New Beer Sunday (Week 693)

Poured into a 16 oz Flying Goose Snulip canned on 4/18/18. Pours a very hazy yellow, with some floaties and a nice inch plus sticky white head that leaves plenty of thick patches of lace. 4.5

Smell apricot, papaya, mandarin orange, pineapple, and some grapefruit rind. 4.25

Taste is exactly what you would expect, tropical front to back with a nice healthy dose of grapefruit that lingers on the palate leaving your tongue begging for more. 4.5

Mouthfeel is soft with plenty of life, maybe a little dry from all the fresh hops, and at 8.2% so crazy approachable. 4.75

Overall a world class Hazy Dippa, thanks Doctorzombies for this amazing can. 4.5 cheers all!

 

New Beer Sunday: A Saison

Mornin’ NBSers with a special selection well suited for saison fans seeking those with lower ABVs. Also, a special thanks to today’s host, @cjgiant.

Today’s weather is expected to be cloudy, a bit cooler with highs in the low 60s and with the possibility of a few scattered rain showers throughout the gray day. (Seems like a good time to brighten things up a bit with a bright, crisp and refreshing beer.)

This morning's new beer is a 4.5% ABV saison, the Short Sleeve Saison from Ommegang and their new canning line.

As usual my review, subject to revision until the beer is finished, can be found here.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42/268555/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors include some bready wheat, some lemon and some spicy, peppery grassy earthiness which all fit together nicely to create a refreshing, fairly complex and nicely drinkable low ABV Saison.

Cheers, all!

 

Good morning NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend once again. Thanks to @cjgiant for getting us started off this morning. Another typical weekend for me, not much going on. Made a nice new beer haul again yesterday. Plenty of new stuff to try, will be busy for a while. Have plenty of big Bruery stouts that need reviewing, but that will be in a future week for sure. Unlimited shelf life @ 18+%. Will be making my usual Sunday bottle returns, laundry, and a grocery run later on.

Today's new morning beer:

This was fantastic. Great head retention and soapy lacing on the glass. Aromas and flavors of big milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, nutty medium roasted coffee, caramel, brown sugar, toffee, vanilla, bourbon, rum, toasted oak, biscuit, and dark/brown bread; with lighter notes of coconut, marshmallow, fudge brownie, molasses, licorice, smoke, char, dark fruit, and herbal hops. Increasing booze in the aromas as it warms, but not too overwhelming. Light herbal/roast/char bitterness and bourbon/rum/oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Light-medium carbonation and full body; very creamy, silky, velvety, and rich mouthfeel that is fantastic. Light sticky hops, chalky roast, and oak tannins. Lightly increasing lingering bitter/tannin dryness. No acrid/astringent flavors. Very smooth sipping. Mildly increasing warmth of 11.7%, with minimal barrel booziness. Not as amazing as the other variants, but still impressive. The coffee and coconut are really lacking. Feels a bit more heavy on the barrel presence(especially rum), but not overwhelming. Worth a look. 4.25


Cheers, be back much later on with more new beers NBS.

Instant new favorite album for the year. I've been listening to this for a full 24 hours. I felt the last album had too much Doom metal influence going on; but this is back to the old school Opeth-ish vibe they had going on with earlier albums. Tasteful mix of harsh/clean vocals. So amazing.

 

Cheers you all and Thanks @cjgiant for starting our Sunday ! Happy New Beer Sunday! Today I am tasting Ommegang's Hand of the Queen. This beer is listed as an English style barleywine and when I did my tasting I thought it was American style. Please let me tell you why i think that in my review.



Pours dark brownish orange. Like a rust color burnt orange. The beer is clear and glows sweetly from the middle. Fat head of beige foam that falls slowly but not completely to lace in sheets that dwindle and fall to spots. The head refreshes on each tip of the glass. At the first pour the scents are hoppy. Lemony citrusy hops and breaddy rich malt. Firm caramel comes forward as it warms. Brown bread with it's sweet richness, cherries, and raisins. Hop floral , citrusy hops and grasses and light toast. Hints of toffee as it warms. Finishes with hops prevalent in the flavor and mouthfeel.a touch of warmth and bitterness from alcohol shows me a balanced and careful finish. Dark fruits do not outshine the hop character. Soft malt texture that seems to want to give way to complex malt flavors but lemony hops preside. Sweet not dry finish but not cloying. Caramel becomes more prevalent but does not take over the beer as you drink and it does seem to lose that cherry scent that I was noticing at first. A little nutty flavor also comes forward as the beer warms but that too is muted by the citrusy hops and their floral. The spice I am tasting in the finish is from hops not malt flavors or alcohol. There is no diacetyl in this beer.

I think this is an American style barleywine and I like it very much. I paired it with my cinnamon spiced peanuts with orange and oregano! Cheers!

 

Dare me 'eh, well I'll see that and raise 'ya . . .

Actually I won't but trying to sensory evaluate something with an impaired sense of smell/taste is much in the way of taking a dare so here goes. . .




A medium golden color with a good deal more white cap than I usually get from a wheat ale.

Aroma of soft malt with some citrus touches. A mild sort of scent but a pleasant one.

Taste is soft malt at first followed by a dryish sort of citrus. Not tart and not sweet, rather nicely balanced in between. I get a definite hop hit in the back of the palate and lingering in the aftertaste.

Medium texture with more than average carbonation at first then quickly settling into a nice balance.

I like the oceanic theme because this reminds me of a beach beer. Mild yet flavorful, thirst quenching without screaming tartness or hoppiness, very open, friendly and approachable.

 

Welcome to New CANned Beer Through Tavour Sunday (Week 693)!

I know that I have been on a bit of a rave lately about Tavour, but I assure you that I am not affiliated with or paid by them to do so. I created The CANQuest (tm) ~ 14 years ago to provide a leveling topic about something that we all had access to: CANned beers. My advocacy put me at the tip of the Craft CAN sword, alongside of Russ Phillips & we are generally recognized as the guide-on/flag bearers. Still, once the movement really took hold, it became impossible to keep up. I have enough beer for a LONG time, but while I still like acquiring, I have fallen away from trading. This had meant a tremendous gap, especially from the west coast, but Tavour offers me a previously-unheard of opportunity to score West Coast CANs, including ones from Alaska!

Today is going to be all over the map since I do not discriminate when it comes to CANned beers. If it is in a CAN, I will probably pick it up. I have passed on some that were priced at $15/EA, minimum of 2, however. Leetle too salty & spendy for my taste.

I beCAN the day with a tribute to my late Pops, John Odd "Jack" ChANdler in advance of Fathers' Day, with an Odd13 pair of CANs:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32514/243922/?ba=woodychandler#review

&
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32514/209984/?ba=woodychandler#review


All right! Just like on Christmas morning, the boxes have been gleefully opened & now it is time to delve into the toys. I may not like everything that I Crack!, Glug, review & rate today, but they will all be CANs via Tavour!

 

There were shenanigans yesterday?

That Duvel is my preferred review glass. Sometimes I'll use a snifter, a Corsondonk goblet or a Weisse beer glass for a change of pace, etc. but...

Also, at about 9 years of age, my current Duvel glass is an "old friend" and enough of the gold has gone from the letters that it wouldn't photograph well even if I weren't too lazy to create an account for photo posting.

 

Maria, I picked this one up too because brewers typically aren't releasing new beers like this anymore. (Bourbon touched wood is the worst thing to ever happen to barley wines. ) It exceeded my expectations. Really enjoyed it. It's once again on my shopping list. Cheers.

 

Happy NBS morning all! Taking it easy this weekend and the temp went from 95 last Sunday to 65 as a high today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Enjoying a new DDH IPA from Hacienda Beer Co. which is a side project of Door County Brewing. They focus on Saisons, Hazy APAs and IPAs.

Closer Everywhere pours a very hazy pale yellow color that looks like it could be pure OJ. Brilliant white 2 finger head that fades very slowly and leaves a thin collar and webbed lacing splattered around the glass. The aroma is bursting with juicy tropical and ripe citrus notes and a touch of sweetness. Flavor is also very juicy with plenty of pineapple, guava, papaya, tangerine and sweet grapefruit. A bit of sweet malt and maybe some yeast on the finish. Feel is medium with softer carbonation and a light bitter finish. This was sensational and I look forward to all the beer that will be made by Hacienda.

 

Good morning New BSers! @cjgiant, thanks for getting this show on the road!

Well, today is off to the usual start, with the morning turtle sumo wrestling bouts continuing into the third match-up - lots of pushing and shoving for dock space - nobody really wants to sit on the dock, they just don't want anybody else to sit on it. Typical siblings fighting because they can.

Anyway, today's NBS entry is a "Barleywine-style ale with raspberries and blackberries aged in oak". Easy for them to say.



$ 14.70 (Including shipping)/capped bomber ($ 0.668/oz) from Tavour, Seattle, WA.
Undated bottle. Stored at 42 degrees prior to consumption and served at 58 degrees in a hand-washed and hand-dried Jester King snifter.
Appearance – 4.
Body – Dark amber, opaque, some effervescence. When held to the light, there is penetration only at the meniscus.
Head – Large (Maximum four cm, controlled center pour), tan, medium density with rocks, average retention time, diminishing to a three mm ring fed by effervescence and a thin partial layer.
Lacing – None.
First pour – Medium amber, clear.
Aroma – 3.5 – Weak, blackberries.
Flavor – 2.75 - Begins sweet with entirely too much blackberry, almost as strong (and as viscous) as blackberry pancake syrup. Neither malt nor alcohol are noticeable, nor is any trace of oak detected. No hops, no diacetyl, no dimethylsulfide. Very unbalanced and atypical for the style. No gastric warming follows.
Palate – 3 – Medium to full, syrupy, soft carbonation.
Impression and summation – 3 – The darkness and clarity as shown by the first pour are untypical for a barley wine and I find them more intriguing than irritating. The aroma, while atypical for barley wines, does at least put forth the aroma of one of the main ingredients. The flavor is killer but not in a good way – more like the Manson family than an average barley wine. A bit of oak-based tannic acid would have been nice to cut the cloying sweetness. Perhaps a bit of malt and/or alcohol flavor to legitimately claim that it’s a barley wine style would also have been useful. While the palate was much syrupier than most barley-wines, at least it was not off-putting. Overall, I feel that this brew might be helped by aging – I still have another bottle so away it goes for a year or two. Rating 3.08, rDev 0% (Since I both added this brew and am the first to rate it.)

@woodychandler - I'll have to track down your raves about Tavour - I find them useful (Tavour, that is - your raves - don't know yet).

 

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy!!

Last week I discussed Founders Green Zebra which is a watermelon Gose! A very pleasant summertime beer.

For this week I will be discussing another beer style that I enjoy drinking during the summer – Belgian Witbier. I used to homebrew a batch of Witbier every year in the spring for summertime drinking but it seemed like the only person that enjoyed drinking it was me. My wife would maybe drink one bottle and my friends just did not seem to get into this beer. Maybe the hazy appearance is a turn off? Maybe with the new craze of the so called ‘NEIPA’ beers and their turbid/murky/opaque appearance is ‘rewriting’ the script here? Who knows?

Today’s new Witbier is from Cape May and it has a ‘catchy’ name of Summer Catch.

Below are some musings on this beer from the Cape May Brewing website:

“Director of Brewing Operations Jimmy Valm is more proud of this beer than anything he’s brewed thus far. “Summer Catch is insanely good!”

“It should definitely appease all parties,” Lead Brewer Brian Hink agrees. “It’s refreshing and light-bodied, with hardly a trace of hop bitterness, but a boatload of aroma – think ripened oranges and freshly-squeezed grapefruit. We used our favorite Belgian yeast to give it a touch of extra fruity notes. There’s a hefty portion of wheat in the grain bill to lend a soft, pillowy head to the glass, and to keep a touch of body in the beer.”

What makes it so appealing isn’t so much the ingredients we used, but how we used them, according to Jimmy. “This beer is all about balance. Between the ripe orange and grapefruit hop aromas, the smooth bready notes of the wheat, and the fruity ester and spicy phenolic character of our favorite Belgian yeast, we’ve used them in an almost Golden Ratio fashion to keep the overall effect in equilibrium.”

Each of these ingredients can easily become overpowering when not handled properly; however, our beautiful bearded beer nerds know exactly what they’re doing.

“We worked very hard to ensure that the bitterness is apparent but not tongue-stripping,” Jimmy explains. “We selected varieties of hops that are complementary, aiming for a relatively smooth bitterness. By adding them at just the right time in the boil, we’ve limited astringency and tartness. And through careful control of the fermentation process, we’ve kept it at a moderate temperature that doesn’t let the little yeasties run wild.”

The result is a yeast character that is distinct but not dominant, hop aromas that are enticing but not off-putting, and a brew that will seduce beer nerds but won’t offend the everyman.

“This beer is pure synergy, the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts.”

Your new summer beer is here.”

Who the heck doesn’t like “pure synergy”!?!

Let’s drink!!

Served in my Spiegelau Witbier glass:

Appearance:

A hazy light golden color with a BIG white head.

Aroma:

The first thing that hits me is citrus but there are ‘Belgiany’ flavors as well (e.g., spicy flavors) and in the background there is some bready character.

Taste:

The flavor follows the nose with the citrus being prominent but the flavor profile is pleasantly accompanied by the flavors of spicy and bready. This beer has low - moderate bitterness.

Mouthfeel:

Light/medium bodied with a dry-ish finish.

Overall:

I think this beer is very good! I very much enjoyed drinking it!! I really appreciated the complex combination of citrus, ‘Belgiany’ flavors and bready.

I recommend that you listen to this as you drink this beer but hear the word “synergy” vs. “energy”.


Cheers to the folks of Cape May Brewing for producing a tasty & enjoyable summertime beer!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @Sixpoint @brianhink @JValm

P.S. A slight warning: this beer is not a traditional Witbier (e.g., Hoegaarden). For example, it has a more prominent citrus ‘punch’ to it. Maybe it would be more appropriate to characterize this beer as being a Belgian Wheat Beer vs. a Witbier – which is exactly how this beer is detailed on the beer can!!

 

Seemed more like an English Barleywine to me, hops were not that noticable in my bottle. Maybe care and handling? You bottle had a much short journey to you I'm guessing...

 

A-Pours a nice brown color with a slight head and lacing
A-Aroma has subdued raisin, cinnamon and milk sugar hints
T-The taste follows the nose with raisin, cinnamon and milk sugar flavors
M-A medium bodied well carbonated beer
O-A nice take on an oatmeal raisin cookie

 

Thanks for the nice start to NBS @cjgiant. Will be back later on with a new brew.

Cheers!

 

Wow! Great pics, Tim.

 

Samuel Smith organic cherry ale
..red brown fairly clear color
..body is about medium as well as carbonation
..aroma is all cherry candy and juice
..taste is about the same as aroma,as it warms some malt and grain come through
..overall it was good but tastes way too much like sparkling cherry juice

 

A-Pours a nice amber color with a head and lacing
A-Aroma has slight rye and bourbon hints
T-The taste follows the nose with subdued rye and bourbon flavors
M-A medium bodied well carbonated beer
O-A decent rye beer with a subtle yet strong kick