New Beer Sunday (Week 676)

I really liked this beer when I had it, I remember it being pretty barrel forward, but I was newish to stouts. I'll have to revisit it.

 

Hello all and Happy NBS!
It's dumping snow here and I am really focused on decompressing and being worthless for the first weekend in a few weeks. To date I have been successful. It's a nice day for it and I have some new beers to help me make the most of it.
The first one today is one from two of my favorite Quebec breweries bar none. It is also an interesting take on a classic style: A helles bock aged 28 weeks in barrels with Brettanomyces. The label has a real underground-comic vibe to it and shows who it was brewed by (@eloid, his accomplice Benoît and what I assume is a sassy, drunken Brett). "Who?" I hear you asking.



Here's hoping it tastes as good as it sounds.

It pours nice enough. It has a beautiful color and keeps its head fairly well. Both the flavor and aroma are malt-forward, toasty, sweet and a touch bready. The funky wood/flower Brett presence is more obvious in the smell and, likewise, the alcohol is more central to the taste. Nothing above-and-beyond or face-melting about this one. A solid, tasty, well-made beer that is just different enough to be unique but not trying to reinvent the wheel. Exactly what I like about both Benelux and Dunham.

Here is my official review.

Santé!

 

And thusly, our NBS will be a tad less inspired and eloquent today. I wish you good health, Maria.

 

Barrier Brewing's Axilla, a farmhouse pale ale with Brett. -optically clear, golden yellow tap pour with a very thin ring of foam. The nose is Belgian candi sugar and light Brett. Flavor is delicate with a saison character and a light Brett note. The finish is dry. The body is light, but this is flavorful.

 

Avery Fimbulvvinter, Rum BA Quad, 16.9% ABV. Pours deep red with a slight off-white head. Aroma is yeasty and rum. Taste is fruity, and very sweet, with no bitterness noted, and a nutty aftertaste. Excellent mouthfeel. Overall nearly excellent. The taste of the base quad and the rum were mostly hidden by the cloying sweetness, reminiscent of stablemate Rumpkin.

 

Jack, what about the floaties puts you off? Is it the appearance or simply the "idea" of them?

 

Noticed a number of reviews saying it was pretty hot. Maybe I got an old four-pack? I went back and looked for a canned-on date, but couldn't find one.

 

It's snowing outside my house right now here in Vermont, hmmmmmmm....





https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29003/104898/?ba=Lone_Freighter#review

Summary:
Aromas of dark and milk chocolate wrap around dark fruits in a sweet and bitter manner. Light dark toast with a little bit of wafer lean in on the back end. Flavors lean towards the sweet side and pull in that roasty and toasty meshing. Nice aftertaste of the dark fruits, milk chocolate, and dark toast. It's medium bodied with a fine sipping quality about it. Nice roasty grip rides along my tongue to prevent any cloying possibilities from happening. Really nice Russian Imperial Stout, well worthy of coming back to.

 

Time to start supporting Philly, Yards ipa. Color-clear amber color. Body- medium light body and the carbonation is just below average. Aroma- roasted malt, floral, grapefruit, and some pine. Taste is very similar, a lot of ipa qualitys are there but just not in an overpowering way. The malt definitely mellows out the hops and the body is just a little thin. Overall a very good beer but might leave die-hard ipa fans wanting a little more

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and thanks to @lordofthewiens for getting us going, and for the brief Super Bowl history lesson. I, for one, am a lifelong football fan. This year, I will be cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Had a couple new beers this last week. I finally reviewed Hull 488, although it was technically no longer new to me, having already drank one of the cans @gopens44 sent me:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46251/238289/?ba=woemad#review


On Thursday I hit a bomber (spell check just tried to make it Unabomber!) received as a late Xmas present from my brother:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22843/103309/?ba=woemad#review

Really enjoyable beer. Breakside is a really solid brewery that deserves more love from me.
Also, I had Citra Bomb, an Imperial IPA with, you guessed it, Citra hops, from Iron Goat that was devastatingly easy to drink for something 8.8% abv.

Yesterday, I stopped by Community Pint and tried a couple new beers:
A stout brewed with Samoas cookies called, rather unimaginatively, Samoas Stout, from Iron Goat.

Vaster than Empires IPA from Fremont, that was good but not terribly distinctive

, and West Coast Masshole, from Matchless, which seemed an attempt to split the difference between the NE hazy and PNW attitudes towards the IPA.


Today I'm hitting a barrel aged D.O.R.I.S. from @WesMantooth.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14879/103670/?ba=woemad#review
Not a beer to drink if you don't like boubon. I do, very much, so I loved it. Thanks, Corey!

Probably my only new beer today. I'm planning on picking up a growler of Paul's Pale Ale for the Super Bowl party I'm bound for this afternoon.

Cheers!

 

Good afternoon NBS, a rare second visit this week, but I could not let this offering from Industrial Arts go without mention. Tools of the Trade is a very enjoyable XPA as described by the brewer. For me the malt base is what jumps out. Not to sweet and a touch malty in this format is a refreshing change to the hop forward offerings out here. I really enjoy this and great work by these folks
Cheers

Tools Of The Trade

Industrial Arts Brewing Company
American Pale Ale (APA) / 4.80% ABV

4.29/5 rDev +8.6% | Score: 3.95
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Poured from a can dated 1/25/18 into the test glass.
A - Lemon drop, clover honey yellow, excellent clarity, gentle carbonation feeds an evidence ring of white froth.
S - A touch of citrus rime, fresh cut grass, fresh Baguette, and a hint of apricot.
T - Exceptional, love the malt base on this, Pilsner floor swept comes to mind, the hops are grassy with a touch of tropical element.
M - Light on the palate, clean and very well executed. Carbonation is gentle and just right, the finish is dry and delightful.
O - Wow, what a treat this is, light in body with enough depth and aromatics, All wrapped up in a less than 5% package.
Worth every effort to try.

 

Both. As I mentioned in my above post: "I do not like 'boogers' in my beer."

Cheers!

 

Today I'm doing more of a rapid fire approach. I'll feature a bunch of beers here but I won't be long-winded about them. It's not because today is the Super Bowl... I almost couldn't care less about that (no offense to any fans though)... it's just because it's NBS and it's what I want to do.
First up is:



Nicaragua Craft Beer Co - Panga Drops Keller Pils

Yeah, you read that right - this one is from Nicaragua. And in an 8oz can too. Clearly, 8oz cans are a packaging option today in order to enable brewers to make customers more comfortable with paying a higher $ per oz than usual. I suspect we'll see more and more 8oz cans.

I really enjoyed this one. It's haze is modest and attractive. Tastes of grainy malt (in a good way), lemon and tangerine... but the citrus isn't at IPA levels here. It's dialed far more back than that. Very pleasing.

 

New Broyhan Sunday

What the heck is Broyhan? Fortunately, Ron Pattinson addressed that question for this very site back in 2011: https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/5711/broyhan/

“So what was Broyhan? A pale, lightly hopped, top-fermenting Weissbier of modest strength. It was brewed from either a combination of wheat and barley, or just barley alone. Sometimes they threw in oats and spices, too. And sometimes they didn’t bother with any hops at all. If you’re thinking, ‘Well, that’s not very Reinheitsgebot,’ you’re right. It wasn’t. And for the simple reason that it was a North German style, far beyond the reach of Bavarian law.”

Freigeist, Sebastian Sauer’s extension of his small Köln brewery, Braustelle, has a long history of reviving and improvising on forgotten German beer styles. This isn’t even the first time he’s collaborated with an American brewer to do so, as I had a great take on Lichtenhainer that they did with Victory a few years ago.

Against the Grain, based in Louisville, has also impressed me with the range of their offerings and their willingness to think outside of the box. When I saw that the two would be partnering for a series of four resurrections of old German styles under the Gegen den Strom (Against the Stream) moniker, I knew I would be picking them up if I saw them.

Well, the first is out and here it is. Broyen.



Upon pouring, I’m impressed by the clarity of the beer. It’s brewed with 100% wheat malt, so I assume this is the work of filtration. Regardless, it’s brilliant with a head of tightly packed small bubbles that recedes into a thin film after a minute or so.

The nose has lots of cracker and bread...unsurprising. No perceivable hop character. The tiniest bit of the esters that we usually associate with German wheat beer fermentation.

Wow. This is a clean beer. Lots of cracker and biscuit. The slightest bit of grassy Noble hop. Maybe that little touch of banana the nose hinted at. Finish is short and dry.

This beer just disappears from the glass. If I didn’t know what I was drinking, I’d guess it was a Kristalweizen, which, alas, is not that far off. Good drinker. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

 

Flying Dog Lucky SOB

Here's quickie number two. This beer features caramel malt, Galaxy, Falconers Flight... and an absolutely perfect example of a brewing gimmick - four-leaf clovers. This one's going for that upcoming holiday crowd.

It's a pretty chestnut brown. My first sip smacked me with heavy melanoidin character and toast. Since I love that in a beer, I thought this would be a winner. Not so. Midway down the glass, the overwhelming toast became overbearing. Where's the balance that good drinkablity calls for? Not here. Any other character in this beer was entirely swallowed by the melanoidins. Not only was this one a perfect example of a beer with a gimmick ingredient, it was also the perfect example of not being able to adequately judge a beer with too small a serving.

 

Cheers. Great to see someone else do this one. You might get a kick out of my post from a previous NBS:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-674.556033/page-3#post-5840154

 

Happy Super Bowl everyone! Today I'm only drinking New England beer in hops for a Patriots victory. I'm very happy to receive this as an extra in a trade.


Julius by Tree House Brewing Co.

Canned 12/29/17. Pours a beautiful hazy orange in color with a fluffy white head, which retained much longer than I was expecting (NEIPAs have a bad reputation of poor head retention). Massive fruity hop aroma with heavy citrus and tropical fruit notes. Flavor is very fruity as well, bursting with new hops and a subtle, slightly bready malt note. I'm usually not big on flavor descriptors, but this had a ton of peach & mango notes. Mouthfeel was pillowy soft with just a bit of dryness. I had high expectations for this and it easily lived up to them. I'd give it a 4.7/5



Whenever I head home to Massachusetts I always stop by Trillium for my beer hauls. I've been dying to try Tree House for a long time but the lines always scared me away. Now that I've finally tried the beer, I can totally understand the hype. I need to stop by their new facility on my next visit home. Amazing stuff! Go Patriots!!

 

Good Afternoon BAs getting ready to get some wings going starting with one of a few Aslin beers I got from a friend who was passing through and was kind enough to bring me some. This one Haka a double dry hopped DIPA clocks in at 8.5% and is not like some of the usual juice bombs I have had from them but still a pretty tasty beer. I should be back with at least one or two more before the game. I really have no skin in the game but as a Cowboys fan the Eagles are a nemesis, on the other hand I have no love for New England either just hoping for a good game.

Appearance 4.25 - pours murky yellow like grapefruit juice. Big white fluffy head good amount of lacing all around the glass.

Aroma 4 - getting a grape almost muscadine aroma. light bitter grapefruit and some orange peel, light floral aroma. The alcohol is slightly noticeable under the bitter citrus aroma.

Taste 4.25 - Taste is almost the same as the aroma. Grape up front followed by big citrus peel and a mild orange flavor. It taste like the underlying sweetness wants to poke through but the bitterness holds it back. The alcohol again comes out on the finish.

Feel 4 - Medium bodied well carbonated pretty bitter dry finish.

Overall 4.13 - A well done DIPA would like to have seen a little more juice to balance the bitterness but still a solid offering.

 

Got a chance to sit and relax a bit, time for a beer. This one is Resident Culture New Boot Goofin, a NEIPA brewed using Simcoe and El Dorado and Cashmere hops. Duuble dry hopped Simcoe, El Dorado and cashmere, the second hopping using El Dorado , Citra, Mosaic hops. Flaked oats as well, 6.5 abv.

Very light orange, turbulent, very soft fruity nose. First sip is Fruity, maybe a bit of sweet fruit upfront at that. Hard Pineapples maybe if you could ferment them. Very soft mouthfeel, I’d say med to med heavy in body the oats no doubt. Not sweet but a beautiful blend of malt to hops, there’s bitter here but it’s not distracting. There’s malt obviously with those hop combos, but it’s not sweet or cloying at all. Really impress with these beers from RC too bad their 100 miles away. Highly recommend, nice place tremendous ladies who are very helpful.