a pleasure meeting you and with a little luck we'll be back there again. Cheers Corey!

 

Evening NBS and Thank you Maria for the world class lesson in beer analysis.
Hey I've been hitting @Lingenbrau box hard and was going to skip today but the itch had to be scratched. Had to take a hop break so I pulled this unusual beer out that's been sitting in the fridge awhile.
Almanac Truthful Statement-sour stout aged in Woodford Reserve Bourbon Barrels with cherries and orange peels.
Pouts a motor oil black with absolutely zero head and an absence of any lacing.
Smell is bourbon, vanilla oak, bakers chocolate and citrus/orange and some coffee.
Taste is follows with bourbon, un sweetened chocolate, orange rind and tinny cherries with a sour apple astringency. Alcohol warming significant.
Wacky stuff.
Finished sour and astringent with a thinnish body and very small amount of carbonation.
Weird. Just weird. Yes it's got sour qualities. Yes it has stout qualities. In this case the two just don't work together for me. I've had some really tasty Old Fashioned flavored beers- Brooklyn comes to mind- I liked that one. This combo just doesn't work for me. I prefer some body on a beer of this type - which this totally lacks due to the combo of styles. I like quite a few of Almanacs sours but this one I will not be dropping good dough on again.
Hey thanks for taking the time and have a great couple of pre - Thanksgiving days.
u

 

I like Old Man significantly better than the Blue Point beer, but Old Man always struck me as a cross between a light barley wine and an American Pale Ale. I always disliked Southern Tier's beer descriptions: "Ale yeast, three varieties of hops & two types of malts." Gee, thanks for the info.

I think you'll be much better at picking apart the components of the Ommegang beer. I just drank the sucker down (after I let it warm up a bit).

 

I'd have to agree, and Almanac has a tendency to be hit or miss for me at least. Might I recommend a well done sour stout, The Bruery's Tart of Darkness. One of my all time favorites from them in any variation. Cheers!