New Beer Sunday (Week 698)

Happy Sunday NBS players. A big relief in the humidity here on the island. Really just a nice summer day. Got some yard work lined up along with plenty of mindless baseball games. Starting things off at Westhampton Beach brewing co. They just opened last month, right in my backyard, and surprisingly I didn’t realize it. Needless to say I will be hitting this place a lot. The beers aren’t even in the data base so I will try and add some later today.

My first new beer today is their Hurricane ipa. I actually had this beer on the 4th but it’s still pretty new to me. The brew checks in at 7.06% abv, 105 ibu, and it features simcoe, Amarillo, eukanot, and el dorado hops.

A pretty gold color on the pour with amber highlights. A quick white head with major clarity. The nose is tame with hops and malt. Not terribly floral. A nice punch of bitter hops upfront on the first few sips. A rather clean and smooth flow that finishes bitter. The fruit notes are more on the subtle side and I get much more of a pine/resin quality. Definite malt presence that adds some honey sweetness to the finish as well. Mouth feel is moderate/light and rather clean.

Overall, not great but a pretty good first offering. I’m in the mid/high 3’s here players.

 

Back for another NBS post. I’m enjoying this Cool Runoffs NE DIPA by Alvarado St. Brewery from Monterey, CA. I bought this can about three weeks ago, but couldn’t get around to opening till today. There isn't a date on the can, though I know that this can was canned one month ago. Admittedly the can wasn’t stored in a refrigerator, though it doesn’t seem to have affected the beer much.



Look: The beer pours bright yellow, with about a finger and a half of bright white head on a semi aggressive pour down the middle. The head retention is medium, as is the amount of the lacing left on the glass. (4.5)

Smell: The smell here is very much reminiscent of ripe oranges, usually present in Citra-dominated NEIPAs. This beer doesn’t have any Citra, but I guess the combination of El Dorado and Amarillo make up a similar result. (4.25)

Taste: Follows the nose well - ripe orange and tangerine all the way through, with some very mild sweetness in the middle. There isn’t any bitterness, even on the back end. No alcohol is apparent in the taste. (4.5)

Feel: This beer is definitely full bodied as far as IPAs go, even for a double. This definitely fits the profile and goes well with the taste. I would say that carbonation is about medium for the style, fitting perfectly into the whole picture. (4.75)

Overall: Fantastic NE DIPA that excels in all the necessary departments. I think this surpasses Wave Jammer as my favorite Alvarado St. NEIPA. I tried to be critical here, but objectively I can’t find much wrong with it. (4.5)

All of this comes out to 4.47 with rDev of +3%

Cheers!

 

Splitting some new beers with my cousin today! He uses this beer box delivery website to order some pretty cool stuff from all around the US (and some limited imports as well), so we're gonna be diving into some unknown territory today. Let's start with a brewery that's familiar to me... in fact, this beer is somewhat familiar to me in that I've had other Port anniversary DIPAs before but not this particular one. Let's see how it stacks up!



Pours a really beautiful sunburst-orange color with a nice, retentive and shapely head of white foam. Once it peters down to about a half-finger, some sticky lace patterns hanging around in both of our glasses as well as some decent legs. Good stuff!

Nose is big on grapefruit, guava, dank/catty and pine/resinous elements with some light grassiness in there as well. A little bit of biscuity/caramel malt kicking around with a definite sniff of ethanol heat. Slight tangerine and orange peel as it warms.

Definitely a big, boozy DIPA on order here with strong bitterness; grapefruit-flavored aspirin with dank and piney flavors combining with slightly juicy, almost-tropical notes. Strong backbone of caramel malt in the mid-palate fades out to reveal more pill-y bitterness in the swallow. Not super-sweet, but pretty well-balanced, honestly. Creamy mouthfeel with a palate-coating stickiness, as expected from Port's big IPAs. Is it a triple IPA? It's right about on the cusp, in my opinion. It still has a lot of malt heft to it and doesn't feel like it's super overly-dry-hopped, so there's a really "old-school Cali IPA" element to it. Makes sense.

 

Thanks for the invite. Never been to NM, but a lot different than Maine in the scenery, out door things to do. Enjoy!

Cheers!

 

A-Pours a very nice clear golden color with a slight head and lacing
A-Aroma has lime and mandarin hints
T-The taste follows the nose with a nicely balanced crispness yielding lime and mandarin flavors
M-A light bodied well carbonated beer
O-A well balanced refreshing summer beer

 

Good afternoon, NBS! Just finished dinner after my first round of golf of the year. I haven't played a non-team round of golf in probably damn near a year, and I've forgotten so much in my last 4-5 years of almost never playing (after playing 2-3 times a week for about a half dozen years or so). It was a wonderful day to play and our threesome finished in under 3.5 hours (with the better of the group walking).

I played maybe just a little better than I expected considering I only hit a few putts before we went to the first tee. I might've forgotten the rules of the game in my absence from it, and while I did have one birdie (on a short par 5), I had neither a home run nor a touchdown. Ok - I shot a 93, which is a few shots over bogey golf I would've considered a small victory, and did have every score from 3 to 9 on my card except a 7.

I have a couple new brews to share, but the GF went out with a friend while I golfed and we usually try to share new beers. Also two of the beers are higher ABV and I'm not looking for that right now. So I'll go with a beer we have a four pack of that I expect to be fine with the GF having the other three.

My opener is from Center of the Universe (COTU), and is one of their rotating-hop profile series called Chameleon. This can happens to be the color red, so Chameleon - Red. Their website is not so forthcoming about the series or this specific beer, but from the link of this beer in their "on tap" section (which links to Untappd), this beer has these ingredients: Galaxy & Simcoe hops with the following malts: Maris Otter, 2-Row, Flaked Oats, Flaked Barley, Acidulated Malt.

COTU beers generally fall into that "solid enough" range for me, and I've reviewed a couple on here in the past. Let's see if this can come in over the 3.75 range I am expecting:


A dull amber - dulled perhaps from the medium heavy haze that doesn't let light lighten the color. The head builds nicely and leaves a bunch of dense foam lacing.

Nose is fruity with an herbal tea background. The fruits seem sweeter melon-to tropical with a little sweet citrus - clementine perhaps - with a little ruby red grapefruit pith to accent things and prevent my expectations from leaning too sweet (though the herbal note also helps - minty to maybe eucalyptus in nature).

Taste starts with a tropical tea blend - heavier on the leafy/earthy side. The orange/tropical juice blend gets a couple words in before the herbal notes and grapefruit pithy bitterness butts in. Not too bitter overall - the fruit notes linger enough to prevent the taste leaning the other way too far. Aftertaste is mint to evergreen with a little grapefruit pith.

A nice, soft mouthfeel that is not creamy - more thin and easy flowing with muted carbonation. This beer surprised me. Overall, it's a fairly balanced IPA with an herbal component in lieu of a strong bitter aspect. Fairly refreshing and I could easily grab a second of these after I finish this one. A nice little surprise.

 

Boulevard grand cru
..above average body while the carbonation is subdued
..an almost solid,murky black
..Aroma is malt,coffee,cherries,chocolate,cherry cordial boozy smell
..Taste is chocolate ,cherries, and coffee. Very mild sweetness with the cherry cordial/booze taste coming through also. High abv is for the most part very well hidden
...overall if I wasn't so buzzed I would go to the store right now and grab another four pack

 

New Beer Sunday: A Saison

Afternoon NBSers with a signal to seekers of saisons suitable for a sustained Sunday sipping session.

This afternoon's new beer is a low ABV (4.8%) saison called Worker’s Comp from Two Roads.

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

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30437/88244/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors of this one are fruity and spicy with some white pepper and a bit of clove. Some bready sweetness is noticeable and there are tropical fruits in the background that remain noticeable as part of the long, slightly earthy, lightly bitter finish. For a relatively low ABV beer there’s a lot of flavor complexity here and I’ll probably get another to revisit both the beer and my review. (But I don't think I'll be adding it to my regular rotation._

Cheers, all!

 

A-Pours a very nice clear golden color with a slight head and lacing
A-Aroma has subtle hop hints
T-The taste follows the nose with a nice bitter hop flavor
M-A light bodied well carbonated beer
O-A well balanced refreshing hop summer beer

 

New beer #2. From 2 of my favorite breweries, but the whole is less...oh, you know.

Oh...that’s Trill - Other Half feat. Trillium
IPA - 7.5% abv
Canned 6/19/18 (19 days ago)
Score: 3.97 (-5.9% rDev)



L - 2-finger dense white head atop a murky orange body.

S - candied oranges, licorice?, pancakes, cream cheese. Unusual.

T - imagine an orange starburst, that is deep-fried and topped with a dollop of spray cheese. That’s what I’m getting here. The cheese isn’t super-pungent but it’s present. A bit of licorice on the taste too. A bit of dankness and pine. Low bitterness. Moderate sweetness. Low booziness.

F - medium body with slightly above average carb.

O - very strange ipa. If I tasted this blind I doubt I would name OH or Trillium as being involved in its creation.

 

Enjoying some sunshine and Triple Crossing Feirce Abandon. When I opened the can right away it reminded me of brewing since it smelled a lot like the cooling wort of an IPA. I did decide to review it because it is a solid IPA, just needed to ferment more.

3.93/5 rDev -1.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

16 oz can, dated 7/3/18, poured into a teku

A- A hazy golden orange with a two finger white head

S- Citrus, dank, some sweet biscuity malts, hints of tropical fruits, pizza dough.

T- Citrus, grapefruit, citrus zest, somewhat dank, sweet doughy malts.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- Not a bad IPA, but tasty like it should have been fermented more. It doesn’t taste like wort, but it has a wort like quality to it. The hops are good, I just feel they should have had this beer ferment to more like 6.5-7.5% ABV.

Cheers!

 

There was a M-43 drop in GA about a month ago as well as an appearance at a festival here in March. All signs point to that not being the last drop here. Hopefully it becomes a somewhat regular thing.

 

Alright, on to the second. Good to have a drinking partner in order to get through these crazy beers. This one utilizes Mosaic "cryo hops" (aka lupulin powder) as well as Galaxy hops, and is a collaboration between Boulevard and the much-smaller Zipline brewed at the latter brewery. Apparently, BLVD did their own version in Kansas City with help from Zipline, which is called Linkin' Up. Unfortunately don't have that one, but this is really damn good on its own!



Pours an insanely-lightly-colored, golden hue with soapy, bone-white head that leaves behind incredible lace patterns. This is really much lighter colored than I figured it'd be... only 2-row and Vienna malt according to the press release.

Nose is really forward with dank/sticky tropical fruit and jammy citrus/berry notes. Mosaic is doing some solid work here, for sure. Orange marmalade, mango, guava and passion fruit with light notes of floral/herbal hoppiness. Slightly catty but pretty much seems grounded in tropical and citric elements.

Flavor profile is orange, tangerine, strawberry-esque and pine-y with slight notes here and there of melon, raspberry and blackberry. The resinous bitterness catches up in the mid-palate, where it intercepts a light, crisp, and crackery malt backbone. No sweetness here... this is very much about showcasing the "cryo hops" along with the liberal Galaxy hopping. Beautiful melange of unique elements, and not very much ethanol to speak of. This tastes more in the low-7% realm than anything "double IPA"-like, that's for sure!

Feel is super airy and light-bodied. At first I was assuming they used some oats or wheat in here along with the 2-row to keep the color so light, but since it's Vienna malt and (apparently) no unmalted grains, the "pillowy"/typical NEIPA kind of approach is eschewed for ease of drinking. Long, palate-coating finish with surprising fruit flavors and coating bitterness. Just super well-made. Looking forward to seeing if my cousin can get us any more by Zipline!

 

Interboro & Burnt Mill - Yo! Play Peach Smoothie

Interboro is one of my “locals.” I have never heard of Burnt Mill. This is billed as a double IPA with honey, peaches, vanilla, and lactose. This isn’t the type of beer that I normally gravitate to, but I like trying beers I don’t normally gravitate to.

The beer is copper colored. Carbonation is light. It has a lot of white particulate (which is something that I always find unappealing). The first taste was surprisingly sour. The whole “vanilla/lactose” thing is handled very lightly. There’s some peach flavor, but nothing overwhelming. There’s a light herbal kick that comes through ever so slightly for balance.

My second glass of this was a total snow globe, and that just turns me off big time. Beyond that, there’s nothing compelling here and the sourness comes as a surprise.

 

Hello NBS, posting today from Geneva. We just arrived so thought I would add a beer while we settle into the AirBNB place and then head out to eat a bite. I haven't had as many new beers as I had hoped, lots of walking to see the sights and driving from town to town.
The beer in Dublin was a bit underwhelming, I did find a good attempt at a NEStyle IPA in this one.

Poured a hazy yellow orange with a finger of loose white head.
Smells of citrus primarily grapefruit, pineapple, a bit of pine.
Taste is more pineapple forward, piney, lingering grapefruit.
Feel is a bit thin and overcarbed for the style.
Overall a decent taste of home in a world where Guiness is king.
More to come later.

 

Here comes another one



Will be going for a more succinct review here as this is my first kellerbier, and since I’m still relatively inexperienced when it comes to lager beers. Purchased this yesterday, but not sure when it was actually canned since there isn’t a date on the can. The beer pours bright clear golden yellow with a two-ish fingers of bright white frothy head (as shown in picture) on a non-aggressive pour. The head exhibits great retention, with above average lacing left on the glass. I would like to note that even after 20 minutes past opening there is still about 1/3 fingers of head sitting on top of the beer. The nose is relatively intense, with plenty of the those typical noble-hop notes that typically highlight the pilsner style. The taste follows the nose with overwhelmingly deep pilsner bitterness, and noticeable 2-row malt backbone (I think, please don’t judge too hard). The body is fairly light, and highly carbonated. There are bubbles everywhere in the glass, even 20 minutes after pouring it. I’ve been getting into lager type beers a bit more lately, and was happy to see this new offering in my go-to shop. I will refrain from rating this at the moment, due to my lack of experience, but it’s definitely a winner in my book. Definitely recommend this beer to all pilsner lovers, and would we be curious how more experience drinkers would rate this.

Edit: A couple corrections to the above. First of all, I found the Julian date label on the can after all, and apparently this was canned on June 22nd. Also, after pouring the rest of the can into the glass, I noticed some floaties dropping out. Have never seen this in a lager-type beer before. I took a closer look into the glass, and now see a bunch of micro floateies suspended in the middle as well. Not really sure what to think of this. I guess these beers are truly made to be enjoyed as fresh as possible. That being said, the beer still tastes great.

Cheers!

 

This is El Segundo Brewing Co.'s seventh-anniversary beer, Sietes de las Suertes (Spanish for "Lucky Sevens"), and it's—what else?—a double IPA! To be fair, we have a decent amount of DIPAs in the fridge to get through, considering they're about half of what my cousin ordered... the other half is big stouts, barleywines, barrel-aged stuff... y'know, the less time-sensitive beers.

Anyway, this pours a nice medium golden color with a tight and surprisingly minimal head. Not much buildup here at all, and only middling legs, but some decent tiered lacing does show up after a few minutes in my glass. Surface is moderately obscure and the beer itself is definitely unfiltered but not overly-hazy. Let's use the word "translucent," shall we?

The nose is a bit more ethanol-forward than the other two IPAs we've split today, and I get a lot of grapefruit and tangelo scents along with some grassiness and pine resin. It's kind of underwhelming compared to the past two, especially when stacked up against Gettin' Down, which had some super-unique stuff going on.

The flavors are solid; a lot of pine and grapefruit melding with resinous bitterness toward the mid-palate. Slightly grassy flavors that might have popped better a month ago (this was bottled The finish is refreshingly dry and nicely-hoppy, but it goes down smooth... though, honestly, it's a little on the plain side. Nothing spectacular, though it does drink easier than a 9.2% DIPA should.

 

Innis and Gunn oak aged dark ale
.. solid black appearance
...above average body and plenty of carbonation but overall nice feel
...Aroma is dark fruit,malt, some plum with an oak/wood smell
...Taste is similar, the dark fruit and malt work well togethor. The oak shows up in the middle and takes over taste.
....overall it was a very decent beer. The oak was a bit too much, left a taste in my mouth that reminded me of wood shop class when I was a kidfree image host

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and thanks to @lordofthewiens for getting us going this post-Independence Day Sunday.

The 4th on a Wednesday was odd, at least for someone who works at an airport. I'm guessing fewer people flew for this one than has happened in a while, although after the local chaos of Hoopfest (and the normal chaos that goes with working at the 2nd fastest growing airport in the country), the slowdown was appreciated.

Mostly clear and 79, with a high of 90 expected. Tuesday was our sudden entry into summer temperatures, hitting 94. In true Spokane style, the next couple days saw a back-off to the mid 70s, but I suppose summer heat is probably to be expected, going forward.

@lordofthewiens I do not envy your situation. I helped my parents move out of their home of 21 years in 2011. Even after spending a year paring down their possessions, they still had an ungodly amount of crap to pack up. Of course, it didn't help that they set aside the last two weeks in their house for the serious packing, then lost a week of that time when my Mom had appendicitis while they were visiting my brother on the other side of the state. I spent about 4 days packing boxes for them until around 2am each night, then rising at 6am to start again. If called on to do this again, I will fake my own death...

Today I'm hitting something I've been sitting on for months. It appears I have accidentally deleted whoever sent this to me (I believe it came from @gopens44, but it might actually be from @bl00).
Regardless, it's awesome:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/287/37265/?ba=woemad#review
Perhaps I should have saved this for use as a dessert beer, but by then, it might've been too hot, if it does get to 90. Utterly delicious, superbly balanced, with a surprisingly low amount of boozy heat.

 

Happy NBS, friends!

Firstly, let me apologize for any stylistic errors, misspellings, or erroneous grammar that follows: I've been awake since about 9am yesterday (1:30pm currently) and I am not exactly in the most coherent state! Not to worry, nothing amiss - but I've spent a few days in Boston this week, and having a very early flight home this morning, it just worked out that way.

The Boston trip was obviously the highlight of my week. I made stops at Trillium Fort Point, Tree House, and Trillium Canton on Thursday and tried a ton of different beers - not to mention all of the beer that I packed and brought home/shipped to friends, trade partners, etc.:



(Pardon the bad hotel lighting) It's kind of silly because, getting home today, my fridge looked surprisingly empty. That didn't last long - more on that in a moment. But, I spent Friday doing a lot of my packing and shipping. Later in the afternoon, after a wretched bento box at some Japanese chain place, I stopped by Idle Hands. Their Kill Your Idles was no joke - full of plums and apricots and very pleasantly tart and sour. Saturday was absorbed in touristy activities - no drinking, sadly.

Anyway, as noted - my fridge was looking quite empty when I got home today. This did not last long as I found a box awaiting me from @totalbangover - suddenly, I was flush with fantastic Michigan beer.



Pardon the garbage basement lighting - it's currently the only cool, not-muggy place in my house. So after loading up some laundry and taking the dog on a walk, I began work on this package in earnest. The first casualty:



With glassware from another Michigander in @FlintB - thank you both! Green Stone features a very grassy, lightly dry, quite dank mishmash of tasting notes. It has a light bite to it as well (re: taste, not re: ABV/booziness). It's quite refreshing on a warm day like today. Recommended for hanging out in the basement and taking a nap (like I'll be doing shortly).

So it's nap time. I'll probably be back later - hope you all enjoy your NBS to the fullest!

PS - @lordofthewiens - just leave the damn treadmill for the new residents. Call it a feature of the fully furnished fitness center in your home!