New Beer Sunday (Week 700)

Cheers you all and a big thank you to Doc @lordofthewiens for getting us started this Sunday! I want to say thank you so much to @2beerdogs for sending me beer. Holy moly you talk about a great surprise. When I saw the beer I decided that i was going to "cook this box of beer;" meaning I would try to come up with dishes to pair with each beer. I have had such an amazing time doing that and I thank you for the chance to try these awesome selections. The beer was all from the Bruery except for one and this was my favorite IPA of the two he sent. This beer made a terrific impression on me. This is Bravo DIPA from Offshoot Beer CO. Offshoot is an offshoot of The Bruery just like Terreux .





Pours with a look like orange juice. Sultry orange yellow, hazy and lets just enough light in to show you that haze. Creamy white head of foam that fell well leaving some lace to look at. The nose is a bouquet from the nelson hop. White grape skin. They are one of those hops that has a great and powerful presence on the palate even though thier flavor is somewhat delicate in the beers I have had that feature it. I think that it is their citrusy backing that allows them to resemble white wine. They also have a generous spice and soft grasses. I would even use the word intriguing. Just enough scent from malt on the nose to suggest sweet cracker. No real esters form alcohol even though the beer is over 8 percent. No diacetyl and no DMS. The suggestion of tropical fruit in this beer could be a gentle ester from the yeast or it could just be your imagination. That is one of the things I love about certain hops. The more familiar, bitter citrusy ones don't really leave much to the imagination but these sure do. The drink is remarkably pleasant.

The beer uses oats in the grain bill and oats are said to lighten the body of the beer. They can be tricky to work with and can stick your sparge or leave behind some astringency in the finish. As this beer warms you will notice that the oats have a scent that is rustic and has a breaddiness of it's own but so soft and gentle that breaddy is not the word that would come to mind first. They lighten the mouthfeel of this beer and make it softly creamy. That creaminess allows the flavors to travel the palate more slowly and demonstrated perfectly why that malt is often used in the NEIPA style. The palate is lively and vivacious with every facet of those hops but creamy smooth. I was amazed at the potent generous flavor of these hops and then had to laugh because of how gentle they seem too. Their flavor is not as strong as lets say grapefruit and they dominate without tasting pungent or catty or dank. They do have a dank aspect though and in this beer you can taste it in the herbal spice. There is the potential for them to taste oniony. The silken taste of the white grape backed by a lemony citrus gives a flavor much like white wine.

Because this beer finished a little sweeter you could say that they tasted fruitier but not jammy. The billowy soft grasses remain in the background. The finish is most impressive as this beer drinks like a much lighter beer. There is no mouthfeel from alcohol at all. Not even a hint of warmth and if you were to guess the alcohol you might say 5.5 - 6%. Impressive! It is also one of the features that made this beer the perfect compliment to my dish. Cod with saffron cream sauce and soba noodle. There is just a small bitterness that accumulates lightly as you drink so to cleanse the palate and leave the finish malty but buoyant with the flavor of those hops.

Here's a tasting aside. When I first tasted the sauce I made I used the word abrupt to describe the taste of the saffron on the palate. It has an earthiness that is powerful and surprisingly firm. it is floral but does not really smell like flowers it smells like sweet earth or as though the earth has been made fine enough to float. The word abrupt might refer to the idea that I used a bit too many threads as I made only a single serving of the cream sauce. Or perhaps it was how the bee feels when he gets to the part of the flower. Abruptly stop and hover here.



Thank you so much Derek . Cheers you all and Happy New Beer Sunday!

 

New Beer Sunday: A Gose

Mornin’ NBSers with an alert for folks who like a berry flavored Gose. Also special thank to @lordofthewiens for today’s start up.

The weather here today is expected to have a temp in the low 80s and be both a partial re-run and a preview of what’s to come. Starting yesterday, we had lots of light rain most all day. For today and each day into the forecaster's foreseeable future we’re told to expect at least some periodic showers and/or thunderstorms.

This morning’s new beer is the Scratch #328 Boysenberry Gose from Troegs. (Troeg's uses their Scratch beer series--normally available only at the brewery--to test out and develop recipes. In the last few years they've begun to include an occasional Scratch beer in one of their seasonal variety packs that see wider distribution.)

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

https://www.beeradvocate.com/user/beers/?ba=drtth


The aromas/flavors in this beer are mostly about the Boysenberries with a touch of salt. (For me boysenberries definitely show a blend of raspberry and blackberry flavors.) The flavors also include a bit of malt sweetness as well as a touch of lacto souring that gives the beer some tartness. I’d be pleased to have another but, as with most all of the Goses I’ve tried, I wouldn’t want to drink two in a row. On the whole I thought this was an interesting take on a Gose because of it’s use of Boysenberries. (Full disclosure: I’m a fan of Boysenberries and have been ever since a childhood visit to Knott’s Berry Farm where I had my first piece of Boysenberry pie at Mrs. Knott’s Restaurant.)

Cheers, all!

 

Bell's - 30th Anniversary Cherry Stout Reserve



This is a fantastic stout with a ton of complexity and flavors that compliment but also contrast each other at the same time in a way that offer a very pleasant experience.

Look: Pitch black with a cocoa-colored head of just about a finger that lasts all but a few seconds. Upon closer inspection the liquid has a red tinge to it.

Aroma: Right away you can smell dark chocolate, milk chocolate, a tiny bit of coffee and the unmistakable sweetness of cherry pie.

Taste: You are being hit simultaneously with cocoa, dark chocolate bitterness, burnt toast, cherry candy sweetness and cherry tartness, the latter outlasting all the other flavors leaving you with a tart aftertaste making you want another sip desperately. A great flavor profile.

Mouthfeel: Pretty thick, with the liquid covering your mouth in a viscus layer of intensely-flavored beer nectar

Overall: This is a great stout and I need to make it my mission to hunt down the whisky-barrel-aged variation (which I have seen before but regrettably did not buy).

 

Good morning NBS, hope everyone is doing well. I’m down at the beach so I’m just going to post more informal reviews and just estimate the numbers. Start my day with Dewey Secret Machine: Blueberry, Blackberry, Raspberry.

Looking is the can it has a nice red with a purple tint. I’m getting lots of fruit, sweet blueberries, tart raspberries and some blackberries with a nice touch of lactose. It’s smooth and easy to drink, balanced. Another tasty beer in their Secret Machine series, one of the better ones I’ve had. Would rate it quickly just a little bit more than a 4.25

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the great start to this weeks NBS @lordofthewiens. Should be back with a new brew later on today.

Cheers!

 

Heavy seas peg leg imperial stout
..color is solid black
..above average body with light carbonation
..Aroma is black coffee,bitter dark chocolate,malt and ash
..Taste is coffee,malt,bitter dark chocolate,and the ash taste gets a bit stronger as it warms
..overall I really enjoyed it, abv was really well hidden and overall the taste was delicious

 

Poured ice cold into a 13 oz Funk Brewing Teku glass not sure when it was canned. Pours a very dark amber with a little hazy ness, with a massive 2 plus finger off white head that leaves big thick streaks of beautiful lace. Does not look like an IPA but still attractive. 4.25

Smell is biscuit, Mellon, caramel, earthy undertones, and just a hint of grapefruit. 3.5

Taste follows very malty for a DIPA biscuit, caramel, sweet bread, and pine and grapefruit in the mild finish. 3.5

Mouthfeel is pretty big, soft gentle carbonation, a tad dry, and drinks easy enough for 8.5% ABV. 4

Overall this drinks more like a big ESB, it isn’t bad but not anything like I was expecting. 3.5

 

Having severe world cup fever withdrawals. Fortunately, tonight I get to referee a men's match to get my footy fix in. I'll have the whistle and one of men's league teammates will be my AR2. He is into IPA's, might need to bring him a can for his efforts...my new beer is

This Creeping Malaise by Singlecut

4.31/5 rDev +2.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

New brew THIS CREEPING MALAISE IPA, a 7.2% version of SOFTLY SPOKEN MAGIC SPELLS

canned 7.11.18, opened 7.18.18

"At your service " printed on the bottom

Off white one finger fizzy foam cap

Carbonated hazy orange liquid

aroma of citrus, orange, mango, tropical fruits

taste of citrus hops, orange, mango

slight bitterness, lingers on the back and sides of the tongue

Good beer

 

Wow, some impressive comments written so far today. Wish I could add more than a review to the dialog but my head is too stuffed up to breath let alone think. Next time I move I may be riding into the sunset where the mountain air is cleaner . . .



Shimmering hazy light gold color with bountiful cap and lacing.

Aroma of yeasty sweet roll with dried fruit and spiced with a combination of cinnamon and clove.

Taste is of slightly tart sweet malt dusted with the spices listed above then baked with a mixture of peach, apricot and citrus zest, served up together mixed in the same dish. I could say more but I would be repeating myself.

Medium texture with balancing carbonation,

Normally I immediately began thinking of what dishes or food types this would pair with but this works just fine on it's own and I wouldn't want to diminish it with other flavors.

 

Happy Sunday, NBS crew! I missed last week’s NBS due to being in the province of Newfoundland, which even in this day and age, has a tragic lack of wifi, or even cellular signals in general. I was basically off the grid for a week, apart from sporadic check-ins via a grocery store’s wifi. It was a nice (forced) break from technology, but I am glad to be back in the land of always-connected internet and good beer.

My first new beer today comes from a trading partner and now friend that lives in Brooklyn. We swap singles from our respective “home” breweries each time we meet up (once a month), and this is one of the singles he gave me yesterday.

DDH Citra + Galaxy - Other Half
IIPA - 8.5% abv
Canned 6/28/18 (24 days ago)
Score: 4.22 (-5.6% rDev)



L - 2.5 finger medium-density offwhite head atop an opaque, milky orange body.

S - grapefruit, strong herb, pineapple, melon, pine.

T - grapefruit and pineapple dominate the taste. A bit of mango, papaya. Very tropical mix of fruit flavors here. The herbalness from the nose does not translate at all to the flavor of the beer. Dirty middle - reminds me of a Veil DIPA in that regard. Dirtiness lingers into the finish. Moderate bitterness. No sweetness. Low booziness.

F - medium body with slightly above average carb. Not quite as creamy as most OH brews.

O - I really enjoy these 2-hop combo beers that are OH’s specialty. This one loses points on body and the dirty, lingering taste, but it’s still a quality brew.

 

NBS beer #1



Raspberry White Ale

Sugar Creek Brewing Company
Fruit / Vegetable Beer / 4.40% ABV

3.9/5 rDev +8.3% | Score: 3.6
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

bottled 04-12-18

L-the beer pours pale, pink, and hazy. The head is a minimal half centimeter of white foam which quickly recedes to a thin ring. There is no lacing present.
S-The nose is a beautiful natural raspberry. It has that great quality of ripe raspberries being both sweet, but at the same time having a tartness to contrast.
T-On the palate the raspberry is far more subtle than the nose. The sweetness aspect is toned down and a light tartness is the biggest contributor. That is not to say this is a sour. It simply showcases the tart aspect of the raspberry. The wheat base is the stage and contributes only at the tail end of the sip. I don't get much in the way of belgian yeast and this comes across as more of an american wheat beer.
F-The mouthfeel is on the lighter side of medium. Carbonation is light, but prickly. You could easily drink this in multiples on a warm summer day.
O-An above average fruit beer that I would have no trouble drinking again on a hot day. If your in the mood for a fruit beer or are looking for a beer to serve non craft drinking guest this would do nicely.

 

I picked this bottle up yesterday at The Bruery store in Union Market.



A-A nice hazy brown color with a nice head and lacing
A-Aroma has abundant bourbon and caramel hints
T-The taste follows the nose with pleasant bourbon and caramel flavor notes
M-A medium bodied well carbonated beer
O-A well balanced blend of Black Tuesday, Anniversary ale, and White Oak Sap with a gentle but strong kick

 

Today's new beer is Sunday Beer from Sunday Brew Co. This lager is an attempt by a new brewer to craft a low calorie (128 Cal) beer. This pale yellow can pour with 1 cm foam cap. The hop aroma is very pleasant and hay-like. The flavor is clean with some biscuit-like malt. The finish could be drier. This is a tasty, low-calorie option. I do not drink "light" beers often, but will pick this up when I find it.

 

New Kriek Sunday (Week 700)
Goood morning all you adoring, boring, snoring, imploring, roaring, ignoring, or soaring fans of foamy, finely fashioned, free flowing, fully fermented flavors, from on the ridge in Mid Hud Val, NY. Happy New Beer Sunday.

As a youngster I loved basketball, but I sucked. I had a natural talent for tennis, I found, but I hated the game. Then I discovered skiing in HS and trwo years of college, and when I was able to get back into it in my late twenties, and all through to late forties, it was the number one thing on my mind all year. Yes, moreso than Grateful Dead tour. I didn't mountain bike all summer for its own sake, I did it to stay in shape for skiing. I used to do snow dances in early November trying to get it to snow early. My best four years of skiing I had a job which allowed me to ski until one in the afternoon every day, come to work, have a steak dinner, all the trimmings, cooked to order for me, cut myself any flavors of pie I wanted, drink a beer, and sit in my office for the rest of my crew's shift. I always thought I would still be skiing when I hit 70 and could join the 70+ club and ski for free. Now I just hope to be alive at 70, knees are shot from all those days on the bumps.

My favorite exercise now is picking edible wild mushrooms and plants while walking through woods and thicket, sort of a slow motion obstacle course combined with visual meditations. We also have our hobby specific humor, such as the two biggest lies of mushroom pickers, "of course I have permission", and "I don't know any good spots, let's hit yours."

Which leads to today's beer that coincides with my present cutting back on beer, and an upcoming break commencing very soon. Lindeman's Cuvee Rene' Kriek. Have a feeling this is gonna be great after not drinking for the last two days and only three beers since last Saturday.

Pours a beautiful purple/red with a quick to leave finger of white foam. Big bubbled ring and skim island hang for the ride.

Full aroma. Doughy sweet and yeasty tart join with some righteous fresh cherry and overripe grape notes that entice a salivary response. Some deeper funk there too as it warms.

Full strength taste, that is an immediate tart blast of sweet and sour fresh cherry, and overripe fruit funk. Less vinous than the nose for sure, but there is all kinds of cherry and funk in this pucker provoker that makes for a bright and delicious sip. Adding very light additions are a nice woody tannic note and some more hormonal aspects of funk as it warms. Deep awesome taste.

High carb. and med. viscosity create a refreshing mix. Nicely viscous body that stays clean beginning to end, and the finish is a blast of tart fruit linger.

This is almost as tasty as the last Cantillon Kriek we opened (there I said it) and is easy to get and less expensive too. Highly recommended.

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

 

From Against the Grain's Stave It For Later barrel series...

Nothing Special, a rye barleywine (ryewine?) aged in bourbon barrels, with a 12% abv...

Into da snifta!

It brings plenty of fruits and sweetness and spices to the nose and palate... Rich bourbon and malts inspire notes of deep vanilla, maple, and molasses, with hints of nutmeg, clove, and anise... Chewy ripe fruit suggestions include fig, date, and prune... Smooth and creamy with subdued carbonation and little sticky chew; the body is medium-weight, the sweetness at the fore, and nothing much by way of bitterness... Very much like a high-quality bourbon barrel English barleywine, but with rye... Recommended... $22.99 bottle at Total Wine...

Here's to new beer in your glass, cheers...

 

Thanks to Doc @lordofthewiens for the kickoff post. We passed through your neck of the woods yesterday. Probably not the most direct route home from Liberty, but the coast road is a route we enjoy.

A bunch of new beers and a couple of new breweries over the week. Some good, some surprises, some real disappoinments. Nine new beers to write reviews for, a couple to add to the database.

Highlight brewery - Lake St. George Brewing. St. George Quad was among the best quads we have tasted. Kerplunk blueberry sour induced me to buy a growler. They do a lot with their location. Spacious tasting area, very tidy brewery installation, ample outdoor space, food truck, live music, fire pit, etc. Seem to have a lot going on. Service was friendly and knowledgeable even with a mini rush while we were there. Recommended with no hesitation.

Lowlight brewery - Liberty Craft Brewing. A brewpub that features an absolutely spectacular view, laid back vibe, plenty of seating to take advantage of the view. Live music, and what seems to be a real local party vibe. Food...pretty decent pub fare but pricey. The real issues lie with the beer. Tasting of four, no huge flavor flaws, but beers were weak and watery across the board - stout, a raspberry cream ale, "Belgian" IPA, summer lager. So much potential just based on the location and set up, but the beer needs work. They are only open seasonally, just adding to the challenges.

Surprise beer of the week - Allagash Pilsner with Brettanomyces. Clean, crisp, well-crafted beer where I feel the brett is deftly handled and actually enhances the pilsner. It is not an ester bomb - the fruity character is subtle. In my opinion, this is a must try if you have the opportunity. I dont know how this beer would fare in a bottle or can, but on draft at the source it was a great beer. Rather than doing a flavor of the day, Allagash focused on the brewing and fermentation processes to produce something new that is not as style-shattering as some have assumed.

If I don't fall asleep on what is shaping up to be a rainy, laze about day, I will be back with a bona fide new beer.

Cheers!

 

Went for a walk on the beach, now relaxing with another Delaware lactose sour, Mispillion River Blackberry Jacuzzi.

Looking in the can it looks a deep red/purple. Blackberries, some wheat with a little sweetness, touch lactose, tart. Smooth, medium body, easy to drink. Not really the same as other lactose sour like Burley Oak JREAMs or Dewey Secret Machines, this doesn’t let the fruits completely overwhlem the beer, actually tastes more like a Berliner with a lot of fruit. Would rate it around a 4.

Cheers!

 

It looks like it's shaping up to return to the hadean conditions of last week, but I am determined not to let this deter me from sleep. It better not, I've got to work again tonight.
This should not come as a surprise to most folks reading here, but @FlintB is an incredibly generous individual. During the most recent round of BIF associated with this weekly tradition, I was lucky enough to be the soft landing point for many of his myriad boxes, and included among these was a vienna lager from Old Nation Brewing over in Williamston, which I assume is nearby him, since it's probably not separated by water and anything you can drive to feels like it's 'nearby' to my slow-to-catch-up-to-my-changing-environs brain.

Vienna Style Lager
Viennas are a style that I'm not overly familiar with. I've been making a half hearted attempt this summer to reach out more into some zymurgical corners that I have not previously much explored, including many of the more traditional styles that I have typically not gravitated towards. A great example of my naivete was my reaction when I initially poured this beer.



A deep rich amber/copper colour greeted me in the glass, which surprised me for some reason. That reason being I don't know shit about viennas. Well, capping off this ruddy ambrosia was a massive head of not-really-white foam that was big wet bubbles and contentedness slowly meandering its way back into oblivion before settling in as a loosely rough cuff around the collar and congealed strands across the cap.


(this angle makes the glass look much dirtier than it actually was)

Part of my trouble with these styles that I somewhat lazily lump together as 'german' or 'european' or 'traditional' depending on my mood is that I don't have the familiarity to have the language to feel like I can actually identify what I'm poking around at in the glass. Initial blushes here are sweet and.... classically _______. Like germanic? Is this the influence of decoction revealing itself? Something that's somewhere in that toasty/caramel/toffee/earthy spectrum? There's some fresh grassy element as well. Speaking of the earthy, that leads into a note that I can only describe by referencing memories of swimming in muddy ponds growing up. That may sound gross, but so do half the damn descriptors we beer nerds use. It's not a bad thing, just the best language I have to impart my impressions.

Flavour brings forth much the same conundrum and frustration of inability to describe. A clean grassy edge to the knife gives way to the body of the blade being made up of that same malty character that is... toasty/biscuit/toffee/caramel/earthy. Coming into the finish line there is a bittering finish that is almost noble, with a finish of sweet grass and perhaps a hint of caramel.
Body is easy to drink and moderately carbonated, which feels appropriate.



This has been one of my messier/least precise descriptions, and is partly exactly why I want to sample more of this family of brewing that I've not delved into previously. Ultimately I enjoyed it, even if it's not one I'd necessarily grab on my own normally. It went well with my sandwich, and is a good belly filler after a good night at work, with another one promising the horizon. Thanks Brian for passing this one along, and cheers!!