New Beer Sunday (Week 671)

Cheers you all! Happy New Year's Eve Edition of New Beer Sunday! A special cheers to you Craig and Doc. Hosting New Beer Sunday can test your mettle. You both are doing a great job. I found that the sercret to writing is to do nothing and then nothing happens. After nothing happens that is when you write. Hopefully your floor is strewn with crumpled up paper and your pencils are all broken at the point. Hopefully you have been up for hours already. Hopefully you have paced and fretted, mumbled and groaned, planned and arranged. Hopefully the thread has been on your mind and you have anticipated it! I know I have.

Did you ever have one of those days? The kind of day where you can't get anything done . Constant interruptions followed by bouts of procrastination that make those interruptions seem way too important? That was me yesterday. I was thinking about how life seems to resemble that one day. Many people are proclaiming that their year sucked and wishing it good riddance. I am not. My year was pretty good. I had some personal success that I won't mention because it would bore you. I also had some set backs accompanied by misgivings but no real misfortune. Woe is me. I am a little fat. To me that's a good year. I am happy to say that this thread and all of you BA's are responsible for more than one of my life's more successful moments. You are the best friends a girl could have. You never make fun, you treat me like an equal and when I am wrong, you also treat me equally. That is important to me. The friendships I have made on this site are as real to me as if we were in the very same room. The times I have asked for advice it has been sound and caring and sometimes even diplomatic. I feel that the test of platonic love is often the white lie or the naked truth. Please tell me white lies when you should and please tell me when I have spinach between my teeth. It makes a difference when we wish each other well instead of when we approach each other with too much suspicion or caution. I am planning to learn to cook some new things in the coming year so that I can pair them with beer. Tasting beer is not just a hobby, it's a tradition.

Happy New Year Beer Advocate and Happy New Year Sunday!

My new beer today is from Saranc's Irish Roots Pack. I look forward to this case each year and it's the one I seem to buy the most. In it this year is a dry stout, a lager, an Irish red and my new beer for today. Their Irish golden ale is made with flaked oats and they do not say what kind of hops or malt. I bought the case on a day when I was planning to pair a dish with rosemary and a golden ale sounded exactly perfect. When I got home I discovered that the style I had in mind was more Belgian and when I read flaked oats I immediately became skeptical.



Pours with a rich but short lasting head of white foam on a clear and amber body. Hops are floral and the nose is offering a nice lemon peel. malt smells a little biscuity a bit toasty and even a little cookie like sweetness. No caramel, no diacetyl and no dms. There is a light fruity ester from yeast but it does not stand out and I believe that is contributing to the sweetness I can perceive. White fruit like pear and well defined enough to say pear. Hops are floral and do not offer too much in the way of spice or pepper on the nose. Drinks well with lovely lilting fruity flavors that do not dominate the beer. Bubbles intervene to show you some biscuity malt and that hop spice that was not on the nose. Very clean. Finishes crisp and bubbly and not too sweet! As the beer warms you begin to notice the oats. They have a rustic scent and flavor that is not too toasty but just perceptible. If you have some rolled oats please open that container and stick your nose in it. The beer has a similar scent of oats. They do lend something to this beer. The flavor is mild and against that pear like fruit they are a good partner. The beer drinks so cleanly and without astringency from the oats. The finish is lighter than it might be without them. It finishes malty but showing off the hops in a way that is splendid. They are softly and broadly floral and only lightly fruity. The beer is deceptively not bitter in the finish and I think that is also because of the oats although the hops do make a strong and deliberately reserved showing. I was going to pair this beer with my pork chop with rosemary and cranberry and it would have paired with that. However, I do not think that this beer will pair with my Mexican samosas. I have some leftover sopapilla dough and I hope to invent the Mexican samosas with it. The black bean is too rich for it. The spices I will use would pair well with the hops they used but not with the style of malting. This beer would have paired with my sopapillas yesterday with their simple light sweetness and with only cinnamon and honey on them. I would pair this beer with Irish soda bread, with cabbage and with crackers and cheese plate with delicately spiced cashews. Speaking of cashews it would go well with cashew chicken. Maybe even with roasted black eyed peas. Hmmmm. I would say Saranc has a hit on their hands with the Irish Roots pack this year.

It finally snowed here.

Rags to Rufus

 

Good morning! Happy NYE Beer Sunday!

I'll be working tonight, so I baked some dutch spice cookies and am enjoying this beer from the Texas hill country tonight instead.



El Cedro is a beer that has long been very very high on my most wanted lists. As a beer it sounded intriguing, and I like what Jester King makes, but beyond that is that I love connections and this one has them on several layers. Austin and the surrounding area is rich with family and family friends, and I even lived there very (read: too) briefly in my younger days. Additionally, cedar has always held an important role in my life for a variety of reasons: culturally, geographically, and just nostalgically.

To avoid rambling even longer than I have already: suffice it to say that this is one in which I had significant interest.

I came across it in the grocery store while visiting family over the holidays. Easy enough.

We actually had a white christmas for the first time in... well long enough that I'd forgotten and had been wishing for one for the last decade or so. But I worked christmas eve as well, so came home and slept through the fun. Regrets. Oh well.

EL CEDRO!

The beer pours an incredibly pale lemon-yellow. Like if you painted it light yellow and then turned the saturation way down so it was just a pale bauble. The pictures make it look much fuller than it did held up to the light in person. But that head... Massive and billowing it was satin smoothe and resolute. It stuck around, eventually the supporting interstitial elements settled, but the main heft remained as a collapsed homage to the structure it had once been, evoking memories of 'stiff peaks' while whipping egg whites. Wonderful retention as well, leaving a patchwork of cobweb residue found dusting off old trinkets in the tool shed.


Nose is initially tart and funky with soft lemon and brett. First impressions could be manipulated to suggest a dusky woodiness that could be accredited to the cedar promised on the label.
Once I began drinking however (maybe halfway through the glass is when I first started catching it) there was a much pulpier more definitively cedar-esque note that began asserting itself pretty heavily. It reminded me more of milled cedar than of the sweeping boughs of red cedar I grew up with and was hoping for, but it's still not unpleasant, and brings the right direction.

Speaking of once I began drinking it.
The tart brett/lemon character I picked at above carries unsurprisingly forward to the flavour as well, but it is more muted/muddled. Less sharp, less bright, the edges have been subsumed into the wooden embrace that envelops these central characteristics. Initially the wood is almost smoky, though there's vein of umami/earthiness. As they recede, they are replaced by a bitter green finish that is almost herbacious and is unmistakably entwined with memories of the flavour of raw cedar boughs fresh off the tree: that same distinct sharp coniferous bitterness (though not flavour) almost like the juniper in certain gins.



The label describes this one as hoppy. I don't get much hops... at all. This could be just where my attentions are focused, the way the hops are used, or something as simple as the fact that bottle is labeled as Batch #8 (July 2017), so maybe they've just faded a bit in the interceding half a year until I bought and opened it. Whatever the cause may be, I have every intention of picking this one up again, and maybe I'll try and grab a fresher bottle next time and see if that makes a difference.


This is not a perfect beer, and not everyone will like it as much as I do, for the reasons elucidated above in addition to all the usual vagaries of palate preference and all that. But I do think that most people will enjoy it even if not to the same degree, and would easily recommend grabbing it if you see it and its description looks like something in which you'd be interested anyway.



Hope all your 2018s are filled with understanding, love, and progression, in whatever form that may need to take for you. Stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy the first super moon of the year monday night!!


Cheers y'all.

 

@utopiajane see, that actually sounds more appealing to me than the traditional belgian goldens that I (similarly?) think of when I see the descriptor 'golden ale.' The vagaries of preference!

Thanks to you for having carried the hosting torch so magnificently and thanks as well to those who took over those responsibilities in this old year! This has long been one of my favourite corners of the internet, and while I was not able to participate much this year for several reasons, it's warming in a season of nostalgia to continue to know that it is here and in great hands. Thanks to y'all and to all of the participants who make it what it is!!

 

@kemoarps I am glad you are back! I have a wish for us all this new years eve. Please let us never be able to contain our enthusiasm. Let us always be early , let us always be first. =)

 

A-A very nice hazy amber color with a slight head and lacing.
A-Aroma has decent hints of oak and bourbon, as well as fruity hints most notably cherry.
T-The oak and bourbon hints are nicely present, but the fruity reminders, most noticeably the cherries come through loud an clear.
M-A light bodied and smooth beer which hides the alcohol content fairly well.
O-A very well done beer, enhanced nicely by the barrel-aged process.

 

I think two things about this. 1. Most folks prefer the taste of pie spice to the actual taste of pumpkin in the beer. 2. To add enough pumpkin to the mash to make it taste very "pumpkin-y" you risk a stuck sparge. I personally love a very pumpkin forward and very low on spices beer.

 

Twisted Pine Cucumber Cream Ale
No ABV listed

So it ends. I didn’t drink alcohol for the first 3.5 months of 2017, but since April I’ve tried 111 new beers. Actually 112, but I deleted my ghost pepper stout drain pour — I refuse to take credit for a review of a beer I dumped. God only knows what 2018 will bring. I’m going to take a few months off from drinking while I train for a 20 mile trail race, but I’ll be back after that, and from there I have no idea what the plan is. Luckily, I ended 2017 with a new beer that is really delicious, and honestly one I didn’t think I’d enjoy. Cheers!

Poured into a nonic pint glass.

Look: A cloudy soft burnt straw yellow body sits under an enormously frothy thick white head that takes a long while to recede, leaving massive horizontal swaths of foam lacing in it's wake.

Aroma: Light buttery malt, earthy green cucumber notes, subtle natural sugary sweetness, light hop tang.

Taste: The taste starts out really sweet a with soft malt and grain bill that is covered in tons of sweet cucumber notes. The cucumber taste is almost a perfect balance of sweetness and tanginess but not without a little bit of waxy cucumber skin as well. The sugary notes linger until a lightly hopped, tanginess procludes.

Mouthfeel: Medium to light, smooth and dry.

Overall: Extremely impressed with this beer, it's refreshing, sweet, and smooth. The cucumber taste is not overdone. It is really well balanced.

3.94/5 rDev +21.2%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

There is nothing that annoys me more than when a brewery does not list the ABV on their product. I guess that will have to be forgiven because this beer is really a delight, and I’m well aware that this is a beer made for summer drinking, but I’m burnt out on heavy dark beers, so I went with this, so glad I did!

 

Brouwerij De Molen’s “Rasputin”, Russian Imperial Stout (bottled Nov. 18, 2016) brewed with Pils, caramel and chocolate barley malts, and hopped with Premiant and Saaz hops. 10.4%ABV, 46 IBUs:

Pours black with tight tan head; long cap retention; moderate heavy lacing; white floaties; very light legs. 4.0



Cocoa and sweet caramel malt nose. 4.25

Roast malt, toast, char; bitter hops; cocoa nibs, bittersweet dark chocolate; alcohol; bitter finish. 4.25

Medium full body, moderate carbonation; alcohol bite on tip of tongue. 4.25

Bitter linger; some soft chocolate notes take the edge off the bitterness; I like the alcohol taste, but admit this stout’s bitter/booze profile may not be for everyone. 4.25

We have dinner reservations across the Rhein tonight, then New Year’s Eve party/hotel room at Les Trois Rois, overlooking the river/middle bridge/fireworks. The weather is spectacular, clear and warmish - should be a great night for fireworks tonight. Cheers and Happy New Years!

 

I'm gonna remember "stuck sparge". Sounds worse than it is, maybe. One does need to be careful with one's sparge.

 

It sounds like something that needs to be removed. "I had to get a stuck sparge removed from my ale this past weekend." I like the word myself.

 

Oats can cause a stuck sparge.

 

Something ‘Old’ is New again?

Happy New Year’s everybody!!

It has been a while since I conducted a side-by-side tasting and since I had two new Altbiers I figured: why not today?

For those of you unfamiliar with the Altbier style:

The literal translation of Altbier from German to English is: Old Beer. The reference to “Old” is because this beer is brewed using an ale yeast like all German beers were brewed in the distant past prior to when lager beers (with lager yeast) became the popular beers of Germany. Altbier is not a protected beer in Germany like Kolsch beer (which can only be brewed in the Cologne area) but generally speaking most of the German Altbier brands are produced in Dusseldorf.

For today’s tasting we have the two beers of:

· From the ‘old’ brewery of Straub (1872): Ancient Alt – Altbier

· From the ‘new’ brewery of Tired Hands (2011): Trendler Alt

For today’s tasting my wife will be joining me so the beers will be served in four small tulip glasses:

Appearance:

Straub: Clear copper colored with an off-white head.

Tired Hands: Hazy copper colored with a BIG fluffy off-white head.

Aroma:

Straub: There is a notable toasted bread malt aroma.

Tired Hands: Wow! An intriguing combination of toasted brewed malt plus a citrus aroma (from hops I presume).

Taste:

Straub: Follows the nose with a toasted bread flavor. There is a moderate bitterness present.

Tired Hands: Follows the nose with a pleasant combination of toasted bread and citrus.

Mouthfeel:

Straub: Medium/thin body with a dry finish.

Tired Hands: Medium body, moderate carbonation with an off-dry finish.

Overall:

Straub: Very Good! This beer features malt – toasted bread.

Tired Hands: Very Good too! A more complex beer with its combination of malt and hop favors.

The Straub beer is consistent with the beers as brewed in Dusseldorf while the Tired Hands beer is more complex in nature.

Cheers to Straub and Tired Hands for producing tasty ‘Old’ beers!

@RobH @rotsaruch @KOP_Beer_OUtlet @Jacobob10 @Sixpoint

P.S. After conducting the tasting I visited BA to read this description of the Tired Hands Trendler Alt: “Alt Bier brewed with Munich, Vienna & Caramel malts & dry hopped with Cascade.” Ah, dry hopped with Cascade – that explains the citrus aroma/flavor of this beer.

P.S.S. My wife enjoyed drinking both beers but she expressed a preference for Tired Hands Trendler Alt.

 

Great posting, I am in awe of your prose!

 

@JackHorzempa the colors are nearly identical even with the dry hopping. The only glasses that seems to show haze are from the left. Second from the left showing the most haze. Is that the last of that pour or are those two glasses on the left from the same beer? Cheers and Happy New Year to you!

 

Maria, the two glasses on the left are from the Trendler Alt beer and they are both equally hazy. Maybe it is a 'NE' style Alt!?!

Cheers!

 

Season's Greetings all! My new to me beer for today is . . .





Score 3.92
look: 4 | aroma: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

Deep, rich red gold color with white cap and good lacing.

Aroma of bright citrusy hops under girded by caramel malt.

Taste on entry is hop forward with a burst of citrus that elevates the brew well above the heavy handed hopping sometimes found in IPAs. There is a brightness in the hopping that's quickly joined by a restrained caramel sweetness as if the two were melded in a symbiotic fashion at birth. There's complexity here with all the parts distinct yet fully integrated into a whole. Great balance all the way with lingering hop bitterness in the aftertaste that lasts not in a harsh way but shining brightly like a lamp in the darkness.

Medium-full texture with balancing carbonation.

This is a distinguished brew with great polish. Sometimes when I see a new to me IPA I reflexively think another ho-hum, but this one is an eye opener that awakes the senses and gives joy to the palate.

 

All it means is when trying to get your liquid to drain from the mash tun the grain and additives are so thick they only let it drip out or not come out at all. It gets even worse when you recirculate and sparge (use very hot water to turn off mash enzymes and rinse remaining sugars) Pumpkin is famous for fouling sparges. Many brewers add rice hulls to the mash if they suspect the recipe may get a stuck sparge.