New Beer Sunday (Week 704)

Those ones or Red Chair are my general benchmarks as well.

 

Damn, that was downright poetic. Good work.

Poems don't need to make sense, right?

 

This one had very high expectations from me, Tropicalia was the beer that converted me to craft brews. They released this DDH version Friday and I was lucky enough to snag a four pack from a buddy that made the trip.

Pours a hazy golden orange with white head.
Smell is juicy tropical pineapple, passionfruit, mango, grapefruit, a bit danker than the original version.
Taste follows, the pineapple and resinous finish are heavier than the original but it still has the juicy mango and grapefruit .
Medium to full body.
Overall a great beer, would have blown me away a couple of years ago. Hoping they do more of these even if it was just short of my lofty expectations.
Had this one from Cherry Street in Cumming. These guys have really upped their game recently and seeing a Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe combo from them excited me(I have a weak spot for that specific combo).

Pours a hazy orange with a thin white head.
Smell is orange, guava, mango, passionfruit, maybe some peach.
Taste follows, lots of the Simcoe guava, oniony, b.o. coming through the orangey grapefruit citrus. Earthy dank notes slightly present.
Medium to full body, 9% ABV very well hidden.
Overall another solid Cherry Street option, I hear there is a triple version of this in the works.

 

Happy Late Night NBS y'all!
Now that I know I'm not getting called in (unless shit gets weird again... 0300 phone calls are rare indeed) I'm going to join in on the fun here.

During NBSBIF#007 @FlintB sent me a ridiculous amount of incredible Michigan beer. Today I continue to work my way slowly but surely through the last few bottles and cans from his box.
I've mentioned my positive impression with Speciation previously (the few beers I've had from them [via Brian's generosity] have all been good at minimum, and I dig their whole... vibe and approach and all that fun stuff as well... I only wish my clumsy ass hadn't broken the tulip Brian sent me!)

Today I crack into Hopeful Monster, and it is thusfar my hands down favourite of the three of theirs I've tried (which is saying something because I thoroughly enjoyed Morphology and Biomimicry as well!)



The pour is this rich garnet colour with a pink-white head that you can tell is short lived even before it starts to recede. A neat feature however that I hadn't seen before is that as the head shrinks back down into itself, the red of the beer emerges through into the veins where the foam is receding... almost like the reverse of lava oozing out of cracks in the earth, and creates this mottled almost camo-esque effect of white and pink/red. Doesn't effect the beer itself, but neat nonetheless.

The nose was initially nondescript with a neutral/generic tart note to it. But man, dig around a little bit and let it get settled/warm up a touch and it unfolds in wonderful ways. That tart note still takes a forefront, but it is wonderfully interwoven with a pervasive solution of currants and red berries. This focuses at its core to a thick ribbon/vein of almost-but-not-quite-jammy character leaning in that same currant/berry direction. It's time in wood is subtle, but absolutely crucial in its complete package, serving as the substrata into which the rest of these flavours are embedded, giving it a steady consistency that bridges gaps and fills the holes. Just really masterfully done.

The flavour enacts this same balance of mouth puckering sour and thick rich berry (I include currants in this description for brevity) sweetness. This is pretty much my platonic ideal of how to present a fruited sour.



If you couldn't tell (really?), I'm a big fan of this one. I think it ended up in the top 15 or so of my all time ratings (making it I believe the second one to get that high out of what Brian sent).



Cheers!!

 

The best part (outside of a 17 yr old boy being alive) is that kids attitude. He is not only very grateful and become close with some of the kids he didn’t know real well, but he said that he is going to use his “second life (video game style) to make a difference in the world. There is a reason I am still here.”