New Beer Sunday (Week 652)

Good afternoon and happy New Busy Sunday, BA's! @lordofthewiens , I, like your parents, am a Boxer lover as well. I had two as a late teens early twenties kid. Bogey and Bacall we're siblings and we're simply put, amazing dogs. So much love, loyalty, energy (and weight ). Sadly, we had to adopt them out after six years of ownership thanks to an ugly divorce between my mom and step dad, but vowed to adopt more someday. Fast forward to my marriage, my wife and I felt a slight emptiness without a furry companion, but due to tight quarters had to reassess our options. Insert Yoda:



Though not a boxer, quite similar in demeanor, energy, affection, and silliness all wrapped in a smaller and different colored package. Also accompanied with stubbornness, and now blindness, Yoda has been with us for 11.5 years now and is still adored by most. Cheers to our best friends, the dogs!

On to the beer. The "Busy" in today's title refers to the trench I'll be digging with my cousin for his backyard remodel.



Gonna need a few of these:

Worthy Brewing
PreFunk Pale-American Pale Ale



A: Pours a clear auburn gold with a solid foamy white head that persists and laces well.

A: A classic smelling pale ale, rich with pine and grapefruit. Some lightly toasted buttered bread finishes off the sense.

T: Genuinely true to the style. A nice caramel drizzled bread well balanced by the citrus and pine needle flavors one expects in a vintage tasting pale ale.

F: Clean, crisp, and balanced just barely gripping the bitter side of the spectrum. Just the right amount of carbonation to keep this easy to drink well.

O: This was much better than I was expecting. I hate to throw the comparison out there because there is none, but this truly is reminiscent of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to me. I look forward to doing a side by side someday to see if that holds any merit, but this is a great classic styled American Pale Ale.

Cheers everyone, and I will see you all soon!

EDIT: After my official review, I rated this a 4.17 with an rDev of+13.9%. Wow...maybe I am wrong

 

Only one more week of my Odyssey posts. Until October at least.

Look: Tootsie Rolll. Nice head good lacing.

Aroma: Peat moss, charred malts.

Taste: Smokey grains, malts. Toasted bread with black licorice.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied but hot. Alcohol.

Overall: A bit of a sipper, not my kind of beer in late August. Didn't expect it to be so dark. Odysseys worst beer is still not bad.

 

Hello New Beer Sunday fans. I just got out of work and enjoyed my first beer of the day. It is a Warsteiner German Pilsner that I found in the broken case bin for 99 cents. I know nothing about the style other than It has been decades since I routinely selected German beers. So with the disclaimer out there here it goes. I enjoyed it very much. Poured a clear yellow/gold into a tulip glass. Attractive generous white head. The lacing isn't over the top but enough to make a good presentation. The taste reminds me of a Becks or St. Pauly Girl from 30 years ago. The expiration date on the bottle is 3/22/18. ABV 4.8. Tastes like a German beer to me with a slight bitter finish. Once again I am not knowledgeable with this type of beer so I am calling how I see it. Pardon my skimpy review please as Once again, i kinda have no idea what I am talking about here. Looks 4.00. Nose 3. Taste 3.25. Feel 3.25. Overall 3.25.

 

Hope you Sunday is going well. Spent some time catching up on chores around the house, and now time for a new beer.

This is Southern Prohibition's Crowd Control. Listed in the BA database as an IPA but at 8% it should probably be a DIPA. I've passed this one up a few times in cans since I couldn't find them fresh, so when it went on draft at the local shop, I jumped on it.

Turns out to be an extremely solid NE style DIPA. Notes below.



Poured from 64 oz growler.

A: Hazy pale yellow with one finger frothy white head. Lasting retention and plentiful lacing.

S: Grapefurit, pineapple, and mango mixed with some earthy hops.

T: Tropical citrus with pineapple, mango, and grapefruit. Biscuit malts with a touch of honey sweetness.

M: Medium body with average carbonation. Easy drinking for the 8% ABV.

O: In a blind tasting, this could easily pass for a NE IPA. Very well done indeed.

 

Greetings fellow NBSers! A lovely Sunday here in the Fourth Corner as the time/temp clock across the street reads 12:11- 69 degrees on this sunny day. My work does an annual camp, and it's coming up this week, and I'll be day-tripping out on Tuesday to rafting down the Nooksack River, and, likely, drinking a few brews with co-workers.

My first entry today, comes courtesy of my friend in Bend, @sharpski . Although I am virulently anti-Inbev, I won't look a gift beer in the mouth, especially one as rare as a Port Barrel-Aged Quad, with over 4 years in the barrel. And, I believe it was brewed before the sell-out, so that assuages my conscience a bit: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16873/297953/ . DAMN is all I can say about this brew. It is excellent.

 

A-The beer poured a surrealistic green color with minimal head and lacing.
S-A combination of spicy and sour aroma, somewhat unique.
T-The taste follows the aroma with a combination of spices and a slight distinctive sourness.
F-Light and refreshing.
O-A very unique beer with what seemed like a combination of a typical farmhouse ale and american wild ale style beer.

 

I've had 3 dogs in my life. Dog 1 lasted 2 weeks and my mother took him to the vet and he never returned.who knows what happened dog2 I got at 18, lasted three days then 4 guys mugged me,beat me up,stole my dog and then kicked me in the nuts. Dog 3 ive had 11 years,healthy,and i havent been kicked in the nuts yet. Oh yeah,the beer is Port City porter. Nice feel,look,and the aroma is a deep mix of malt,coffee,and chocolate. Taste is identical but with a bit of hop bitterness. This seems like a good porter for ipa fans

 

It is time... for more beer!

what's new?

Johann And The Dancing Bears | Aslin Beer Company

Aslin Brewing Co. - Johann and the Dancing Bears by imbibehour, on Flickr

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Poured from the can into a Spiegelau IPA glass. Very recently canned.

Pinkish orange body color, almost like hibiscus but has a much deeper red color to it. Somewhat clear with very fine carbonation. Soapy residual head, two fingers with some very shampoo like appearances. Really beautiul body color.

Aroma goes for a bit of subtlety it seems. Small cherry fruit tones, and touches of vanilla, but soft hop presence of earth and a touch of possible grapefruit. Very different animal, not sure where this is going on the palate.

Really nice juiced body, sort of the epitome of grandness without going overboard. Thick rich malts supporting a cherry and hop mix of dank and tropic notes. Creamy finish but with little sensing vanilla flavor. Speaking of which where is the cocoa? Fruity tones are nicely matched.

Comes off as a bit overkill, with some of the special ingredients adding more to the body and appearance as to the flavor of the brew possibly. But it is a very nice fruited IPA.

look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4 | BA Generated 3.93

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Wut? Wuddafuq? I'm ISO.

 

Ugggh enjoying the beers y'all are drinking but am feeling the pains of two bachelor parties, Thursday and yday, the one last night at Citi Field until laaaate, with huge quantities of wonderful beers enjoyed both nights. Not sure I will be joining, which is sad since I have a few new beers from our host's home state. But couldn't resist the opportunity to say heyyy, and to mention the name of Jed, RIP, my black Lab and more importantly my and my family's best and most devoted friend, who is missed terribly even all these years later.

 

I'm not currently owned by a canine, but, one of my gigs is housesitter and dogwalker. So I gots plenty of pooches in my life. I'm highly partal to Labradors, but love 'em all. Long time NBSers will note that I sometimes mention my Nephew, the mix of 3 Mastiffs and Rottie. Well, here he is: 125 lbs of lapdog. Before he started aging, and slowing down, he was a squirrel chaser extrordanaire. Even got one once. He was so shocked he dropped it. The bushytail was shocked that he was free, that he jumped right back into Gunners mouth. Neither knew what to do. Squirrel finally twisted free, and scampered to safety up a tree. G-Dawg was so proud of himself afterwards though.......

 

Of course I forgot image of the last beer and my dog

 

I wish I could find one that does it. It is my project for this season. can you imagine how good the spaten would be if they were still doing it. it's also usually my only german import. It was last year. Everyone else had pualaner hacker pschor etc . . and I fussed at the wegmans because at the time they had a bunch of german lagers. Hofbrau , weihenstephaner etc. but none of the seasonals from them.

 

Taking a beer break after some yard work. I have the Cubs-Jays game on the patio speakers and it's a beautiful sunny late summer afternoon. The solar eclipse has been beat to death for months now and the next beer pays tribute to the event. Another fresh drop of 450 North from Columbus IN landed at my local and this pint can of The Great Eclipse from a four pack dated 08/10 seemed like a no brainer purchase to join in the hoopla. They also brew good beer that keeps getting better! Let's pour this double dry hopped IPA with it's 8.21% abv. in my 12oz. tulip for the occasion.

Pours a slightly hazy dark gold producing a finger of creamy white foam. It slowly settles leaving moderate lacing behind. The smell is spicy onion, floral, orange slice, pine and malt in the back. Taste is floral notes followed by pineapple, grapefruit and orange zest. The feel is creamy smooth with a slightly bitter semi dry finish.

This brewery continues to produce some really good beer and this is another. It's very easy drinking for the style and quite flavorful. They are hitting the higher end of the price point for the style at $16.99 a four pack which may turn some people off. I'll continue to support them as long as they keep improving. My score on this is 4.07.

The forecast tomorrow calls for increasing cloudiness, so I'm not sure how much of the 87% of totality we'll see? I'm hoping for the best, but at least I've had the opportunity to see it before if the conditions don't cooperate. Time to finish some loose ends and see what else might be in the fridge? Have yourselves a great Sunday of new beer! Here's the official scorecard....

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35021/297438/?ba=Prager62#review

 

Howdy NBS, I have three new beers up for today! All three of these have something in common, and that would be their lower ABVs. Today is a hot though temperate Summer day and I don't want to slog through anything strong, so I'm going to be reviewing two sours balanced out by a new hazy/hoppy session ale in between! First up is Evil Twin's A is for Apricot gose. As with most goses, this diminutive ale clocks in at a sessionable 4.5% ABV and is brewed with salt. Excited to see how the apricot addition livens up this one! Don't think I've ever had a gose which features peach or apricot (or any other stone fruit, really, as most seem to feature citrus or tropical fruits), so I'm pumped!



Pours with a rush of quickly-deteriorating bone-white head atop what seems to be a 3-4 SRM beer. Slightly more golden than my picture makes it look, however. I don't have the best lighting in here and had to make some adjustments to get it to look consistent. That said, the appearance here is pretty damn nice. I like the hazy and nearly-opaque body on this one. Though the head has very fleeting retention (as most quick-sour styles such as gose and Berliner weisse tend to), there seems to be very strong and consistent, bubbling carbonation rising from the bottom of my glass. Pretty much as expected, but nice anyway.

Nose is kind of similar to Anderson Valley's gose series overall, with a big hit of funky lacto, sweaty wheat and tart lemony yogurt upfront. Buried underneath, however, is the juicy and alluring element of apricots with their inherently-sweet nectar coming out a bit. I must say, this seems a lot more mineral forward than expected. Can't wait to dig into it.

Since the label says nothing about coriander, I'm not surprised I don't pick up its distinct spicy/earthy funk but it feels kind of missing in this recipe. I keep hoping I get a bit of it, but the flavor mostly only consists of funky apricot juice, pineapple and lemon SweeTARTS candy with a hefty dose of drying salt toward the finish. Very thirst-quenching, as most goses tend to be... they're like the sports drink of beer styles, what with the included electrolytes and whatnot. A fun drink but lacks complexity and feels a little underwhelming at the end of the day. I attribute that mostly to the lack of coriander, interestingly enough. This just tastes like a normal kettle-soured ale, and though the fruit addition is pretty well-incorporated, it doesn't quite stand out from the crowd. I've had better, but I've also had a lot worse. More soon!

 

Good afternoon NBS! Killing a little time before lighting the grill for some top round steak.

Dogs. Growing up there were plenty of dogs on both sides of my parents families. Always had dogs around. Not so much when I was a teen and in my twenties, but a few years ago that changed. We were living in the country when a dog appeared in the driveway. Seemed young, fairly friendly. We asked the neighbors and the response was that he explained why a truck was driving really slow then sped up. Found a number of dogs on Craigslist in the area that looked like the one that showed up in our driveway. Guess someone decided he couldn't keep his hunting dogs anymore and dumped them over two counties. Worked out for us, he was about six months old, housebroken, crate trained him in two nights. We've traveled all over with him, out camping to Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia. He's done a number of trails. Wasn't the biggest fan of water when he was younger, but when we visited a lake this summer he was more than interested in learning to swim, now loves the water. As best as we and vets can guess, his breed is Mountain Curr or Mountain Feist. This photo is a couple of years ago, he wasn't thrilled that we put him in the lake but it was hot and he needed to cool off.



On to the beer.

New beer and new brewery this Sunday. Brewery is Reason beer, which just officially opened in Charlottesville in July and bottles were just hitting stores around the beginning of August. This was the first week I managed to snag a bottle, most of them seem to get picked up as they arrive. The brewery founders include Mark Fulton, recently of Maine Beer so good pedigree, apparently he and some friends hailed from Charlottesville originally so they wanted to return and open a brewery there, or at least that is the story.

The beer is Reason Beer's Pale. A pale ale style coming in at about 5.0%, this makes me think of a lighter version of a DIPA from Veil. Hazy yellow-orange color, aroma dominated by citrus and stone fruit with a little malt to it. Nicely balanced, leans towards the citrus, malt is noticeable, there is some hop bitterness there but nothing overpowers, mostly just all blends fairly well together. Solid beer, wouldn't mind having this on occasion. I think for the price ($7/pint) I won't have it terribly often but it would certainly take care of that desire for a NE IPA without having to drive down to Richmond.

 

New pint number 3 Tired Hands Ochre Graves.
4.18/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

16 oz can, dated 8/14/17, poured into a teku

A- A hazy golden copper with a two finger white head.

S- Honey dew, melons, some tropical fruits, citrus, faint hints of coconut, some sweet oats.

T- Melons, honey dew, sweet tropical fruits, citrus, some oat, touch of coconut, hints of wet grass

M- Smooth, medium body, creamy.

O- A nice DIPA, but doesn't stand out against other DIPAs Tired Hands have brewed.

Cheers!

 

Lobo Hobo Brewing's Boomsauce.

Pours between yellow and orange with just a hint of fog to it. Head formation is a finger in height and snow white in color. Head retention is okay, with very little lacing left behind. Aroma is citrus, herbal, and floral hops. Flavor profile is herbal and floral hops. Nice twist from the regular citrus hops. Biscuit and buttery malts give it a base. Mouth feel is medium in thickness, with a little effervescent, fizz feel. Overall, nice presence of herbal and floral hops, which is a pleasant twist from regular IPAs.

Score: 3.75 | 4 | 4 | 3.75 | 3.75 | BA Score: 3.91 | rDev: +0.5%

 

Capture the sun tomorrow, drink beer today....



Growler filled with Trillium Headroom 8.12.17 and poured into pilsener glass

Thick hazy yellow , one finger foam cap settles to a ring and a few lacings

Citrus aroma , not overpowering

Taste of citrus , orange, tropical fruits , bit of dank, bit of spice

Bitterness lingers , not a sharp bite but a hop presence

Love trillium beers and this is a good one. I think this one is overhyped but, nonetheless, another Good beer from the trillium Brewers

 

Decided to hit one of the new closest breweries to us, Fair Winds (the other being Mad Fox, whose krug I used earlier and one of whom' brewers founded Fair Winds).

One of their flagships is a Kölsch, called Quayside Kölsch. This beer is not new to me, but I decided to order one at see if it fit my palate's perception of a @JackHorzempa quality Kölsch (did I confuse you yet??).

Jack’s Requirements for a Kolsch
Flavor: a combination of Pilsner malt flavor and subtle esters (white wine flavors) from the Kolsch yeast
I'm not getting the Pilsner malt as the primary player here (they also use Munich malt, which is likely interfering a bit), but the wine-like esters can be noted in nose and late in taste. With warmth, the malt becomes a little more obvious.

Low-moderate bitterness and zero hop flavor/aroma
The bitterness isn't huge, but I'd say moderate and there does seem to be a little herbal to very light stone fruit in the taste.

Very light in color: straw colored
This is pretty light, but on the light side of golden. Head is medium bubbles, no lacing.

Mouthfeel: light – medium bodied with a crisp/dry finish
Body is inline, finish isn't overly crisp and only mildly dry.

Since our palates are different, it's a fruitless statement, but I'll make it anyway: I think @JackHorzempa would give this an "ok" rating, judging how I think it holds up to his criteria (how about now??). Not sure how he feels about a Kölsch not being 100% Pilsner malts.

Anyhow, that was more fun (for me) than simply reviewing the new beer I did add/review officially just before. Apparently FW(VA) is doing an experimental series of beers. I added their first, which is called El Zythos IPA. I found it a nice combo of a typical PNW IPA with the very much non-typical-PNW (IMO-attribute-wise) El Dorado hop.