New Beer Sunday (Week 670)

Poured into a snifter.
A-A dark brown color full of haziness, with a minimal head and no lacing.
A-Hints of fruitiness, sourness and oak.
T-Nice sweet and sour balance with lots of fruit hints.
M-Light bodied with a nice amount of carbonation.
O-A well made beer with a nice complex character.

 

In deference to one of my favorite reviewers (she knows who she is) who spoke favorably about this one I made an effort to see what it's about . . .



Score 3.69
look: 3.75 | aroma: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Color is a clear lighter shade of gold with white cap.

Aroma of sweet malt with light floral, spicy hops.

Flavor on entry is malt forward but in a dryish sense which is to say a feeling of richness without sweetness. Hops make an entry mid palate but remain in the background. Aftertaste brings an almost herbal nuttiness forward and is a nice finishing touch.

Medium body with balancing carbonation.

If handed this in a blind tasting I would say Helles Lager with a lower hop profile which isn't damning with faint praise because this is a very solid beer. Clearly free of adjuncts, this all malt lager walks the line between AALs and more highly flavorful craft beers. Not a bad place to be when what you want is a no fuss beer that's simply good.

 

New Beer Sunday: A Special Winter Warmer

Mornin’ NBSers, with special wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season to all. Also special thanks to @lordofthewiens for today’s start up and reminder of some things past.

The weather here today is expected to be a bit sunny but with a fair amount of cloudiness and with temperatures in the low 40s. (This is actually a nice change from the day long cloudy skies and light rain we had yesterday.)

As the designated “Holiday Breakfast Maker” this morning, I’ve started a Quiche Lorraine baking in the oven and so have the time for a new beer. I also expect to be trying a new one this evening after the luminaries have been lit and all the preparations for tomorrow are completed. The morning’s new beer is a Winter Warmer from Anchor, their Our Special Ale for 2017.

As usual my review, subject to revision until I finish the beer or until I start eating, can be found here.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28/310460/?ba=drtth#review

The aromas and flavors include some chocolate, a bit of coffee and some dark roasted malt. In the background there’s some dark fruits, cinnamon and nutmeg. This all contrasts nicely with a bit of dark roast and herbal bitterness that is softened nicely by just a bit of sweetness from the malt. On the whole this is a beer I’d enjoy having again, even if only to continue to explore the complexity of the flavor profile. While I’ve not had Anchor's Our Special Ale the last couple of years, this one strikes me as being among the better versions I’ve had.

Cheers, all!

 

Cheers Doc and thank your for starting this very special Christmas edition of New Beer Sunday! Passing the torch from one generation to the next is a big part of the stories we tell in an almost ritual fashion as we gather together to celebrate this beautiful time of year. I can proudly say that this year I am observing not only Christmas but also Hannukah and even Festivus. That New Beer Sunday falls this year on Christmas eve makes it seem even more special. One of the things I used to dread hosting NBS was greeting the holidays with appropriate mention. In my house we could all look forward to the same meal as we had last year and with the same company plus always a few new guests. We would gather around the piano and I would bang out the carols and we would all sing at the top of our best voices, mugging for cameras like celebrities. We could usually look forward to at least one great debate that would bring the evening into a fevered pitch before relaxing into the anticipation of midnight mass. My family also told the same old jokes every year like this one. "What time is midnight mass?" As we get ready for tonight because imo all the magic happens tonight not tomorrow, let's try to give each other the gift of new possibilities. Let's stray outside the lines and be different no matter what.

And so it is with the best of us. The spark that never dies. The strange translucent exuberance that realizes in an instant each and every aspect of a new desire. To furtive and urgent heights the voice composes lists and schemes, sketches that bring beginning to end in fairly muddled harmony. The ease of the imagination is the catapult to joy, of this we are sure, yet dare not an obstacle. For what is not imagined by the purest heart must never be said unless to wreak with sad malice the fate of the coward upon one who has not deserved derision.

It is understandable then, why the severely talented, and the auspiciously intelligent are driven to solitude. They retreat and reemerge. Each time to risk the same rejections, the same corporal punishments, the same insatiable scrutinies that have plagued every wizard from Confucius to Jesus. Birds in men's bodies. What to do with them?

It is not rational to capitulate to circumstances we did not choose and so do not regret this life.

Cheers and Merry Christmas NBS and Beer Advocate!

Here we go. Today I have a beer form Apostelbrau. This is their Bavarian Farmhouse Rustic Saison.



Happy New 'Tis the Saison Sunday!

Pours a honey color orange with brown and gold tints to it. Tan head that lasted well enough and fell leaving a ring and film on top. Nose is citrusy and spicy. The spelt adds something to the nose. Cool minty hops and a bit of sweet sugar. taste is dry lush with hops and spice. The malts are complex and this one uses Emmer malt, barley malt, wheat malt, spelt malt, rye malt and Eikhorn malt. The tartness on the nose is just tempting and very faint. Taste is crisp and spicy. Flavors are complex but not too toasty. Citrus permeates the beer and the soft cool hops are something decadent in there even though they do not dominate. There is even a touch of very understated prickly pine. A touch of tartness in the finish characteristic of the saison. Finishes malty and with a light bitter.

 

Merry New Christmas (Eve) Beer Sunday (Week 670)!

I am not really doing much to celebrate Christmas. I always felt like it was an overwrought time as a kid & I prefer solitude to the hustle & bustle. During my career on active duty in the U.S. Navy, I would often volunteer for duty days on the holidays to free up my married shipmates to be at home with their families. It was usually a quiet, uneventful duty day with plenty to eat on the Mess Decks & people bringing plates from their homecooked meals for us. It also meant that I had some say in when I otherwise stood duty, freeing me up on odd days to go off & do my thing. Today, my thing is to start my Christmas Crock Pot Roast & drink some beer, especially after having been sidelined last Sunday.

Flying Dog has come out with a series of three holiday-themed collaboration beers & I am using them as today's jumping-off point while reading Len Deighton's Spy Line. I have read 108 books thus far in this CY & I would like to get to at least 110 before next Monday.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/68/297621/?ba=woodychandler#review


I'll be back later today!

 

A-A very nice golden color with a generous amounts of carbonation, an impressive head and some nice lacing
A-A nice fruity aroma comes through.
T-A very nice and well balance of wheat, barley and oats gives the beer a complex flavor.
M-A medium body with a touch of creaminess.
O-A very well made beer with a complex character.

 

River City Brewing
Bow Tie Guy Imperial Stout brewed with Ghost Peppers — 11.5% ABV

This is my only new beer today, as I simply just did not seek anything new for today, I chose to load up on all my Christmas Eve favorites instead, but I did make sure to at least save this beer for today.

River City Brewery has been around Wichita for a good while and it’s a very good place to eat as well as drink. This is the first time I’ve seen them bottle abything. It is a limited release and cost $15 for a bottle. They have an Ethiopian coffee version as well.

Here’s my rather simplistic review; I do not care for this beer much at all, and I’m fearing a drain pour after I sip on the first glass— it just tastes like I’m drinking whisky.

3.72/5 rDev 0%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

Poured into a St. Bernardus chalice.

Look: Dirty motor oil black, a dark khaki head that recedes to a wisp and a thin collar, minimal spots of lacing.

Aroma: Whisky barrel wood, and lots of earthy pepper skin.

Taste: Sour and tangy whisky barrel wood, hot hot ghost pepper notes, and a tangy finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, very hot on the throat, lingering heat which I like.

Overall: Just too much barrel aged whisky notes for me to enjoy, too tangy. No noticeable dark coffee or charred malts anywhere. I do love the spicy heat, though.


That’s it for me on NBS today. Merry Christmas and happy holidays BA, I’ll be hanging around.

 

New Sour Ale Sunday (Week670)
The Holidays always have been a time for me to feel thankful for what I have and thankful for those with whom I have shared my life. I especially feel thankful due to the unfortunately permanent and crystal clear memories of bleak times long past spent despairing, hungry, homeless, and cold. And yet, even back then, even on the worst and hungriest day of those times, I knew that I had it better than millions of people, that I was in unfortunate circumstances but surrounded by opportunity while millions hungered surrounded by nothing but more poverty and more misery. We should all take the attitude of thanks, at least this time of year, even if things are not so good this year in some ways as they might be.

I too will be alone for the holidays. After 30 years of having a living situation always surrounded by others there is something great about being alone. Gonna leave it there, though much more could be said on the subject.

One very relevant thing I am thankful for is that American brewers are making some of the finest beers in the history of the world right now, and we, all of us, are part of the glorious Golden Age Of Beer occurring right now across the planet. Like research and technology for many things, we have come to an age able to provide us with beers of amazing taste and diversity. We are a part of this, BA has been and is a part of this, and while giving great thanks to all of us I can't help but believe the future is even better. Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas to all my NBS friends. Cheers!

The battery is shot in my camera, so this is a better picture of what I am drinking than I would have taken, showing beer served in a better glass than I have on hand. Casey Passionfruit, from my Saturday morning home, Equilibrium Brewery, served cellar temp.


Very full aroma, with rounded tart competing with sour notes, giving it a soft and also sharp smell, with bright passionfruit notes accompanying. I love the vaguely sweet rotted fruit notes that EQ's yeast and bug arsenals produce in their sour/wild ales, and it mixes well with citrus and bitter hop notes lightly present. Nice.

Bracingly sour and tart right away, very full flavored, the tart is a complex monster of bright flavors that dominates the mouth. Passionfruit is in the mix, and rotted peach as well, but this baby is all about the range of sour and tart fruitiness that can be produced in a beer.

Full boied, quite viscous, med./high carb. for style, and a killer finish.

I wish that the taste would have matched the aroma better, it ends up being a delicious sour beer (listed as saison on this site) with all the other great flavors minor players. Excellent, but hoped for more.

Hope you also have a Great American Beer in your glass. Cheers!

 

I hope everybody has a great day today with many excellent new beers. My holidays are a little wonky this year so I won't be able to NBS it with you fine folks today (barring some sort of Christmas miracle). On the plus side, I will have some new-beer-soaked time off this next week to make up for it. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great, safe few days off doing whatever it is you're doing. Enjoy your beers. They all look delicious. Cheers!

 

Happy Christmas Eve, NBS. Glad to see people getting a chance to get some reviews in, as statistics would indicate quite a few members celebrate the holiday and probably have family in town that could "get in the way" of new beer enjoyment.

Rain came through with a cold front yesterday, chilling things down without snow. I'll have to figure out if I want to get an appetizer together for dinner tomorrow or just leech off the family (I'll bring the beer). Also have to wrap the kids' gifts (luckily I convinced the family to stop giving us gifts - as we were getting to the point of giving each other unnecessary things). Being with family and watching the kids have fun is gift enough. It was also good to see my sister had instituted a policy of having her sons donate gifts each year to make room for the new ones (they really have a lot of toys).

Speaking of gifts, today's NBS is a gift, one coming from @LeperJim. He sent me two beers from Nowhere in Particular, and I enjoyed the IPA a little more than others. Let's see if I enjoy this stout with cocoa, coffee, annd lactose more than its 3.77 current rating* (on less than 10 ratings).


Batch #016 pours a typical near black to black. The head takes a second to gather and form a thin tan cap. Streams of head loiter on the surface until I start tipping the glass, forcing them to congregate in a medium collar at the edge of the glass.

The nose takes some warmth to coax it from hiding. I'm getting a little more raw cocoa than coffee, though the latter is noted. A light sweetness doesn't seem particular to lactose I noted from the verses on the can, but I'd guess its influence is what I'm perceiving.

Taste has a neutral to sweet opening, and I'd even think it near tasteless as it sits on the tip of my tongue. But letting the liquid wash back over my tongue baptizes my taste buds with a dark chocolate cocoa that has a dark roast, somewhat bitter coffee flavor backing and countering it. The roasted malts may have a little influence here, but it is integrated well into the other two flavors. The back end gets a little root beer/cola like (but not syrupy sweet), which is to say there's a spirit of earthy/root spice living in the back of the taste. The late flavors come with a thinning of the fairly bold yet medium body opening. There's a soft rolling carbonation in back as well.

This beer ends up almost seeming like a coffee and cocoa enhanced dark ale with the cola-like ending. The roasted flavors seem more from the added ingredients, and when these sins of the Reinheitsgebot are washed away, the roasted notes seem to leave with them leaving a lightly spiced holiday dark ale - in my reading of the beer. I do happen to like dark ales, and enjoy root beer, so this beer was a nice pre-Christmas day treat. Thanks, Santa Jim.

(*looks like my numbers are a little higher than the pre-calculated score, raising the overall rating by .01 )

 

Love you my friend! May you never have another day like that again!

 

Merry Christmas @lordofthewiens and to everyone at NBS. Will be back with not a new beer today, but one I really enjoy, and it's been a few years since last.

Cheers!

 

Good morning NBS and thanks for the great intro @lordofthewiens!
I'm predisposed to limiting all holiday celebrations to mass attendance, full plates and full glasses. Family and friends are invited to eat and drink, but I'm not into buying or wrapping gifts. My wife's family has quite a different take. I work tonight so my wife will be entertaining her extended family here tonight before her mom hosts Christmas dinner tomorrow.
On to the beer...

The review:
16oz can bb May 2018 poured into a willibecher glass at fridge temp 6.8% ABV 10 IBU. The beer pours dense dark brown with chocolate tan colored head. The head recedes quickly leaving little lacing and a paper thin cap. The aroma is noticeable rye, dark malt and an earthy, rustic note. The taste is full of saison notes played against the darker grain bill. I get a little rye, honey, roast malt and a little tartness as well. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, adequately carbonated and dry. Overall, good. This is exactly what a winter saison should be, if there should be a winter saison.

This was really a pretty good beer and I enjoyed it more as it warmed. It was my first dark saison so it took my brain a while to get on board. Cheers all!

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody!!

Earlier this week I went to visit a friend and drop off a Christmas present. As we were chatting I made mention that I had a ‘mission’ to try Hamm’s beer. Lucky for me he had some Hamm’s beer on hand and he gifted me with some Hamm’s beer. What is that old saying: seek and ye shall find!

I know very little about Hamm’s both past and present - sounds a bit like A Christmas Carol?

So let find out a bit about Hamm’s (Christmas) past:

“The Theodore Hamm's Brewing Company was the name of an American brewing company in St. Paul, Minnesota. As Hamm's expanded, breweries were also acquired in other cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, and Baltimore.

The Theodore Hamm Brewing Company was established in 1865…”

So, in the past Hamm’s was a pretty big deal with multiple brewing locations.

What about Hamm’s (Christmas) present:

“The beer from the land of sky-blue waters is having a good 2017.

With MillerCoors making a nationwide push, Hamm’s sales are up more than 45 percent year-to-date through May 20, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen also ranked Hamm’s as the No. 10 growth brand in beer.”

http://www.millercoorsblog.com/news/hamms-beer-resurgent/

I suppose we will have to wait to see that Hamm’s (Christmas) future will be but it seems like it is a growing beer brand.

All this is chatting is getting me thirsty so I will have my personal Hamm’s (Christmas) present and drink a can of this beer.

Served in my Spiegelau Lager glass:

Appearance:

Straw colored and brilliantly clear accompanied by a BIG white head. This beer has good head retention and forms a bit of Belgian Lace as the beer is consumed.

Aroma:

There is a subtle, pleasant grainy aroma.

Taste:

The flavor follows the nose with a nice, pleasant grainy flavor. The one word that pops into my mind is “clean”. There is a low bitterness.

Mouthfeel:

Light body, medium carbonation with a dry finish.

Overall:

A very cleanly brewed AAL beer with a light, pleasant grainy flavor.

As the beer warmed/opened up (e.g., the last few sips) this beer was still a joy to drink; I have found that some AAL beers become less pleasant as the beer warms/opens up.

This is a good value lawnmower beer. If I was a regular AAL beer drinker this beer would be a beer of choice.

Cheers to MillerCoors for producing a good value AAL that is pleasant to drink!

@Giantspace @RobH @rotsaruch @KOP_Beer_OUtlet @nc41