New Beer Sunday (Week 684)

Mikkeller SD Mexican pale lager, Collab with 2 Mexican Breweries. This was really nice. Great head retention/lacing for the style. Flavors of lemon, lime, cracker, corn, white bread, and light herbal/grassy hop earthiness. Similar/muted aromas. Very mild herbal, grassy, spicy hop bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation, light-medium body, and fairly crisp/clean finishing. Bready/grainy malts and light sticky hops in the mouthfeel. Light-moderate increasing lingering bitter dryness. Very flavorful/refreshing, 4.8%. Never watery. Perfectly clean lager flavors. Feels like they added citrus to this, but it doesn't say anything on the label. Clean pils malt/corn flavors, and solid earthy hop presence for the style. Not overdone on adjuncts. Would buy again for sure. 3.88


Thanks @The-Adjunct-Hippie. Another flavored stout. This was very nice. Aromas and flavors of big cooling peppermint, dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, and toasted dark/brown bread; with light notes of smoke, and herbal hops/mint. Very mild herbal hop/mint and roast bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body; creamy/bready/grainy malt mouthfeel; slight sticky hop and chalky roast. A bit thin, but not watery. Lightly increasing lingering bitter dryness. Very easy drinking, 5.6%. Really tasty stuff. Well rounded stout malt complexity and balanced cooling peppermint flavors on the finish. I was a fan. 3.85


Another from The-Adjunct-Hippie. Outstanding APA! Fantastic head retention/soapy lacing on the glass. Aromas and flavors of big tangerine, grapefruit, lemon, lime, peach, pineapple, apricot, passion fruit, papaya, mango, melon, guava, berry, citrus peel/zest, and light pepper/pine hops; with balanced white bread dough, biscuit, light honeyed malts; and herbal, floral, grassy hop earthiness. Light pine, zesty, herbal, grassy, spicy bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body; bready/grainy malts and some sticky hops in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing lingering bitter dryness. Super refreshingly drinkable, never aggressive, 6%. Extremely juicy, vibrant, and lightly dank hops; perfectly balanced bready malts. Spot on Pale ale all the way through. I really want Odell to expand here some day soon. 4.18


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Now up Evil Twin Even More Coco Jesus!
4.4/5 rDev +6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

16 oz can poured into a teku

A- Black with a two finger mocha head.

S- Dark fruits, molasses, some coconut, dark chocolate, mildly smokey.

T- Coconut, dark chocolate, molasses, some dark fruits, touch of smoke.

M- Smooth, medium to full body.

O- Another great stout from Evil Twin, not as good as other Jesus beers, but still very good.

A great beer but as far as coconut goes the small chocolate treat from @y2kawakami is better. That small piece of chocolate is making me miss having refined sugar.

 

I really need to get back to Richmond and Charlottesville. I've spent a great deal of my life in both cities visiting relatives, going to college, and socializing for many years. The old sleepy city of Richmond in 1969, still recovering from the great depression and reconstruction, is now a marvel. This is what America is all about!

 

Another PA offering from Pizza Boy via Floyd!



Moderate pour yields a 1/2 inch white head over a slightly hazy golden body with a bit of sticky lacing. Nose of slight tropical fruit, citrus, and a bit of pine resin, Taste of tropical fruit and citrus with a very nice, slightly dry finish. Nice feel and overall another solid offering from Enola, PA. cheers!

4.23/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

Glad you guys enjoyed that one, it was a colab with Interboro brewed in honor of Bob Weckback who was a cellarman for CC, his brother in law works for Interboro so they brewed one in his memory.

 

Jumping in here kind of late. Been in Iowa all weekend and then Central Illinois decides to have a tiny snowstorm on the drive home.

First beer tonight is from @CanConPhilly

Double Peach Milkshake from Tired Hands




4.28/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Pours a hazy yellow with just over a finger's worth of thick, foamy, white head. Smell is of tangerine and a touch of peach. Not nearly as much peach as I was expecting, Taste is peachy with a bit of vanilla at the end. Also a very smooth beer with a medium mouthfeel. Not thin, but not thick either. A nice beer, but just sweet enough that I personally wouldn't want more than one in a sitting.

 

This was the beer that got me started on craft, a buddy showed up at a fishing trip with a cooler full and after having 7-8 of them and realizing one of my legs was a little shorter than the other I was hooked. CC would have to be my favorite GA brewery, closest one too.

 

G' evening NBS-ers!
Back atcha with one more for tonight. This one hit my porch a couple of weeks ago from @Tom_V


Poured from a 22 oz. bottle into a JK Snörkel glass. Bottled on date 01.29.18

Appearance: Turbid, murky orange juice with pulp appearance. Not much of a head to speak of.

Aroma: Dank orange with peaches and pineapple.

Taste/Mouthfeel: Nothing short of delicious! Spicy and dank hops. Orange, papaya, soft pine, there's a mild sweetness on the end reminiscent of caramel. Sounds odd but that's what I'm getting. Pillowy light Mouthfeel, very easy to drink.

Overall: Another great beer from TG! Even with this one being 2 months old, it is still tasting fresh. All danknes and hops with a slightly sweet finish. I'd definitely crush this one again.

Cheers!

 

So there's this place in Minnesota with a Viking death metal theme, and they make a bunch of smoked beers, and also do crazy stuff with them. And thanks to the amazing @Vidblain , I now have a few of them in my prized possession. Well, officially one fewer as of right now , but this will be the perfect nightcap for me as I settle into my designated couch potato position for the evening:


Mani by Hammerheart brewing: smoked chocolate stout, cherries, vanilla, bourbon barrels.

I didn't know exactly how to serve this, and I don't have a skull of my vanquished enemies lying around, so I just used a big mug.

The first sip is quite lovely, actually. Dark bitter chocolate dominates, but the other flavors are pretty deftly woven in there. Somehow it manages to be both creamy and dry, which is fairly impressive. I'm definitely getting some gentle smoke, but also a solid oakiness, while the vanilla plays a supporting role way down in the mix. If anything, it's just lending a slight lightness to the flavor to keep things from going over the darkness edge.

The cherries do add an interesting component. I'd be lying if I said that it didn't immediately bring to mind that 'infected' quality a certain BBA stout has had problems with. But thankfully there is no tartness to go along with it, and those feelings of apprehension go quickly away as the cherries take their place in the mix, which would be a complementary fruitiness that really comes out on the finish.

Wow- it's just super plush black velvet in a glass. The more I drink this the more I love that creamy feel combined with the dryness and a , well, 'fine grained woodiness' is the best way I can put it. There's nothing heavy or coarse here at all, which seems to defy initial expectations.

Oh, man, this is such a far cry from the last chocolate vanilla stout that I had, it's not funny, Where that one was sweet and dessert-like and got cloying really fast, this one feels like it's just getting started after the first half-pint. The bitter edge of the dark chocolate is smoothing out now, and the base malt toffee qualities are coming out to play. I truly am looking forward to every last drop here. A preliminary very impressed A+ (4.7). Thanks so much, Chris!

 

New IPA Sunday (Week 684)
Greetings again fellow NBSers. Really enjoying the amazing selections from all of us, and their exceptionally well done reviews, especially the extreme generosity and good taste of those in our homegrown BIF.

Those who know me are familiar with my stories from my three years on the road after taking the last two words of Dr. Leary's 6 word recommendation to heart. The name of this beer, Hitchiker, is what brings that to mind. I once tried to figure out how many miles I have hitched in my life and it is somewhere between 50K to 100K miles, which includes years of hitching to dead shows, years of hitching to work, 6 times cross country, twice up and down Mexico, and many, many shorter sojourns. i was a firm believer in well made signs to increase odds, and I had my patented tricks for when desperation hit. Not sure how the name of this beer got chosen, but it definitely is one I feel I can drink with more right to do so than almost everyone else you'll ever meet. Hitchiker, from Good People, by way of @richj1970 in NBS BIF 7. Thanks again, good sir.

Light but tasty aroma. It shows the caramel and hops in this baby right away. I get grapefruit pith, herbal bitter, pine, and that caramel sweet wraps through it all.

More full flavored than aroma suggests. It starts with caramel sweet that quickly is joined by deep grapefruit bitter, bitter orange, sweeter general citrus notes, righteous herbal bitter, and much less pine than expected. Sip ends with the bitter notes cresting but not to the point of overpowering the palate.

Highly viscous, med. carb., lots of hop resin linger, but it is soft on palate so it shows the hops in a gentler manner than their huge presence would indicate. Finish is long, strong, and clean.

Huge hoppy beer that manages to be refreshing and delicious while delivering a major clean blast of IPA goodness. Recommended for those who, like me, are dyed in the wool hopheads.

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

 

Good Evening NBS & Happy Easter
My twelve hour shift went ok today and I walked into about an hour and a half of cleaning up Easter dinner after my wife hosted her family here to give her mom a break. On to new beer...

The review:
22oz bottled 2/28/18 (CA) poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass at fridge temp 8.8% ABV 76.92 IBU. The beer pours bright light copper to amber in color with abundant light khaki head. The head sticks around and leaves plenty of lacing. The aroma is mild with piney & citrusy hints. The taste leads off with some barely sweet caramel then transitions to earthy, piney, citrus bitterness. The balance is not perfect, as it leans a little toward the bitter hops, but it's complimentary to my taste. Mouthfeel is medium to thin bodied, adequately carbonated and mostly dry in the finish. The finish has a bit of hop oil/shellac, that is perfect for a hoppy red ale. Overall, excellent. Very enjoyable, very affordable double red IPA.

There you have it. I'm one and done tonight. Thanks to @lordofthewiens and @cjgiant for this last year of hosting NBS. It's something I look forward to every week. Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass!

 

Happy Hoppy New Easter April Beer Fools' Sunday (Week 684), CANtinued!

Hoisted by my own petard! Once the little buggers, I mean kids, realized my prank, I found myself being pelted with rotten eggs! Ugh. Oh well, this was a once-in-my-lifetime event so I don't regret too much.

My foray into Sierra Nevada's Experimental Land CANtinued with the IPAs:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/324282/?ba=woodychandler#review


https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/324280/?ba=woodychandler#review
&

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/324285/?ba=woodychandler#review


all with results which were pretty closely aligned with the site average. I applaud Sierra Nevada for their experimentalism, but I was left underwhelmed.

I then turned my CANtention to New Belgium & their:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/302437/?ba=woodychandler#review

but I CANtinued to feel unfulfilled, so I CANtinued my day with:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24047/62851/?ba=woodychandler#review

which turned out to be a misnomer since it was the best of the lot thus far.

 

Cheers, Michael! I'm excited now - haven't had this particular beer yet. I picked up a second bottle with yours... but, this may go out to another NBSer... if I can remember who all is in to smoked beers!

Regardless - really glad to hear you enjoyed it!

 

Happy Easter NBSers! After painstakingly doing my daughters’ hair and getting them into their Easter dresses we headed to church which was unnecessarily long. Not to worry though, my M-I-L always stocks either Founders or Bells in the fridge for family holidays! But... nothing today... ugh, so sparkling grape juice it was.

Got home though and it is spring so that called for my first Oberon of the year:


April Fools! It is not spring hear in West MI (note the glove) as it hovered between 27 and 35 degrees most of the day, another ugh.

Making the most of the day though and definitely still being dark beer weather, decided to open a barrel aged porter this evening:


Funky Buddha - Last Buffalo in the Park

Opaque black beer with a light brown / whitish head. ALL coconut on the nose, first whiff reminds you of bad decisions made with Malibu rum in high school. As you drink the beer nose is less strip club and more tiki bar. A lot of coconut on first sips and it’s present throughout your glass. Good balance on bitterness and roast, sweet bit not cloyingly so. Not much bourbon flavor from the barrel, maybe subtle oak but I would guess this didn’t spend very long in the barrel. Mouthfeel is nice, not super thick but certainly not thin. Overall this beer is very enjoyable but you’d better like coconut.

Watching this live version of Jesus Christ Superstar with the Mrs. as I finish up solo-ing this bottle, again, happy Easter, and hope you’re enjoying this Sunday at least as much as I am.

 

I've had 4 beers from CC, thanks to your generosity. The worst one was very, very good (rated 4.25 by moi). That's as great a compliment as I can give.

 

Woody, glad to see you're enjoying that Outrage. Years ago I helped judge an event, and it turns out that Outrage was the beer that my group fell in love with. Since then Crossroads' super talented brewer, Hutch Kugeman, started (with Garrett Oliver) the hugely successful Brewing Arts program at CIA in Hyde Park. Three years later the program is one of the best in country thanks to Hutch. I mention it because Outrage suffered greatly from his leaving, and it is good to know it might be back to normal now. Gonna hafta get a taste of the current product.

Cheers!

 

I spy a tank in the background, what's in it?

I'm late to the party today, just getting back from NY for Passover. Tonight I'm starting out with Watch Out Now, an IPA collaboration from Threes, Interboro, and Industrial Arts. It pours a murky yellow, holds a thin layer of head. Smells of grain and citrus, nose isn't strong but not unpleasant either. Taste is melon, light notes of orange and lime. Mouthfeel is overall creamy, though has a sensation that I can only describe as gritty. Maybe I'm just happy to be home and out of the car, but I really enjoy this one.

 

I CAN only hope that it lives up to your expectations! Let me know if you CAN't find it.

 

I normally dont intentionally age beer.

Most of the beers I consume are of a hoppy offering.

But today's something a little special that has been in the making for about 2 years and change.

And since I have not had a single bottle of this beer in that duration of time I figured it's should be just fine for todays "NEW" beer sunday.

And today "NEW" beer is none other then one of the best beers on planet earth of course.

Laddies and Gent's welcome Chimay Blue, bottle in 2015.

Wow this beer really does age well. My biggest surprise was when I opened the bottle, there were no signs of re-fermentation at all.

Beer still has tons of active carbonation that helped to produce a nice clean inch head that dissipated fast. Grapes and Dark fruit on the pallet with an almost champagne like carbonation that finishes dry and clean.

Very malt forward brew that never manages to be too sweet.

This beer is outstanding! World Class in fact. I rarely have the patience to age beer, but I am so happy and glad I did with this one. Some beers really do age like a fine wine and this is one of them BAs!

Cheers!

 

Fish. I've no idea what kind. I'm housesitting , and all I know is to drop some food in every other day, and to turn their light on and off. One is orance, with a big tail, and the other is very small, and kinda clear looking. It's only a 5 gallon tank.