New Beer Sunday (Week 641)

Good afternoon and thanks to @cjgiant, who apparently doesn't sleep, for a fine if not magical start to NBS this morning.



I ended up with 3.75 which surprisingly to me was 1.9% over.
I felt I was being critical.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/193/191448/?ba=BJB13#review

A few points from my review.

It looks great but right off, the nose was lacking. I could detect no bourbon barrel aroma. Just the cola like caramel aroma that I usually experience with porters.

The BB did have a weak showing in the taste but was mostly overpowered by the same cola like caramel that was so prominent in the nose along with some roast and saltiness. There was also a slight tang at the finish. While caramel was prominent it wasn't particularly malty or sweet.

The feel was smooth and pillowy, pretty good actually.

To me not a bad Porter, mediocre at worst but the BBA character was almost totally absent.

So I ask some of our more experienced tasters, does the lack of BB character and the slight tang indicate a past prime bottle?

I could not find a date, the bottle wasn't dusty but who knows how long it sat in the case before being shelved.

Cheers!

 

Well, we do that all of the time here in North Carolina, talking Debussy, hanging out online. Nah, maybe the occasional Avette Brothers deja vu moment. My Granddad told me many years ago that there's no such thing as a coincidence. I think I'm still learning and thinking over that one.

 

Alright, back for my second new beer of the day. I've been waiting to be able to try this beer for quite a long time at this point... pretty much since the first time I heard of it, when it was still a Backstage Series beer. That's like 4 years ago(!), so I'm very glad to see this in a solidly priced format. Picked up the last four-pack at Craft Beer Cellar in Nashua, NH earlier today!



Pours a somewhat-clear golden color at first, though as I pour the whole bottle in, it becomes evident that there's a lot of hop sediment at the bottom of the bottle. These lupulin particles impede my attempts to see through this beer. The head appears as a pillowy, dense foam of pure white bubbles that leaves a spectacular sheet of lace as it slowly fades down to several fingers in my glass. Wow, aside from the slight surprise in clarity (not a big deal to me overall), this is a flawless looking brew. Let's see if it lives up to its name and intense ABV.

Nose is very much forward on the English toffee, vanilla and bourbon-soaked oak tannin side of things. Definitely seems a little bit hot, but 12.4% seems is quite the high ABV and this doesn't smell even close to that strong. I get a bit of melon, papaya and tropical fruit underneath the strong, almost "English barleywine"/old ale-like malty and sweet scents.

One of my biggest things to unpack with this beer is probably going to be "is this an IPA at the end of the day, or is it an American strong ale/barleywine?" The whole triple IPA thing that's been going on and gaining traction nationwide recently has led me to some slightly disingenuous descriptions of burly, malty beers as "IPA"s, meaning I found balance issues with them where the hops were failing to pull their weight above a certain ABV or depending on the recipe. Of course, I have found some great examples, too (Knee Deep makes great triple/quad IPAs, for example, and Hi-Res, Liquid Riot's NSFW and several others have been impressive to me), but the BBA aging is going to likely be a sticking point here. Let's see how this ends up, though, shall we?

Initial sips give off toasted coconut, pineapple, papaya and kiwi flavors, with lingering sticky hoppiness and deep crystal malt sweetness. The balance is surprising on this for such a strong beer, especially considering the initial aging element I mentioned could likely throw a wrench into the proceedings. That said, the feel is definitely on the thick, sip-worthy side of things, making this feel less deft than most IPAs or even some DIPAs. This definitely feels to me like a textbook "American strong ale," that is to say, a malt-and-hop heavy beer that toes the line between established styles at a fortified ABV. It is also absolutely delicious, though I can see why some would dislike it or find it disappointing. I don't really like Devil Dancer much, as it comes off too syrupy and cloying for me... something about the woody and tannic notes combined with the slight coconut really adds that extra dimension to make this super satisfying to me. What a great sipper! Very glad I took the dive into the doomed abyss with this one... now, what to do with the other 3 bottles? Anyone have experience aging Doom from previous batches?

Speaking of doom... I'm listening to some completely hopeless funeral doom metal from Finland right now. Tyranny's Aeons in Tectonic Interment... get buried in despair!

 

Looking forward to it! We're actually heading over to TailGate for a lazy dinner. I might post some from there.

 

Congrats!

 

Happy New American Wild Ale

Really nice sunny day here on the Western Slope, around 90. Nice hike. Having a very tasty brew, glad it's around here. Watching some Rockies baseball.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/267/266424/?ba=Wasatch#review

Cheers!

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and thanks to @cjgiant for getting us underway.

Yesterday temperatures on the tarmac at Felts Field reached the mid-80s and gave my skin a rather pinkish hue while working the morning half of Neighbor Day, the low-key fly-in Spokane International Airport puts on this weekend each year. Getting off at 11AM, I thought I wouldn't need to worry about sunscreen and paid the price. I did, however get to see a few cool old planes.




Unfortunately, only the DC-3 was flying while I was there, and I didn't get to see that Avenger with it's wings unfolded. Still, I'd never seen one of those or a Bearcat before, so that was cool.

And things have since cooled today. It's 61 with a light rain falling, with a high of only 65 expected.

Friday I decided it was time to knock off a 750mL of an oak-aged saison with Brett that was brewed in Seattle. I'd picked it up in late March but had set it aside while I worked on the more perishable items from the last NBS BIF box I'd received:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/36949/284672/?ba=woemad#review
Yummy stuff, although the oak accents were extremely subtle.

Not sure what I'll hit today. Back when I've burned that particular bridge!

 

Happy New Beer Sunday!

It has entered the super hot season here in Central Cali and all I have in the fridge is big BBA stouts. Guess I will have to crack a few anyways.



Jackie O's: BBA Wood Burner

Look: Deep black with a small tan head that left before I could take the picture.

Smell: Bunch of chocolate and caramel, followed by some bourbon and something sweet, possibly maple or molasses.

Taste: It does have a smokey flavor to it, lots of chocolate with some caramel and bourbon. Very well balanced. It's definitely a change of pace to have the bourbon more on the finish than the front end.

Fell: Very silky smooth feel here, with very little carbonation. It is on the thicker side and I definitely like that.

Overall: This is a really good BBA stout and I do like it well enough. However, I am getting a little the sum of the parts don't add up to a greater whole vibe here. Individually all the pieces, (smell, look, feel even taste), are really good, but I find myself thinking I would drink this again for sure, but probably won't seek it out ever.

 

Hi NBS, hopefully many of you have sun and warmth where you are - two things frequently absent here as of late and today. Thank you Mr @cjgiant for your always stimulating opening.
Picked this one up because I have really enjoyed quite a few offerings from OC in the past. I believe Mr. Mike G has now departed. He surely brought OC back to hoppy prominence. Back about a year and a half ago everyone was raving about Backseat Berner and it's citrus hops and excessive floating proteins. What the heck happened? So here we go with a style not seen too often and sometimes misunderstood.
OCB Orange Dream cream ale with orange peel and vanilla.
Pours a pale straw/ gold color with a bright white head that disappears rather quickly leaving sparse lacing and just a thin ring.
Aroma is bitter orange, bread doughy malt, sweet corn/graininess, some light floral and just waving the glass under your nose produces the slightest hint of vanilla.
Taste is very lager yeast like, clean malts, bitter orange, some green, no fruity esters or diacetyl. Tastes refreshing, although lacks much of a vanilla presence in the flavor, which I'm not adverse to.
Feel is crisp, dry and refreshing. The oils from orange peel coat the tongue. The carbonation is moderate and helps to make this an easy drinking brew.
A simple tasty take on the style that honestly I could drink out of the can all summer. The vanilla is appropriately subdued and the clean lager like style is beauty for hot weather. Simple, great take on the style. Don't expect an orange cream soda. This is a real beer.
For NewOldVinylSunday how about a tune written by Chris Cornell and sung by the great Johnny Cash. Seems appropriate that Cash chose to do this on one of his last albums. Artists that left an unforgettable mark on their craft. Hey as always thanks for taking the time. Included some yard picks. Get out and get some OC if you're lucky enough to have sun and warmth!

 

First "new" beer of this New Beer Sunday comes with an asterisk. It's the last survivor from a sixer of an IPA brewed for Seattle Beer Week. I'm glad Bale Breaker chose to distribute it to us eastern Washingtonians, as it is quite delicious. Here's Bale Breaker's own words:

"A big hop aroma on a clean Pilsner malt base perfectly showcases a few of the newest and most exciting hop varieties off their family’s hop farm. Whirlpool additions of Simcoe® and Mosaic® add depth to the nose generated from a post-fermentation charge of Ekuanot™, Loral™, and the still-experimental HBC 630."

And here's mine:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31389/277815/?ba=woemad#review

Delicious!

 

What's up, NewBieS?
I have been pretty busy lately and today is no exception. At least today the weather cooperated. Unfortunately this meant I missed out on the festivities yesterday but I did glance through the threads and it seemed like a really good time. Next time!

Well I'll get right to it. There is nothing better after a hot day than a cool, delicious, refreshing beer. I know this one is properly chilled, so I'll just see if it is worthy of the other two adjectives.

This is the latest in a new series of single-hop IPAs from a brewer here in Montreal that is pretty hip at the moment. I use that term in both the good and less-good way: They have slick designs, popular styles and a lot of hype; however, their beers are sometimes lackluster and they have a lot of hype. For this series of beers they have people vote on their fb each month for one of three hops for the next month's beer. This is the third iteration and I've only gotten a hold of the first one so far. It was very good but they made a few batches and I felt like it was a little iffy consistency-wise by the end. So we'll see about this one. I've had Simcoe beers that were absolutely amazing, but I've had far more (in QC) that were less-so or outright bad. Let's find out about this one.

Quite the solid head formation.
It pours a thick cloudy, milky-blonde with a puffy head that settles to a few big clots with gloppy lacing. The smell is all mango and orange with some cracker malt underneath. It tastes along these same lines but is a little less fruity and features a little more pollen-like bitterness. It is easy-drinking, smoky and bubbly. Mighty refreshing. I don't feel like the hops pop as much in this one as in the Citra version but they are there and do make for a good beer.

Here's my review for the curious.

Cheers to a great week for everybody!

 

Alright, now that I've conquered Doom and lived to tell the tale, my roommate's cleaning off the grill, I'm cookin' up some mac'n'cheese and....... yet another NBS beer is ending up in my glass! This time, I've got my second new Garrison City Beerworks brew for today, their new pale ale, String Theory!



As the label states, this is a 4.5% pale ale with Vic Secret, Belma, Galaxy and Citra hops. I am familiar enough with the latter two hop varietals, but the former two... not so much. That's not to say I haven't had beer prominently claiming to feature VS or Belma hops, but I am a little less clear on their particular qualities. I do know, however, that VS/Galaxy are Australian in origin and Belma/Citra are PNW US hops. If anything, this could be an interesting experiment in how Aussie and PNW hops integrate with each other in a highly-hopped, low ABV pale ale recipe! Guess we'll see.

Pour is typical for GCB; deeply-hazy yellow-orange with a thin head and really solid lace. Not much to say about this one at all, but it definitely falls in line with their other lighter-colored beers I've had. It's not completely turbid, as I can slightly see the shape of my fingers through it if I hold it up to light, but it's definitely close to fully-opaque.

Nose is pretty interesting and complex, with notes of freshly cut grass, sage, rosemary, strawberry, grapefruit rind, green onion and some slightly present sticky pine sap. As it warms, I get some raw green pepper, which is a little weird but the way it mingles with the fruit is at least unique. I know Equinox/Ekuanot provides those "green pepper" like notes too, so maybe something about how these hops are working together does so. This is definitely more "green" and grassy/herbaceous than expected with less tropical fruit from the Galaxy/Citra. Perhaps the VS/Belma are winning out here? Not sure, but it's pretty cool.

Flavor has a bit more juiciness to it, with some orange, melon, strawberry and passionfruit notes kicking around. Kind of a watery finish with a basic malt bill (perhaps some oats or wheat to lend some smoothness and weight to the body in the absence of crystal malt?... wouldn't doubt that given the appearance), somewhat crackery and non-obtrusive. More herbal and sage-like green notes on the tongue. Complex earthy tones backing up the fruity notes that appear on the forefront of the palate. Almost no time is wasted with this beer on the tongue... it goes forward really quickly, in a flash of crazy flavors and lingers very little. Each sip rekindles these flavors on the tongue, and since there's a good bit of different stuff going on, I start to pick up a focus on certain flavors each time, making this a fun drink. Though it's mostly on the lower bodied end of the spectrum, this beer sits firmly in the realm of "crushable" and contains some interesting hop propositions. I'm not sure it's my favorite combination of hop varietals ever, but experimentation is always welcome.

Howdy. I reviewed this beer recently and had a pretty similar experience with it and overall feeling about it. Mike Gerhart left to become a brewer for Hill Farmstead, which is pretty exciting news for him... not sure how OC is going to do now, but we'll have to see! I did notice that all of their newer tallboy cans of Backseat Berner have had Mike G. removed from the label art. Hope the beer stays good... I've held the same general opinion as you about them, which I elucidate in my Orange Dream review! Cheers!

 

So Juicy from Woodland Empire in Boise Idaho. Have it a 4 with the lowest score being smell, I just get nothing. Says it's an IPA but I'm not so sure. It is creamy on the pallette and has some citrus notes also some peach going on. Not a wow for me but surly drinkable and I'd drink it again.

 

Congrats to Lingenneffe & family.
87F in Wisconsin, & sunny in Maine, while here in between, it's dank & 57F?
Which leads to today's new beer. I wasn't going to post here, or review, because at first, I wasn't quite getting a handle on it.It's sinking in now, so......


Short version : it's very much like the better iterations of Enjoy By. It smells of booze/solvent/dank (in a good way). Flavor is that, plus an unidentifiable fruit melange. Not citrusy, except maybe a brief appearance of something tangerine-like. Barely noticeable bitterness and carbonation. Very smooth & easy-drinking. No dating, so not sure of age, but I'll be getting more tomorrow, from the same location, to be sure to get it at the same stage. This was a throw-in single, in a mix-6, with the AALs for yesterday. (Couldn't bring myself to get 6 AALs. )

Ps : Though it doesn't come across completely in the photo, the color almost glows.

 

A new "sour" after surviving yesterday's AAL online tasting :



Impossible not to love Funk Metal's label

I've had Jester King's Black Metal, and I've had a couple three other "sour" stouts. None of them do sour like Funk Metal. Wow! As you pour it you can smell fingernail polish/remover and loads of lemon, and even as it warms, the dark-malt notes are heavily influenced by the sourness. The aroma gets to sour grapes/red wine/dark chocolate-covered cherries, but it never pushes past that sour level into what I'd call classic stout notes — Black Metal for me does for comparison's sake.

The flavor is similar, though I'd say it's a bit more yeasty/earthy and less vinous. It's so yeast at times you think it's going to turn to bitter dirt in your mouth, but all that dark malt flavor rushes in and balances it out ... doesn't sweeten it, just cuts any chances of it getting bitter.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24018/80525/?ba=Premo88#review
4.27 (+2.4% rDev)

Great brew but pretty darn sour ... if Black Metal is a "gateway" sour stout, Funk Metal is the real thing. Sipping on this one as it warms should be fun.

Cheers!

 

Last beer for today and it's a new one....and INSANELY good! My 2nd alchemist ever and it truly lives up to the hype....

Cheers @Dragginballs76 ! And thank you again!

Appearance- Hazy as hell just daunting me to take a sip

Aroma- big time hops

Taste - big time hops

Feel - GLORIOUS. like a Victor in the gladiator ring.

Overall- just incredible. Damn it's good!

My official score....4.74

 

And what I should have mentioned is that my Mom was an opera singer for a while in Birmingham (circa 1940), and she loved Debussy. We grew up surrounded by "classical music". It's good for my soul and makes me better at trivia........

 

Drekker Brewing, Fargo ND, Wheez The Juice, 5.5 ABV session pale ale, pours a slightly opaque orange with nice foamy head that retains well leaving a cap and sticky lacing, very awesome floral, piney aroma, taste is tropical fruit slightly bitter hop, finishes clean and sharp, I know most of you don't care for sessions, but 5.5-6.5 is fine for me, I can drink more of them!