New Beer Sunday (Week 644)

Collective Arts Brewing Collective Project: IPA #2 This is a hazy to clear golden can pour (okay, I tried two today, not the cloudy ale described by the brewer). Aroma is mostly pine and some grapefruit. The flavor is hop resin and some citrus. This is very easy to drink and has a persistent hop bitterness in the finish. The alcohol is not detectable. The can art is special.

 

Happy New CANned Beer Sunday (Week 644)!

2nd shift beckons at 3 PM so I will be doing my usual quick-in, quick-out routine here again today. I have an incredible backlog of beer here at Chez Woody, both in bottles & CANs, but I have steadfastly been working to winnow down the bottles at the expense of what really matters, namely, The CANQuest (tm). I have a couple of CANs in mind for today which will help make room in the reefer.

First, one of my white whalez:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/88/98640/?ba=woodychandler#review



and then I was inspired by an Internet friend to stick with this odd trend and review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/271496/?ba=woodychandler#review



Enough! I felt like I was on the verge of a sugar overdose! OMFG. I next (and finally) went with the other CAN that I had planned for today. Forget that old palindrome, A man, a plan, a CANal ... Panama! With Bro. Woody, it is A Man, a plan, loads of CANs!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31515/96280/?ba=woodychandler#review


As to what I have lost as I have grown older: a) my visual acuity, since I now wear bifocals; b) my intense attention to detail, brought about in boot camp, honed as a cop & refined as a writer & c) my ability to remain on-task. Oh, no, that's right, I never had "c" as my mind tends to wander (seemingly) aimlessly until I come back to whatever point led me on my digression in the first place. I do not suffer from mental illness, I rather enjoy it!

See yinz next week for more stuff!

 

Some useful things here. I would be good if you could also post your thoughts of this this one in the form of a review since the brewery is almost local to me and the beer hasn't had many reviews yet.

 

Hello everybody,

The brew I will be drinking with you all on NBS today is Ommegang brewery's Hennepin Saison Ale.Pours golden amber. Bubbly thick head on this brew fading quickly into spotted lacing through out.No fruit notes on the nose. Soft yet spicy mouth feel. Apricot or other fruits are not present in the taste. Heavy malt/yeast/grain instead. Alcohol taste is more prominent here yet clean and crisp.Very dry finish. Leaves an interesting coating on the palate perhaps this is the ginger doing its magic.


Hennepin saison ale makes for a solid companion to the summer weather.

I've come to expect some semi sweet notes on this style of brew.I've only had a handful of examples in this style so that is not saying much I suppose. My inexperience and sweet tooth,however does not take away any part of the joy I get from sipping on this brew. Overall this is a solid farmhouse ale, just not what I was expecting. Definitely complex. Cheers guys and gals.★彡

 

My first beer for today is from Rogue, who quite honestly, I can't remember the last time I had s Rogue offering, but there was just something about the ABV of this one that begged my attention.

Rogue 6 Hop IPA



Somewhat hazy, about an inch of foam from a slightly forced pour that goes away kinda quick. I think there's a 6 way battle going on in the aroma as there is just a bunch happening. Piney, grassy, veggies, cracker and some sweet malt going on. Taste is a bit more defined, as mango (didn't see that one coming) gives way to grassy and stays there until a little sweetness slides in, representing some caramelish malt. Finishes dry and bitter with just a touch of green olive. Mostly thin but not in a poorly executed way, as there's still enough depth to make the thin morph into pretty drinkable. Overall, not too bad.

 

Digging into my NBS BIF #5 box with some Short's Uncle Steve's Traditional Irish Stout, thanks @Blackop555!
4.08/5 rDev +9.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Thank you Blackop555 for this
12 oz bottle poured into a pint class

A- Black with a two finger mocha head.

S- Roasted malts, some coffee and dark chocolate, caramel malts.

T- Coffee, some dark chocolate, touch of tart dark fruits, some caramel malts.

M- Smooth, light to medium body.

O- A solid straight forward stout.

Cheers!

 

Hello NBS.
Thanks to @lordofthewiens for the start. I have had the same experience with running and basketball. Thankfully, I'm coming out of my funk a bit. Well as much as this old body will allow.

Well I must share a very unique beer with you folks. All because of the generosity of our very own @Ozzylizard . He hit me with this back in NBS BIF #3. I finally had a few people together that were excited for a beer of this type. And without further adieux.

Weyerbacher's Althea a dubbel brewed with plums.
Poured from the 750 ml bottle into a Bruery tulip.
Poured a roiled brown with some sandy head bursting up and then quickly retreating to a thin, scattered layer. Very lite lacing.
Smell is of smooth brown sugar sweetness, some plum, and slightly funky yeast.
Taste is definitely plum forward (a bit tart), with a slight white wine grape nod. Also, as I sip more, I find some fig and date notes, as well as some brown bread. Lots going on here.
Mouthfeel is slightly fuller than I expect in a dubbel. I like that. Low carbonation. Quite good.
Overall, I find this to be a very interesting dubbel, and I'm grateful to have tried it. Thanks again Mr. Lizard.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/392/98561/

 

Happy NBS everyone thanks @lordofthewiens for getting us started. I have been on beercation all week and the beer I am drinking right now I picked up at Burial Friday afternoon and is simply amazing. It reminds me of many of the Veil beers that I have gotten from @vabeerguy, a very well balanced juicy DIPA called Momentary Inception clocking in at 8.5% it is dangerously easy drinking. This is a collaboration with The Answer in Richmond. These guys are making some great beers, I have tried several times to go on Saturday and it has been packed Friday was the day I had the whole place to myself and had a blast!!

Appearance 4.5 - Pours bright cloudy orange with a thick white head that lasts forever. Inside of the glass is covered with lacing.

Aroma 4.5 - Tons of tropical fruit mango, papaya and passion fruit. There is also a light grapefruit and pine aroma.

Taste 4.75 - The taste is amazing mango, pineapple and passion fruit. There is a touch of grapefruit on the finish and some bitterness.

Feel 4.25 - Medium bodied well carbonated slightly dry finish. No sign of the alcohol easy drinking.

Overall 4.58 - An amazing beer, excellent balance between the bitterness and tropical fruit.

 

Thanks to you and all who participated as well. That was definitely a fun and informative tasting. I also came away from it with some new prospects, one of which I was able to get a few weeks later- Upland's Champagne Velvet, which I really enjoyed. For me, the 'hoppier' takes on the style tend to work best; there's definitely the delicate and refreshing qualities, but also a little life to them. That's the way it was with Champagne Velvet, which seemed to be hopped at nearly Pilsner levels in the bitterness department. I will definitely be making it more of a regular thing going forward.

 

Jenny Said from Singlecut. First off I would like to say that I seem to be pouring aggressively today. That being said, pours a slightly cloudy Amber color with a large white head that dissipated fairly quickly to a ring that left blotches of lacing down the glass. Lots of tiny bubbles present from the pour as well. Smells predominately of citrus fruits, some tropical fruits and pine. Taste starts off with bright sweet orange or tangerine flavors, mango, papaya, pine, then grapefruit and grapefruit rind make their presence known and makes the beer finish with a moderate amount of bitterness. Light to medium bodied for the sryle, well carbonated and finishes very slightly dry. Another fine IPA from Singlecut, great on a hot day.

 

I feel greatful for having the opportunity to have had a new beer to me every day of this week. I just realized,..holy smokes I could post in this thread once more! dare I say twice? thrice?!

ok enough of that rant next up I will try some of this here...

Oddside ales Pineapple IPA(ale with pineapple added)

Pours golden brown.One finger inch thick head. Oodles of lacing on the glass once the head decipates. Huge notes of pine resin and floral notes on the nose.

Superbly "dank".

I can't say I taste any pineapple here but I don't mind,this brew is really well done. Wet mouth feel with a clean dry finish. 7.5 Abv is cloaked effortlessly into the flavor of the hops. This is pretty much the definition of a midwest? IPA. I say that because Bells,perrin,and blackrocks have similar offerings with bells having the slight edge on the yeast they purvey to this style of brew. Without getting distracted any further I will say that I enjoyed this beer quite alot and would drink again.Cheers everyone!

 

Hey NBSers! First off, let me tackle the question from the original post... there are lots of things I've gotten a bit worse at over the years due to lack of practice, but plenty I've gotten better at as well. I am very out of practice with anything graphic design related (even though my degree is in it and I've been out of school for about 6 years), for instance, but I'm sure I could get back into it fairly quickly if I wanted to.

Also, since moving from a retail pharmacy setting to a production supervisor technician setting (toooootally different), I've lost a lot of knowledge of drugs and pharmacology which is somewhat depressing because I used to be very bright in that field. Again, not something impossible to retrieve but somewhat frustrating at times. Granted, I'm a lot better at time, workflow and personnel management now, none of which I ever expected to be involved with in a professional capacity... so that's interesting. Life is strange, as we all know!

I have quite a few new beers to tackle today, and they are divided evenly between sours and fruit beers, with one beer in particular bridging the gap between the two sections of reviews I have in store. Kind of a coincidence, if I'm being honest, but I love when things serendipitously work out like that, don't you all?

My first New Beer of Sunday, June 25th, 2017 is a newly-released brew by Weyerbacher called Sexy Motherpucker.



Gotta say, I was drawn into this one by the awesome name and kitschy label art so I picked up a single to give it a solid shot before committing to a sixer. A 7.5% dark sour ale inspired by the now-classic "Arnold Palmer" (50/50 lemonade/iced tea), this was late-hopped with a notable addition of Citra to give it "a nice citrus kick in both flavor and aroma," according to the brewery.

Pours a mostly clear, dark garnet-red color (I'd say between 30-33 SRM) with a quickly-dissipating head of off-white foam (bordering beige). Not a very eventful pour but that color and clarity combination is quite nice in all honesty.

Nose has superb bright lemon peel notes and some light nutty/caramel malt from the darker malts that gave this its color. I'm not quite sure why it's so damn dark, but whatever. I get a bit of kiwi and orange peel too. Not very complex, but definitely seems like it's going to have a nice flavor if this citrusy nose is any indication. Seems like the late-hopping came out well here.

Kickin' acidity on the palate, as pretty much expected, but with some slight black tea suggestions. Perhaps just confirmation bias, but I can sorta see where they're coming from with this one. Herbal and a bit floral as well, with more lemon "Sour Warheads" flavor. The 7.5% seems a bit high but it doesn't taste too strong overall, so it gets a pass from me. Deep, almost chocolate-y malt that falls prey to tartness in the back-end once again. A bit sweet with some mild nuttiness. Hmm, pulling in some different directions here but I don't think it's bad by any means.

Feel is thinner-bodied than you'd expect, once again, given the color, however there is some viscosity toward the finish before it wraps up with a drying hit of more acidity. Carbonation is fairly lively and works well with the acid profile. This seems to be getting kind of panned on BA, but I don't think it's by any means as bad as most ratings and reviews are making it out to be. This by no means deserves an 82, but it's also not a 90-worthy beer. I'd probably average this out to be an 86-87 or so in my book. If you know some idea about what they were going for with this one, you'll probably like it a bit more. No guarantees, though, I suppose.

Currently have this song on repeat. It's probably the only track I really like by the project... something about the beat combined with the cheap vocal sampling is really addictive to me. Great stuff, and very alien in a sense as well.



Here's a couple more in recent rotation, just for fun.. awesome gothic rock/industrial rock/synthpop. I'll update as my playlist changes throughout the day.




————————————————

Almost forgot! Time for an update on me and my buddy's now-finished New England-style double IPA. Being from MA, we've been following, enjoying and criticizing these types of beers since the whole idea started. We have been pretty bad at making consistent hoppy beers in the past, but we decided to go all-in over the past few weeks and put together a big ol' double IPA with a lot of "NE" elements (flaked grains in the grist, late-hopping focused kettle hop schedule, whirlpool hop additions, double dry-hopping, no secondary transfer, fermentation with an "ester-forward" yeast strain, no yeast added for bottle-conditioning [since we don't keg yet])...

... and it came out great! Here are my final thoughts about it, along with a picture I took of a bottle I opened a couple hours back. Cheers all, and thanks for being a captive audience for my ramblings!



"Our New England double IPA features orange, grapefruit and mango in the nose with strong dry white wine flavors, along with notes of guava, pine resin and citrus peel/rind.

— TECHNICAL SPECS —

Malts: Golden Promise, Irish Pale, Flaked Oats, Flaked Barley

Hops: Zythos, Mosaic, Galaxy (kettle); Summer, Nelson Sauvin (double dry-hop)

Yeast: Imperial Organic Yeast A38 ("Juice")

ABV: 8%
IBU: 60
SRM: 7.2 (medium orange)"

 

I love that beer and had it about six months ago. My bet is the bottle conditioning it's undergone over the past six months has given it more tartness. I remember it having plenty of Jester King's signature farmhouse flavor earlier this spring, though it definitely did have a lot of sweetness for a JK brew.

Cool seeing that bottle up north!

New one for me:



Cycler's Dom'E'Stique Wit, brewed with coriander, orange peel and lavender

From the pour to the nose through the flavor and mouthfeel, this beer screams "gose!" It even has a hint of tangy salt mixing in with the tart lemon ... that is, it either has it or my mind is tricking me into expecting it because that first tart bite of lemon is so gose. The lavender is very present, especially in the flavor, while the coriander only shows up after the beer has warmed and even then it's very subtle.

I absolutely love it. But I'm also a BIG gose fan, so a lavender gose sounds just about right to me.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30162/93921/?ba=Premo88#review
4.04 (20.6% rDev)

Cheers!

 

Abbey Dubbel

Blackberry Farm Brewery
Belgian Strong Dark Ale / 8.00% ABV

3.81/5 rDev -4% | Avg: 3.97
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

The beer pours a beautiful reddish brown. The head is a voluminous 4 fingers of creme colored foam. The nose is slightly disappointing. It consists of a mustiness overtone with hints of dark fruit and caramel sweetness beneath. The taste is initially dull, but opens up as it warms. There are dark fruits and a bit of alcohol. The mouthfeel is on the lighter side of medium. The carbonation is surprisingly light and prickly considering the size of the head on pouring. I think this is correctly identified here as a Belgian strong Dark rather than a dubbel. Its pretty good as strong darks go, although there are certainly better examples readily available. I wouldn't seek it out, although I would have no problem drinking it again if available.

 

I know about the loss of a fine animal, a friend, the fabric of love. I'm looking right now at a picture of my beloved Lily, a Yellow Lab that made 14+ years. I miss her everyday and my love for her is endless. There is never any consolation for loss, but that bright love outlives us all.