New Beer Sunday (week 629)

I don't know where you find some of these bands but they're awesome. Will be digging around for some Unexpect now.

 

Thanks a million! I've been making trips back and forth to Houston for this golf fiasco and been grabbing pints of Schlenkerla (marzen and weizen) when I get the chance. I'll be able to load up on the Urbock in a couple weeks. I know where it lives, just hadn't got over there yet.

Now on to Beer Fairy offering No. 2:



cool caps

Zoller Zwickel

A truly yummy treat, what's at the forefront for me on this one is that spicy hop bite. Wow! I expected the explosion of light-malt flavors (peach, apricot, pear juice, bread) and maybe a pinch of something buttery ... or just plain butter ... but I can't believe how spicy these hops are. At one point they even have a grassy flavor, or like the greens on a green onion. Not overly bitter and never really earthy ... mainly black and white pepper.

Fantastic!

Those spicy hops play a great game of chase with the peach pie/buttery apricot malt sweetness ... man, this is hard to beat.

And I should clarify: When I say Zoller's zwickelbier has any butter presence, it's possibly as much from expectation as it is in reality. There's nothing "off" about this brew, and what butter is in it may just be an overload of bready malt. @TongoRad reviewed this one a couple weeks ago, I think on the same day I did Mastodon, and I remember vividly how quickly he pointed out that Zoller Zwickel is "clean" for a zwickelbier. He's right. If not for the cloudy pineapple juice look, you might mistake this for a Dortmunder or another German lager of some kind, a marzen or pils ... and if you did, you'd mistake it for a damn good one.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/6795/189744/?ba=Premo88#review
4.43 (+15.4% rDev)

Exactly 0.01 less than the Beer Fairy scored it. And I swear I didn't cheat!

Somebody was VERY excited to get out today:



Temperatures didn't get much above 51-52 today in the Brazos Valley, and Huevos the Puppy Dog doesn't do cold very well (in Texas in March, anything below 65 is cold ). But he loved it, and his uncle loved seeing our little nature trail at the local park in such good shape.

Thanks again, Beer Fairy! So far you're 2 for 2 (and slugging about 3.000 ).

Cheers!

 

Beer #3 and my last for today. On Friday I went to Sacramento looking for beer for my NBS BIF #5 target. While searching the shelves of a trusted bottle shop I found this beauty and after looking it up I had to buy it. It turns out my target had already tried this beer and the point being to send new beers, I swapped it out for something else. So instead I get to post about it this NBS

Prairie Artisan Ales
Bomb!

L: Pitch black with a small dark head.
S: Coffee and chocolate followed by spice and vanilla
T: Wow this is awesome with all the smells present in the flavor, nothing over powering but everything is there.
F: Thick, solid and very smooth.
O: Wow this was a treat, totally great beer with a lot of great flavors represented and also very drinkable at 13%. If I find it again I will be buying it.



Also the Rib-eye's are coming along swimmingly.

 

New ("upscale macro") Beer Sunday

I tend to drink, and post, in themes, and NBS is one of my favorite days of the week. This week, however, Sunday happens to be my "Friday", as I have the next two days off. So, despite the late start, it will be extra sweet.

I am starting with two beers that are considered fancy among the typical beer drinker, but macro swill for much of the craft beer crowd. But, I need to be my own judge.

First up: Red Stripe Jamaican Lager


Got some skunk as soon as I popped the bottle cap, but it quickly dissipated into a clean aroma. The flavors are clean as well, ୸as I don't get much adjunct flavor coming through (not sure if there are even adjuncts in this, tbh). The fi ish is crisp and refreshing. Overall, it is a good light-ish lager. Better than most of its peers, but when it often runs near prices nearing that of Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada (or Founders and Bells in MI) I don't see it as worth the difference.

3.2/5



Next up : Negra Modelo


The appearance is deep copper, and looks nice in the glass. The aroma has some mildly rich toasted malts, very amber lager like. The tastes is mild, with not much else joining the malt flavor detected in the smell. The taste finishes rather clean, but terribly crisp or dry. Overall, good and easy going. Definitely helped wash down the taquitos with chipotle cream cheese dip. But, as with the first entry, the price leaves it in beer limbo IMO.

3.47/5

Cheers, NBS!

 

Sounds like an awesome beer!! I will definitely have to get me one since I love stock ales.
Happy birthday for your young man!!
Cheers!

 

Hey hey NBS crew, getting late here, stopped snowing and deciding if I should be shoveling now or waiting til the morning before work. I was hoping this one would miss us too, but you can't win 'em all.

I was at a beer festival last night and I got to taste some truly amazing beers that I've been looking forward to for awhile. Highlights for me were Central Waters Ardea Insignis, Lagunitas Willet Imperial Stout, Forager Magnus, and Bent Paddle Cherry Vanilla Double Shot Double Black, among many others. Was a great event, and the food was awesome as well.

Tonight, after doing homework for most of the day as I had a rare day off of work, I'm settling down with a new skyrim character and cracking a beer c/o @oline73 , thanks Steve!

Tired Hands Astral Plane

Awesome label, poured from the bottle into the official 2017 locals glass.

Too lazy to even get up and take the photos in my usual spot.

This is a really nice saison, here's my full review.

4.24/5 rDev +4.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Really nice saison here from TH.

Look is a nice and radiant gold color, plenty of carb and minimal head retention, settles into a small ring of bubbles with little to no lacing.

Nose is great, classic saison funk with a little barrel/white wine presence to it.

Taste follows the nose pretty well, little funkier and oaky. Tart and acidic, nice barnyard presence.

Mouthfeel is crisp, refreshing and smooth, especially for a saison.

Excellent beer from Tired Hands, very nice saison.

 

Foundations barrel program never ceases to amaze me. Dark Side Corruption, Pomology series, and Mortimer were all excellent. Mortimer is definitely my favorite so far though. The reason I love Foundation so much is they can brew something like this, an IPA, a sour, and traditional styles that are good to excellent and without flaws. Their style range and expertise are unparalleled in Maine imo.

 

Greetings from the fridge here in SEMass...man, was thinking we were done with this winter junk and here we go again. Oh well..

Not much going on this weekend, so let's get right down to it.

Here's the beer, BB date July 12, 2017. Recommended by my son, but I would have gotten round to this one on my own eventually.



Nice color and proper white, soapy head that falls to chunky rafts. Pleasant enough lacing. The aroma is pleasant - sweet and honey-like up front and a mixture of citrus, tropical, pine, a little floral floating above the fray. No sign of the ample alcohol. Biscuits and a little bit of caramel.

The flavor leads with a little bitterness followed by biscuit and caramel, honey-like sweetness. Then comes the hop train - more tropical than citrus, so there's mango and passion fruit going on, but still some orange more than grapefruit. Resin-like flavors are lighter and play in the background, but are certainly present. Nice level of bitterness on the back end of the taste. The malt is strong enough to keep the bitterness in check - this could have been an unrestrained, epic train wreck.

The feel is bothering me - it has the feeling you get when you bite into an orange peel - a little bit of a citrus oil burn going on, and while it is sweet and more than medium-bodied, it is drying. Smooth, no jagged edges, but a little tongue-numbing.

This is a good beer. It is nicely crafted and it carries the flavors well. It is going to land around a 4 on the scorecard for me - it's very good, nice drinking, but I don't feel it is amazing. Definitely recommended, no doubt will drink it again, but I think I prefer plain ol' Resin.

Cheers - @utopiajane with the amazing homebrew kickoff today - congrats and you are being too hard on yourself.

 

Didn't realize I never had this before, but, Coop Ale Works Territoirial Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Imp Stout. Very Raw, can't get too happy about this 3.69 overall

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/19456/168935/?ba=russpowell#review

 

Yikes the price on those steaks is scary- it was either DC or NR or could be previously frozen. Cheers!

 

21st Amendment Brew Free or Die IPA(Blood Orange Variant)
The orange is more pronounced on the nose than it is in the flavor.
Not uber hoppy by any means, but very pleasant. A bit of malt in the finish and the blood orange is present as well. Not really warm enough weather for this, but it would be a really enjoyable spring/summer IPA. I will look for this again.

 

What it do NBS crew? Hope everyone has had a great weekend. Today's new beer is something I've been meaning to buy for the past few weeks and finally pulled the trigger on it...

Modern Times Black House Nitro!

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4.14/5 rDev +1.7%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

An aggressive pour yielded a pitch black beer with a very frothy head that is a light brown color.

Can't pick up much on the nose. Coffee and some lactose / vanilla. A little dark chocolate also.

Taste is really nice. Lots of vanilla and coffee with a roasted bitter chocolate flavor also. It really isn't too big on the coconut but it is detectable.

Feel is thin as expected at 5.8% abv but the creaminess from the nitro makes this a treat to drink. Lovely feel.

Overall a very great beer that has plenty going on even at 5.8% abv. The nitro is a great addition and if anyone is avoiding this due to the coconut you are making a mistake. The coconut is not even close to the predominant flavor.

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Cheers all!

 

btw, @TongoRad: smoked pork neck? I need some of that for my black beans!

Beer Fairy beer No. 3:




Zoller-Hof's Old Fred, an amber lager named after Frederick Miller

I'm too busy enjoying every last sip of this one to say much ... it's full of toasted light-malt flavors, some sweet cranberry and blackberry and a little earthy something to tame the sweetness. The Cascade hops in it work perfectly, though I have to admit I'm having a hell of a time naming all of the notes, both in the aroma and the flavor. At times it tastes like my favorite breakfast place's Belgian waffle with blueberries in it.

Old Fred does remind me a ton of Brooklyn Lager, which I gave a 4.39 rating and should probably give it straight 5s — Brooklyn Lager is as underrated a beer as we've got IMO. This Old Fred is arguably better.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/6795/269146/?ba=Premo88#review
4.49 (n/a rDev ... only two reviews so far)

Cheers!

 

Oh my God. You can't imagine how badly I want to be invited to your house for St Patrick's day.

 

Stopped by 105w today, and after drinking my weight in BAstouts and hop bombs, I opted for an english bitter. The flavor keeps things interesting, but it's not over the top. At less than %5 abv I can drink this whole thing without a hangover mañana. Winning.
Looking back, I think I am going to move forward with checking out styles I have forsaken in the name of hop bombs and barrel aging. While coffee stouts and juicy ipas taste great, sometimes I just want my beer to taste like beer.
Cheers BA!

 

I hope that Black Tuesday numbed the pain of that loss to Michigan. I was bummed.

 

Finally getting around to trying the beer with plastic goats hanging from the bottle...



...yep, Ayinger's Celebrator doppelbock! I have no idea where (or if) there's a bottling or "best-by" date on this beer, I couldn't find one at least, but since the 4-packs the beer store had were pretty recent (I actually asked them to order more, since when I went there to pick some up for the doppelbock tasting a while back they were out) I figure they should be reasonably fresh.

Anyway, this beer is very dark in color -- dark brown when pouring, more like black once it's settled into the glass. Shining a light through it reveals it's still brown, just a very dark brown -- so dark that the light shined head-on against the glass only shows up as red dots on the other side! As you can see from the picture, it formed a whole lot of bubbly tan foam when first poured, though at this point it's settled down to a thinner layer on top and a big fat ring around the edges of the glass. The smell is dark malts all the way -- dark bready smells, some sweetness (maybe reminiscent of brown sugar?), maybe a slight bit of some buttery-chocolatey kind of thing... very rich-smelling all around. Taste is similar -- that sort of buttery-chocolatey thing comes in first, but toasty dark bread seems to be the thing that stands out the most, and there is a lot of it there. One little sip tastes like I just bit a chunk out of a really nice slice of bread. There's a bit of a roastiness on the end that lingers for a bit, too. Though there was a definite sweetness to the smell, in flavor and feel this one seems to be much more on the dry side -- definitely not as sweet as the other doppelbocks I've had up to this point, both German and American. On the third or fourth sip, I am getting a little hint of a sweeter, almost fruity-seeming flavor popping in later on, then fading a bit so that the toasty-breadiness and slight roastiness can take over. Not noticing any obvious alcohol flavors or mouth warming, but it is certainly warming up my stomach... I suspect that might have something to do with me not having eaten anything since 7:30 or so.

Overall, really enjoying this one so far and glad I have three more in the fridge for another day (well, probably 3 other days -- doppelbocks aren't exactly "drink two or three in a row" beers! XD)

 

I completely agree about their range in beers. I have to say that I have seen some consistency issues with Epiphany especially. Frequent floaties.
Other than that, they are awesome and will hopefully someday be the Hill Farmstead of Maine (except much easier to reach by road)

 

Well Hello Late Night NBS.
I haven't read all of the thread yet, but I wanted to pipe in while this beer from @JBowenGeorgia is trying to aleve my pain from the Wisconsin loss.
Thanks John, it helped.

Southern Juice IPA from Jekkyl Brewing, in the mighty Peach State.
3.73/5 rDev -7.7%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Pours a swirling burnished brass to orange with a fluffy whitish head that leaps up 2 fingers and then settles to a consistent fluffy film. Some sticky, clumpy lacing.
Smell is beautiful. Citra pulls some orange and pithy grapefruit notes, followed by a nice blend of resin, some earthy passion fruit and hints of a solid malt backbone.
Taste is not quite as prominent as the nose. Starts with citrusy notes mentioned, definitely some resin, and a mellow malt backbone. Basically it's trying to follow the nose, but a bit subdued in comparison.
Mouthfeel is smooth, slightly slick. Drying out bitter on the end.
Overall, pretty good. I think I had my hopes set a little higher after basking in the aromas.

Hope your fishing includes catching, and that plenty o' tall tales are shared around the bonfire.

Cheers.

 

So Kane had a huge can release yesterday. I'm going to post their Instagram which explains it

So tonight I opened up the Irish Potato Candy version and poured it into my new Kane glass.

This beer is about as good as it gets.
Here is my review:

• 

4.77/5 rDev +0.6%
look: 5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75

Poured from a can into my new Kane goblet.

A: Dark mahogany almost black with a solid ring of coffee colored foam.
S: Cinnamon and coconut some chocolate.
T: Slight heat from the cinnamon, a touch of smokiness, milk chocolate and sweetness. A touch of roasted malts.
MF: Silky is the first word that comes to mind.
O: A tremendous beer. A near perfect balance of sweet and heat. Proof that one can use big flavors and be subtle. This is pretty close to perfect.

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Going with Irish tunes in anticipation of St Patrick's day