New Beer Sunday (week 627)

My first time having Maine's "Woods and Waters", by far the most fruit forward of the Maine IPA's, definitely not a "Juice Bomb", but this is the closest that I think MBC will come to it. Still crisp and clear, just with some tasty tropical fruit flavor in there.

 

I do remember and my thoughts are with you. The good memories matter.

 

One of the reasons I appreciate Adroit Theory so very much is that I'm not thoroughly convinced that Satan, in fact, is not their brewmaster.

 

Crush cucumber sour from 10 barrel. Just OK, I my mind a sour needs to make you pucker, this one does not. Very light, hint of sourness but does have a cucumber finish. Cheers!!

 

Happy NBS to everyone here, and congrats to @Lingenbrau

Busy weekend here, spent it working on a house and helping out a friend who's laid up waiting for surgery. Needed the chance to kick back at least a bit on Sunday afternoon and rest up for the upcoming week. The Return of the King helps, but this

My wife bought the brandy and scotch versions of The Abyss for Valentine's. She's not a beer drinker, but she knows what are the good local stores to go and ask the clerks for help.

Just tried The Abyss for the first time last week, it's a solid beer, but damn the brandy barrels certainly bring out a nice decadence to it. Rich and creamy, it's almost like drinking chocolate with a pleasant brandy and cherry flavor. Drinks really easily for 13.3% ABV.

4.53/5 rDev +4.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Pours an inky, deep black color with about a finger of tan head. Smells of roasted malts, dark chocolate, coffee, and brandy. Tastes of molasses, vanilla, brandy, dark chocolate, and coffee. Rich and creamy feel to it. Small amount of the abv shows but certainly managable. Decadent beer, slow sipper for sure, delicious and an excellent version of The Abyss. I'd certainly buy it again.

 

My day of unbridled new beer enthusiasm is starting to take a toll, but I presevere long enough to bring you one more beer for today.

Two Brothers Outlaw 2.0 IPA



Looks simple enough. About a half inch of fizzy beige head on top a crystal clear reddish beer.

Nose is massively sweet with tangerine as the only kicker. Exit has Easter candy gum drop spice.

Taste follows along for the most part, save for the creek water entrance. Body is thin as all heck, and largely absent of any aftertaste.

 

Family strength, memories, joy for times shared.
Never easy, but builds the collective humanity.
Peace to you all.
Cheers

 

Am I ever so glad that y'all is national dialect now! Y'all says more than most words. It's like a very positive verbal infection!.......I love it.

 

Happy New Impy Stout Sunday!

Did a little hike today, sunny, around 34, and not much wind. Having a really tasty brew, surprised me, for sure. Watching some MLB pre-season baseball.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28226/89313/?ba=Wasatch#review

Cheers!

 

Happy NBS. Enjoying this Against the Grain London Balling. Very nice (full review below). Cheers!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26850/78933/?ba=cindyjeffsmith#review

 

Straight going off today NBS but this is my last post of the day. Switching over to food/water advocate after this as I have to be up and at it early tomorrow. Work sucks but at least it pays for beer.

My third new beer today is Raspberry Halo, an imperial stout, from cigar city brewing. No bottle date and no apparent abv on the bottle either. The site listing checks it in a 10.7%.

A black pour with a tan head. On the nose I get malt and sweet fruit. The raspberry really hits upfront on the very first sip and doesn't really stop. Good flow with a pretty smooth finish. The malts and other flavor start to come over as it warms but linger on the subtle side. Tones of chocolate, coffee, and smoke all topped off with a sweet and sugary sort of raspberry puree. The mouth feel is moderate with a slight sticky feel to it.

Overall, not bad but not great. The raspberry is not subtle at all and it really dominates the drinking. If you like raspberry you'll love it. If you don't this might just be a sugary mess. I'm in the 3.5/4 range at best.

 

Greetings all. UtopiaJane mentioned spring and it is a very strange February day indeed here in Boston where, at 42 degrees, it is actually considerably *colder* than it has been of late (Friday topped off at almost 70). Strange times these are!

I'm trying to stick with using NBS to help me explore imports (German in particular) so this week I picked up a Weihenstephaner Vitus, which is a WeizenBock. The only other Weihenstephaner beer I believe I've had is their Hefeweizen, which I once bought on draft because it was my understanding that it was pretty much the best example of its style. I don't very much care for Hefes really and I figured if I tried the best and still didn't care for it, then I could safely move on to other things. Short story - I still don't drink Hefewiezens. So hopefully I can appreciate this more given the significance of the brewery.

It pours a.... wait a minute? Okay, this is sort of embarassing but I was expecting this to be a dark beer! That's what I associate with bocks anyway. Well, a day where you learn something new is a good day. Anyway....



It may not be dark, but it sure is gorgeous. Deeply hazy orange/dark straw color letting some light through with a truly thick and pillowy 2 inch head. And while I'm not usually one to pay all that much attention to lacing, the way this sticks to the sides of the glass is impossible to miss. Thick foam slides down the sides after tilting the glass. The beer itself doesn't look all that dissimilar to today's trendy hazy IPAs actually (which for not the first time makes me wonder why some people seem so upset about the latter).

Hmmm.... surprise number 2: this smells alarmingly like a hefeweizen. Not quite so much
bannana, but lots of that sweet, clove-y, vaguely spoiling fruit, yeasty smell that I just don't care much for in a beer. Not what I though I was signing up for. The taste follows similarly but, due to the relatively high ABV (7.7%) this seems a bit sharper and less cloying to me. And, again like some new trendy IPAs, this has a very creamy and luscious mouthfeel that is complemented nicely by that pillow of foam.

So this might be the best example of this flavor profile I've had, but it sort of cements that this general style just isn't really for me. Even still I feel like I can tell that this is an exceptional example of what it wants to be. I'm not sure I've ever loved the look and feel of a beer so much while not caring too much for the smell or taste.

If Weihenstephaner wants a quick cash infusion, they should set up a shell company in Western Massachusetts and sell this as a "Bannana IPA"

 

Ok, got in one more IPA today, one I wasn't expecting to like. I do not generally enjoy amber or red IPAs. The way the hops mix with the malts of an amber is just one of those things. I seem to recall at one point someone suggesting this beer might be one to try. I was very skeptical, but the GF will have them if I don't enjoy it - so let's give it a go:


Stone's Pataskala Red.
This is in the notes, but it was originally brewed for Greg Koch's hometown in support of the arts. It was so well appreciated there, they distributed it wider later in the year (this bottle is from a newer batch: January of 2017).

There is also an interesting interview I saw on YouTube with Greg Koch where they brought up where he grew up in the context of his decision for a second US brewery. He had an affinity to the Columbus area (as I recall) due to his childhood, but ended up choosing Richmond because it was a better business decision. I don't think I understood the childhood tie-in to this beer when it first came out (though I did recall it being brewed as a fundraiser of sorts).

I honestly expect this to be to bitter and not work, because, well... Stone. This turned out to not be true. This was a decently balanced beer with a bunch of malts up front that was held in check by bitterness at first. The malts eventually tucker out and let the bitter notes hold the end.

It might not be a surprise that my review was a negative rDev, though it's more based off the nose not really showing me much than it does my overall that I figured would pull it down.

 

Well, that settled it for me, def. gonna try and track this one down

Congratulations on the new arrival. Here's to your family, man. Cheers!

 

Dude after reading what you wrote earlier I am more convinced than ever that you and I need to get together and share a few beers. And stories. .

 

I'm in if you're ever this way! I have been active through an interesting time, and stories are like breathing.

 

New IPA Sunday (week 627)
Greetings fellow NBSers from on the ridge in Mid Hud Val, NY. Shorts and short sleeves at work yday, Long pants and fleece hoodie with the hood up today. Killer amount of work cleaning up the destruction wreaked by the wind storm yday, but we got spared the worst, parts of the area were still without power in afternoon. Lotta customers out too. That's the bad, the good is I am drinking a beer made by one of my favorite brewers at his new facility in Haverstraw, called Industrial Arts Brewing, and it is refreshing and delicious, and available at my local beverage store for fills. Life is good.

It is a beer that doesn't try to be any one style of IPA it kinda just takes the best of all and does it with perfection. Super refreshing with a subtle yet seductive aroma, it has a soft mouthfeel that frames its hop flavors perfectly. The whole story is here

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42049/252548/?ba=cavedave#review

I love the design on this howler that I got in BIF 3 from @kemoarps and use it often.

Hope you have a Great American Beer in your glass. Cheers!

 

Laundry done. Washed the car, and just as I was wrapping up, the sun disappeared behind a large cloud, so I gave my car a clay treatment for the first time. While my first DA polisher showed up in the mail (Porter Cable 7424xp), I haven't bought any wax yet since I'm still reading up on exactly what I want. Maybe I'll do that next weekend. I set up the new beer cellar shelf, which involved a lot of transporting heavy boxes. It's time for a beer, because the only place I want to move those beers from here on out is to a glass and then my stomach. Cheers.



Omnipollo's Selassie.

Pours black with a finger of motor-oil, caramel colored head foaming up on top. While head formation is slow, retention is good. Lacing is caramel colored and spiraled around the glass at the start. Aroma is roasted and toasted malts, emphasis on the roasted. A soft toffee sweetness mingles with vanilla bean and coffee. Robust and dark, and yet not entirely smothering to the senses. Flavor profile features roasted malts met with a little smokiness right at the front. Vanilla bean and coffee show up after the robustness of the initial flavor state fades. Finish is a little musty, with earthy malt notes being the only remaining flavor. Mouth feel is medium thick, with a smooth drink-ability to it. Not overly hearty, or filling, nor is it very creamy or grainy. Feel strikes a reserved balance between robust meal of a stout and a week day stout for pounding after work. Overall, it's a great stout with a lively aroma, and a flavor profile to back it up. While the presence is a little smaller then may be expected, it's still well done. For a stout a little about 11%, this thing is smooth.

Score: 4.25 | 4.5 | 4.25 | 4 | 4.25 | BA Score: 4.29 | rDev: +4.6%

 

Another Moonraker beer from @nvbrew. Californians, denizens of Nevada, if you can access Moonraker, you don't need Tree House. This is 98% there, but with its own flavor profile and tweaks. If I lived on the West Coast I'd be drinking this as much as I could. Absolutely delicious.