New Beer Sunday (week 619)

It was warm enough today after the Cowboys' scrimmage to practice golf in shorts ... so I did, almost worked up a sweat, and now I need a sour to cool off with.

So ... New American-made Flemish brown time:


I knew I would love this, and I do. Not quite as sweet as Monk's Cafe, not quite as sour/"soury" (fingernail polish/remover range of sour notes) as Cuvee Des Jacobin Rouge*, Gypsy Tart really nails a fine balance between lemony tartness and toasted malt sweetness. The occasional notes of wet grain sack/hay help add to that balance, taming both the tart and sweet flavors without being obtrusive.

*Cuvee Des Jacobin Rouge is a different style (Flanders red), but the line between the two styles is blurry for me ... and I compare to understand.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16866/184721/?ba=Premo88#review
4.25 (+7.1% rDev)

It's so good. Not overly anything and waaay too easy to drink for 8.4% ABV. Seems like half of that. Call me a simpleton for loving it, but I do, I do.

Anybody else watching/recording the CNN special on Chicago (Transit Authority)? I'll likely watch it later this week ... really looking forward to it.

Cheers!

 

Good evening all and Happy New Year. Hope 2017 treats you right and all your beer fantasies come true. Thank You @cavedave and @utopiajane for firing things up and for being here each and every week. Dedication is an understatement. And I wish I could write about beer the way you to do. It's always a learning experience for me.
I've been ab sent for a few weeks now and I need to get this year kicked off right. I'm late but better than never and I have a beauty I've been itching to try.
Allagash Avance' Ale aged in bourbon barrels and finished on strawberries.
A- pours a dark cloudy amber with a slightly rosey hue and a whitish 1/4" head that fades rather quickly leaving little to no lacing.
S- alot like homemade strawberry jam. Nice funkywild yeast notes, oak vanillin, some darker plum, and a little spice. Huge aromas that alert the senses.
T- Same wonderful fruit jam with a nice tartness, oak/wood, a tad of bourbon barrel, funkenstein, sweetness balances this out. There is some warmth from alchohol- but nothing overpowering. Every glorious sip of this beer presents complex layers of flavor. I could savor this for hours.
M- mouth is medium to thin bodied with small bubble light carbonation. The flavors linger a good long time after each sip.
O- Allagash is one of my favorite breweries. They just do things a little differently and are not afraid to step out of the box. This, if you like wild sours, BB aged, funky and not at all timid beers is surely worth a try. Personally haven't had anything from Allagash I wouldn't try again.
Enjoy your evening and thanks for taking the time. £B.

 

You didn't happen to get that at Cable, did you? I think I need to pick some up for myself, you got me totally intrigued. Great job!

 

Trying a Ski Bum by Ellicottville a decent IPA. Resinous pine and citrus hops, some floral notes. It is a slight malt middle with sweet cereal grain notes. Very interesting but not outstanding.

 

Had to work all weekend and I wanted to open up something special. This one fits the bill for me.
Picked up at the NC brewery by a friend and hand delivered on December 23. Been waiting a couple months for it.

I couldn't wait for a full quick chill in the freezer so I cracked it at just a little warmer than cellar temp. Pours a deep black with a thick fluffy head. Just tons of coffee, vanilla, chocolate and char on the nose.

Holy heat! It's a hot, boozy coffee bomb. A good amount of bourbon, wood, marshmallows too. Chocolate, roast, cinnamon spice. Coffee makes BA Ten Fidy that much more special.

It's a tad thin but that's just nitpicking. So enjoyable.

 

Funny you should say that! I made two stops in NY. First stop was Cable and the second was DeCicco's Armonk. I got this one at DeCicco's. Unfortunately, I only bought one bottle, otherwise I'd be happy to send some your way. I'll let you know if I stumble upon any in NJ.

 

Yes! Big cookout - some folks ate and others shot trap or skeet perhaps a couple hundred feet away.

 

Now up 2SP/Oxbow Bière de Noël, a French style holiday lager aged in American oak. This has been on of 2SP fastest selling bottles and being a collaboration with Oxbox I was hoping for something that was as good as The Russian, but it falls a little bit short.

4.15/5 rDev +1.7%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

750 ml bottle, batch 1, poured into a snifter

A- Brown with ruby red highlights and a two finger light tan head.

S- Tart, dark fruits, cherries, some smoke, oaky, some malts.

T- Taste is very different from the nose. Smoky, roasted malts, some chocolate, oak, slightly earthy yeast, undertones of tart cherries and dark fruits.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- Bierede Garde is a style I have explored that much, but I really like how the smoke and oak come together on this. Wish I was able to get a second bottle.

Four new beers to start the year, I feel it's a good start, cheers!

 

Crane Tea Weiss, pretty good, I enjoy all of their beers, but there is kind of a sameness to them.
Gave it a 3.89 overall

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43378/207493/?ba=russpowell#review

 

The imports at that Armonk store are such a crap shoot in terms of age. I'm very glad you were OK with that lager. My fingers are crossed for you with whatever else you grabbed if it wasn't dated.

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and Happy New Year to all,

Right now it's 22° outside, with the windchill it's 9°. Snow just recently slacked off. Officially we received 4 more inches here in the land of the Spokandinistas.

Been a couple weeks since I've joined y'all here for a new beer. For Xmas, I did what's become the usual pattern of spending the holiday with my parents and my brother's family at the latter's home in Olympia. No new beers were consumed, but it's possible a couple Top Cutters were consumed at a movie theater while watching Rogue One. Certainly lots of food and alcohol were consumed, especially on Xmas day itself, when my bro heroically roasted enough prime rib for 15 people (one guest-not me!-decided it would be fine to invite 5 extra people!)

Yesterday I saw the perhaps inevitable end of UW's season, and saluted them and the end of 2016 with a Fremont ba coffee and cinnamon B-Bomb consumed well past my normal bedtime with much of the great LNBA crowd. Not a new beer, but my first experience with it reasonably fresh.

Today, after watching the Seahawks finish out the regular season, my first new beer is from the other side of the state, brewed in the Skagit Valley and called, appropriately for the weather, Cold Beer:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42051/190015/?ba=woemad#review
Called a "Skagit Pilsner," I think it's more like an All-Malt Lager, and would make an excellent lawnmower beer come summer, or for session drinking during a game.

Not sure if I'll have another new beer tonight or not. I've a new barrel aged stout from a brewery that's just begun to reach here from the Midwest, plus I've a barrel aged dubbel from Selkirk Abbey staring at me that I've had before that was awesome, and might well be consumed tonight while I watch Sherlock. Either way, have a great week!

 

I thought the Single Hop Cascade IPA was really great. I never looked at any reviews of it but I was reading the thread about that pack. When I took the first sip of the IPA, I thought "wow, why didn't anybody say how nice this one was."

Cheers.

 

Happy New Beers (Sun)day!

Sam Adams Grapefruit Rebel IPA

Best by Feb 2017

I am enjoyjng this more than I did Grapefruit Sculpin, but still not a style I will likely crave. The aroma is more subdued, but that speaks to the fact that I find it less artificial than some fruited beer. The grapefruit is present in the flavor and the underlying IPA flavors take a back seat. Overall, a solid beer for what they were going for. Something I'd consider in the summer months if I ever see it in cans.

Cheers, NBS!

 

Sorry about the earlier post from the cookout; should have been in that other thread

So we survived today's excessive eating, gun range exploits, and interstate traffic jams to finally roost back in Charleston tonight (where I've previously stashed some beers at my mother in law's) with a new beer: "Bouket Farmhouse Ale":



A collaboration between De Proefbrouwerig, and Trillium, brewed and bottled in Belgium, and dry hopped with Citra and Mosaic hops - sounds good so far.

I can see some sediment build up in the bottom of the bottle, so as gentle a pour as I can muster:



Cloudy gold (6) with a big fluffy white head with large loose bubbles; quick cap with some lacing.



Funky yeast and lemon peel hop nose.

Hoppy funky lemongrass, tart mango and light rind bitterness; lite horse blanket funk with juicy fruit finish.

Crisp, light body and moderate plus carbonation.

Light and easy drinking; excellent light citrus/tropical fruit finish that still maintains that barnyard funk. I really like the collision of juicy hops and farmhouse funk. I enjoyed this more than the Noble King I drank recently. Overall a very nice collab indeed. Cheers!

 

Agreed. I'm pretty thorough with my date checking at stores but I will buy something with no date on it if I'm intrigued enough, it's a style with a typically long shelf life, or if it's something I've been wanting to try for a long time. That being said, if I'm going to gamble on an import with no bottle date, I'm more willing to do it on something in the $3-6 range for a 500 mL bottle as opposed to a $10+ 750 mL.

 

It's a great stout and my daughter's boyfriend is from Greensboro.

 

That is why I checked the reviews. My first impression was "whoa...great beer" and I wanted to see what other people thought. I generally trust my own taste buds, but when I get the extreme reaction either way I like to take a peek.

 

If either of you ever had the Anniversary Ale, that's pretty much the same beer according to @sierranevadabill . I really loved the original incarnation, myself.

 

Happy New Year everybody, and happy New (Oud) Bruin Sunday! Well @jvgoor3786 , I made it, and I'll be dedicating this post to @SawDog505 for inspiring my "600th" beer to be special. Funny thing...Every Crux Banished series beer I've had has been an NBS post, so why ruin tradition? It was a hell of an awesome 2016, and I'd like to start off the new year in that same fashion. Cheers to this next year BA's! And with that, I give you...

Crux Fermentation Project
[BANISHED] FREAKCAKE
A barrel-aged Oud Bruin with Brettanomyces. Brewed with spices and dried fruit. 10.5% abv.





I'll say this, I love this brewery but good god can they make these things more difficult to open!? Here is the multitude of tools necessary to access the contents inside. Wax. Cap. Cork. Thanks.



But in the end...It's worth it!

A: Pours a very deep dark brown with dark red highlights. Surpisingly, very clean and clear. A thin tan creamy looking head stays around the rim.

A:. Upon opening, I was welcomed with a burst of vinegary and sweet and spiced goodness filling the air five feet all around. Smells of fig, sour cherries, and sweet Belgian candi sugar. Oddly, the aroma seems to disappear a bit after a while, but adopts a bit of an oxidized or even iron metallic aroma.

T: Figgy fruitiness dominates, a good tart cherry and cranberry follows, and ends with a sticky sweet molasses. Absolutely sublime.

F: Medium bodied, good overall acidity, a mild carbonation that seems stronger due to the sour qualities, smooth and a tad oily. Coats the mouth throughout.

O: I believe I have a new favorite from the fine freaks at Crux. This Oud Bruin is true to style yet unique enough to stand out and shine.

I have a special fondness for anything hailing from lovely Bend, Oregon. Crux might reside in a slightly larger apartment in the real estate of my heart dedicated to beer, thanks to gems like this. Cheers everyone, and I will see you all soon!

 

Very nice. I guess I better get off my butt and start drinking/reviewing.