New Beer Sunday (Week 637)

Yeah, it's really fantastic. I'm actually sitting here wondering if there's any left to be had. It's not exactly priced to move, at $20 a bottle, but you never can tell these days. Maybe another call to dad's in order .

 

Mouth-watering review,TongoRad!
I can highly recommend Freak Tractor.

 

I've loved everything I've had by them, and that beer is definitely included. They're also no slouch in the lager department.

Fwiw, NYC members, Catskill beers do show up on local tap lists from time to time. Worth checking out if you come across it.

 

This bottle landed via a BIF box from @larryi86 . While it's not the beer I had lined up for last, I think I need a break from hops.



Evil Twin/Westbrook's Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break

Pours black with a finger of dark-creme colored foam on top. Head retention is fair, with no lacing left behind. Aroma is cinnamon, raisins, caramel, and roasted and toasted malts. Flavor profile is cinnamon, raisins, caramel, toffee, chilies, with a supportive base of roasted and toasted malts. Mouth feel is medium-thick in thickness, with a velvety, creamy texture. Overall, lots of additional notes on top of the fantastic stout base notes. None of the notes are overly complex, or contradicting, making this one a fantastic, tasty stout.

Score: 4.25 | 4.25 | 4.5 | 4.25 | 4.25 | BA Score: .4.35 | rDev: +2.6%

 

Blackberry Farm Brett Belgo IPA

This was a brett "IPA" aged in red wine barrels. I don't get any sense of a red wine contribution. It's surprisingly clear. It's exceptionally dry. The malt just feels like a ghost. There's an orange marmalade quality but with no sweetness. With beers like this, I really can't tell where the brett ends and the hops begin. I assume that their flavors just dovetail. This one reminds me of the stock pale ale that Ron Pattinson brewed with Goose Island from an old recipe. That alone really makes you think about how beers between cultures and over time can have more in common than one expects. I don't think many would guess "IPA" if handed this blind. This is a great beer but it inspires admiration more than love.

 

Another porch bomb from @tasterschoice62, after crushing 26 of NE finest beers, Larry sends another box and I packed a couple for the road to Nashville this weekend for a visit to my nephews! Good weekend in Nashville and time for a DIPA from Half Full Brewery, Liquid Hoptisism, pours a hazy amber with a small head generated, very sticky lacing coating the glass, not much aroma a little sweet fruit, nice citra centennial hop profile, mostly sweet fruit and very strong malt backbone very well put together beer. Thanks Larry, cheers from Nashville!

 

Hello New Beer Sunday!!!!

Wonderful start @cjgiant . I've only been part of NBS for a little over a year now, but in that year, I've really come to look forward to this day to enjoy new beers, and read about them. NBS also makes my long Sunday at work go a lot faster.

So, now on to the beer.

I've decided to start drinking down my "big" beers, and thought this was a good place to start.
Abraxas


Holy cow! This beer is out of this world! So easy drinking. Not boozy at all. Delicious. Feels amazing going down. I love this beer, and am going to savor it tonight. I don't know if there's going to be another beer after this, but I don't know if I've got anything to top it.


4.73/5 rDev +6.5%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75

This beer is an extremely thick pouring beer. It pours very dark. The head was minimal, but a nice shade of tan. There's a ring of carbonation bubbles on the side of the glass, that looks quite cool as the pop, and reform.

The nose of this beer is chocolate. I also get a hint of cinnamon. I do not get the peppers they put into the beer.

The taste of this beer is very well balanced between the chocolate, cinnamon, and on the back end, peppers. All 3 really work to give an amazing taste to this beer.

Feel is quite thick and sticky going down. it really coats the throat all the way down with it's goodness.

Overall, AMAZING! Damn! I wish I had more. I'm going to be savoring this beer all night.

707 characters

If this is it, see you all next Sunday. There won't be pics then, because I'll be at my friend's cabin (unless I sneak one in at work).

 

Poured into a 16 oz snulip glass not sure when it was bottled. Pours a slick near black with a two plus inch tan head that leaves some thin layers of lace.4

Smell is cocoa, vanilla, oaky, leather, tobacco, and some gentle bourbon. 4

Taste follows cocoa nibs, oaky vanilla, char, leather, tobacco, and bourbon. 4

Mouthfeel is a tad thin for the style, moderate carbonation, a little dry, and goes down fairly easy at 10% ABV. 3.50

Overall this a very nice brew, would have liked a bigger body, but overall a very solid brew. Thanks @jzeilinger this very solid imperial stout. 3.75

 

Hmmm, do you really want to every once in a while regret never having another to share with your friends or to make a bad day special? I've felt that regret.

As I think you know, I don't chase white whales. But, I once found 2 bottles of the last year Drie Founteinen bottled their Schaerbeekse Kriek. It cost $35 a pop. After I finished the first bottle I really understood why the Schaerbeekse Cherries were once upon a time a very important part of a Kriek and every other cherry was an also ran. But by then (the next evening) it was too late to buy any more. A particularly close member of my family and I split the second bottle while it was still fresh. But if they were to bottle it again (highly doubtful given the urbanization taking place in Brussels) I'd go for at least 3-4 bottles without a second thought and start scheduling a small gathering of people I know would appreciate it.

 

Double IPA
Research Series
Batch #207
Bottled 3/15/2017



Moderate pour yields a 1 and a 1/2 inch white head over a medium amber body with very nice lacing. Nose of tropical fruit, tropical fruit, and tropical fruit. Taste follows the nose with some orange pith, a medium bitterness, and a nice crisp, dry finish. Nice mouthfeel and overall this is one of my faves from Hinesburg, VT.

4.34/5 rDev +1.2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

Good evening NBS!

Spend the weekend moving the rest of my stuff out of our house so that we could turn it over to a family doing a rent-to-own. Good reminder of how much stuff we've accumulated over the years, and how much we got rid of. Sore and worn out, I think I've earned this one.



Sorry for the pic not being very clear. Anyways...

Head was about a half finger thick upon pouring, dissipated away very quickly. Upon opening there was a strong caramel smell. Caramel remained the dominant scent, but there are notes of bourbon, vanilla, and fortified wine. Taste is wow. Raisins, caramel, bourbon, vanilla, cherries, and molasses. Each sip seems a little different. Medium light body beer that finishes fairly cleanly and quickly. 4.28

This is my first quad so I don't have much to compare to. That said, this is still a good, solid beer that I will pick up each year it comes out.

 

Stillwater Shoegaze

This is brew number 4 in my saison meets IPA themed NBS today.

It's hard to imagine a brewery that changed their packaging identity quite like Stillwater. When they were a "bomber brewery," they had a unique design look across their range - and people seemed to love it. They were intricately drawn, brown brown brown, and instantly identifiable. Now, they've turned into a "tallboy brewery" with labels that look like Duran Duran album covers that never were. I feel like the owner might have simply gotten bored with how he was boxed in. Maybe not.

I was expecting a saison. I poured this beer, took a sip, and it felt like Brian Strumke might have been aiming for a cross between a NEIPA and a saison. I always thought that NEIPA elements were gonna creep into saisons.

The malt is light, the carbonation disappears right away, the flavor is primarily: peach, tropical fruit, and a little background bitterness. Frankly, just as the first beer today felt like a saison, this one feels like a NEIPA - and a not very good one. This wasn't what I was hoping for when I bought it. The can calls this a "distorted farmhouse pale ale... and that just solidifies it for me.

@JackHorzempa

 

Beer Camp Golden IPA. Drinks more like a pale to me. Nice light body with a great dry finish. I kinda like it. Great summertime golf course kinda beer. Played 27 holes today, it was wonderful, despite some rain and wind the first nine.

 

Truth in advertising!?!

Cheers!

 

This is a beer that I want to try warmish. The description is wonderful and makes me curious. Maybe it settles out, lightly, with the oak subtle eventually. I hope so, it sounds good. Oops, for Scotch on Scotch by @smakawhat. Cheers.

 

One fundamental problem for the site and the categorization scheme in use is that somtimes vintage matters and sometimes it does not. The Aventinus Cuvee keeps the same name but uses different barrels each year, making a flavor difference. On the other hand the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout keeps the same name and targets the same flavor profile each year but also labels each bottle with a Vintage year for entirely different purposes.

I think this site uses the rule, no name change, no separate entry. Given the reliance on crowdsourcing entries and the total number of entries into the site (over 200,000) I'm not sure I've got a better idea.

 

New Fashionably Late Sunday

I had quite a few new beers this weekend, and visited a couple of new places in the process. My wife and I had lunch at the new Brewdog facility on the south side of Columbus and I was extremely impressed. Their beers were all solid representations to style at worst, and they incorporate many local beers and liquors to their selections. The bartenders are all certified cicerones and offer great service and conversation. The building itself was pretty breathtaking, so I will share a few pictures, even though I forgot to take any of the tanks, packaging line, games, gift shop, or the outdoor area.




My official review for today's edition is an unlikely style from a most unlikely source.




4.05/5 rDev -2.2%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Canned on 4/25 in a 16oz format.

Poured hard into a Sam Adams Perfect Pint, it yielded a very fizzy, quickly vanishing, egg white head on top of a hazy/turbid orange juice colored body.

The aroma is excellent. A lot of passion fruit, some citrus, a bit of berry, earthy melon and yeast, and club cracker like grains.

I get some prickly pineapple and pear flavor and musty melon and stone fruit first, then some tangerine and pink grapefruit with a flaky biscuit pale malt and some oatmeal before a subtle bitterness comes in late with some lip smacking floral resin. There is a lingering semi sweet/semi sour dark berry.

The body is well carbonated with some dancing on the tongue, and it has a bit of chewiness to it.

A good representation of the NE Style IPA with enough earthyness and bitterness to keep the pasion fruit and berry flavors dialed back.