New Beer Sunday (Week 728)

A-Pours a very hazy light amber color with a nice head and lacing.
A-Aroma has abundant citrus and hoppy hints.
T-The taste follows the nose with citrus and hoppy flavors
M-A medium bodied decently carbonated beer.
O-A good Imperial IPA

 

I’ve had a hell of a time coming up with a comparison for Boreale for a while now. I like the ‘Sam Adams if Sam Adams made Heady Topper too’ idea. IPA Nord-est is arguably the best IPA in Quebec, inconsistency in batches aside. Comparing the core range to Sam Adams is probably on the generous side too.

An odd bird in the beer world to be sure. Cheers.

 

Good afternoon NBS
The first of two new Sixpoint beers for me today...

The review:
12oz canned 1/13/19 (21 days ago) poured into a teku glass at fridge temp 8.2% ABV 20 IBU 6 SRM. The beer pours completely opaque orange amber with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and leaves a little lacing. The aroma is vaguely presented as tropical fruit salad. The taste offers pineapple initially with a mildly bitter coconut finish. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, adequately carbonated and, oddly, semidry in the finish. 6P seems to be using yeast or late hop elements to keep this beer from being a sweet mess. Overall, good, but certainly unique (at least in my backwater part of the country).

I honestly bought this because I have always grabbed any fresh Sixpoint as a reflex. It's hard for me to imagine producing Bengali or Resin as your personal passion and then making beers like this. I know Shane has moved on now, but this is a real change in direction.

Enjoy the new beer in your glass today BA!

 

CHEATER!!!

Haha, just kidding. Good timing though, considering the big game ahead . Great write up, as usual.

Happy Birthday.

Cheers!

 

New beer #6. Thanks @thisischuck01 !

Into the NY Night (Red Wine and Bourbon barrels) - Other Half feat. Captain Lawrence
BA Stout - 13% abv
Vintage 2018
Score: 4.33 (+1.9% rDev)



Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33510/378595/?ba=CanConPhilly#review

Synopsis:
A perfect Valentine’s Day beer. Tons of chocolate, and you can smell it from across the room. Followed by red wine, vanilla and fancy mixed nuts. No trace of booze despite the 13% abv. Somehow manages to restrain the sugar, making the predominant flavor bittersweet chocolate. Loving it.

 

Poured into a 13 oz Snulip glass canned 12/27/18 and 8.6%. Pours a beautiful hazy like pineapple orange juice, with a solid finger of sticky white head, that leaves thin streaks of bubbly lace. 4.75

Smell is papaya, passion fruit, pineapple, tangerine, and a nice healthy hit of pink grapefruit. 4.5

Taste follows good grief Charlie Brownthis stuff is so insanely tasty papaya, pineapple, tangerine, and a nice slightly bitter grapefruit finish. 5

Mouthfeel is bigger than average, a nice soft mouthfeel, a sticky but not dry, and at 8.4% ABV goes down dangerously easy. 4.5

Overall Tired Hands makes some of the most amazing beers I have ever had and this one stands out once again. 4.5 Thanks as alway @jzeilinger for this amazing stuff.

 

Happy Sunday NBS players and Super Bowl Sunday at that. I give up trying to figure out the god damn weather. After pretty much the coldest week of the year here, so far, we've got a beautiful sunny borderline spring day here on the island. Temps are suppose to hit 50's later this week. Not doing too much as per my usual Sunday routine. Just relaxing and waiting for the game to start. Got some wings and baked ziti lined up for game eats and looking at another long work week.

My new beer today is MacGuffin, a wee heavy ale w/thyme, from Harpoon and Beer Hall brewing. The brew checks in at 11.8% abv and has an 11/26/18 canning date.

The pour gives a dark ruby red color with good clarity and a thick and lasting white head. A subtle nose of malt and spices. The drinking starts big and booze with lots of malt sweetness upfront. A pretty smooth flow and finish as well. I'm getting a sort of honey/candied fruit sugar quality is throughout consumption. This note is pretty dominate and seems to really drown out everything else. The mouthfeel feels rather full bodied with some slight stick to it. Additional notes of caramel, brown sugar, and mixed spices. I don't really get the scotch/peat notes at all and it really seems to drink more like a simple strong ale.

Overall, I'm not that impressed at all and glad I was able to just buy a single can. The overly sweetness, just made it a bit of a booze mess. I'm in the 3.5 range at best.

 

I'd like to think I would not push women and children aside to secure that beer.

It saddens me that I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do so.

 

I "liked" then "unliked" your post. No really, Tim. I did.

 

I drove over to Chicago area to meet up with some fellas from our NBS BIF for a beer share. It was really nice to get some facetime and handshake ticks with @Vidblain , @LloydDobler , @FFFjunkie and @FlintB.

Some doozies were opened up, 2 highlights for me were the BA Abraxas and Dark Lord Handjee. Both firsts, both amazing!

I’m starting this NBS off on a lighter note. I felt ok this morning, nothing to the point of not wanting a beer today after yesterday’s marathon.


12 ounce can, no date seen anywhere on can. Picked up at Binnys on the singles shelf.
Pours a crystal clear golden yellow, rocky white head. Some decent lacing. Few streaming bubbles from the bottom of the glass.
Aroma of lemon, doughy malts, saltine crackers.
Similar tastes as the nose. Faint lemon, more dough and crackers, grassy, light hop bitterness.
Really easy drinking, crisp finish.
3.87 rDev -1%

Go Rams!

 

New beer #6, I admire your dedication.

 

Super bowl Sunday, forget the diet!

Super Sap from Treehouse
4.43/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Can fated 1.4.19, opened 2.4.19

Poured into a Teku glass

Hazy orange, one finger white soapy foam cap, some lacings

Citrus aroma, grapefruit, papaya,

Taste is citrus, grapefruit, papaya

Hop taste, no bite

Good beer

 

Well, since @gopens44 let the cat out of the bag, I guess I can have this hazy west coast brewed IPA:


Firestone Walker Mind Haze IPA.
I am taking a guess that this beer is a result of their work with their Luponic Distortion series - if not directly, then indirectly so. I could be wrong. There isn't much on FW's site description, and I'm currently too lazy to do more research. I recall someone posting that it isn't so much a NE IPA as an unfiltered one. The website did hint at something similar to that. Let's see what I think...

Well definitely highly hazed, but the particles appear more micro than macro, avoiding making the beer seem like hop sludge. In fact, you can see a little light gets through at the edges. That nice cloudy top deforms itself into craters, leaving a sponge of foam on the glass wall as I write this up and before I dig into it.

I'd say the nose leans considerably more to the citrus side that the tropical, though there is a certain sweetness of the latter in the mix. Tangerine, clementine, and white grapefruit come forward. That indistinct tropical note I mention actually turns into more of a bubblegum type note as I analyzed closer.

Definitely not as soft as the classic (ha!) NE IPA, but I wasn't expecting such. Medium body with a moderate amount of carbonation. There is a little bit of what I take as oat - a drying, rubber-like feel/taste I generally don't enjoy.

The opening notes are actually more light crackery malt than expected. The nice sweet citrus notes I expected from the nose have run off hiding. The grapefruit has stuck around, though. The net effect of this when combined with the feel gives off the impression of a flavored seltzer, oddly enough.

Eh - the nose is pretty nice, but I think the feel really detracts from what is a lightly hop-flavored, balanced pale ale. I'm a little surprised on this one, as I generally like FW beers. Since I have enjoyed most of the Luponic Distortion series, I almost hope my statement above isn't true - that this isn't what they gleaned from making that series.

 

New Beer Sunday: Baltic Porter

Afternoon/Evenin’ NBSers, with a recommendation for people who want to pour particularly pleasant porters.

Today’s last new porter is the Crooked Stave Coffee Baltic Porter. Then it’ll be time to prep for entertaining guests for the Bowl game.

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

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25191/252329/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors are filled with roasted coffee, some cocoa, caramel, nutty character and just a bit of dark fruit. While the malt sweetness is present upfront it is backed up by some light but noticeable earthy and dark roasted bitterness which persists throughout the long dry ending. Enjoyable. Drinkable. Time to get a few more in the fridge.

Also no music during the Super Bowl and no more porters for the evening. Enjoy the game….

Cheers, all.

 

Happy Super Bowl NBS, fellow New Beer Samplers and commentators. Russian Imperial Stout has always been my favorite beer style and I always look forward to trying a new one. Today's comes from @Bum4ever's fabulous NBS BIF 8.5 box: Queen Anne Imperial Stout, a collaboration between Mason Aleworks and Humble Sea Brewing in California. This stout touches all the bases: chocolate, burnt coffee, dark cherry, nutty char, and a warming 9.6% ABV. It's really, really good. Thanks Josh! Here's my full review:4.19/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

I received this from @Bum4ever in the NBS BIF 8.5 Secret Santa. Poured from undated 12 oz. can int a pint glass. It pours an oily inky black with over a finger of creamy, light khaki colored head and a thick film of lacing inside the glass. On the nose there is oatmeal, chocolate, fresh coffee, lite char, and nuts with just the faintest whiff of cherry. It's highly flavorful! It opens with burnt coffee grounds and char but the initial bitterness is slowly balanced by chocolate, oatmeal, and increasing cherry notes as the glass warms. The taste really opens as it breaths outside the can. This stout has a medium creamy mouth feel with a low level of carbonation and the gently warming 9.6% ABV gives it lots of substance. Overall, I really like this collaboration between California brewers. Queen Anne has all the qualities of a very good Russian Imperial Stout (my favorite beer style). About the only think lacking is a truly viscous mouth feel but that's not a significant issue. I'm grateful for the chance to enjoy this RIS.


Chamberlain was spayed last Friday. Tonight she'll lose the donut!

 

Happy NBS/Super Bowl Sunday everyone! I'll be trying to have a mostly-dry February from tomorrow on out, hopefully drop some weight in the process and all that, so this is the last day of my going out with a bang weekend. Can't have too much temptation lying around, now, can we?

Along those lines, I'm still methodically (and enjoyably) making my way through the big box of mystery beers sent by @FlintB . I like to do these as my first beer of the day, so I'm just getting started on one at the moment but first I'll post the one I had last night:

It's a mostly translucent brown beer with reddish tinges, and not nearly as opaque as it looks in the photo. The aroma is moderately strong, with lots of tart cherry and wood. A bit more swirling reveals some pumpernickel, dark cocoa, vanilla, violets, fig newtons and dried orange peel woven into the background..

Initial taste mixes things up just a bit- the wood and cocoa dominate. Some berries and dried flowers lurk underneath, and the finish is long and very woody. There's a moderately full feel that helps everything come together, with a surprising depth of flavor; it doesn't have the feel of being infected, in other words, because those also tend to be shockingly thinned out. Nope, it's definitely a dark sour of some sort. By mid-glass some caramel and dried figs come out, but it's still a cocoa/tart cherry or berry/woody and vinous showcase.

The personality is very much along the lines of an imperial brown ale- due to the heft and dominant flavors- that has been soured and aged in oak.

Here it is unmasked:


Kuhnhenn Barrel Aged Oud Bruin.

I'm only surprised here by the fact that they are going with such a specific stylistic descriptor. It was certainly an enjoyable beer on its own terms, but I can't say that I was getting Oud Bruin vibes from it at all, and I think that they ventured just a bit too far from the things that make an Oud Bruin so appealing. But for a big, tart, chocolate-cherry thing () it's quite well made.

And here's what I'm sipping on at the moment:

No surprises here- it's definitely a sour .

The aroma is light and airy- lemon peel, rose hips and cranberry, noticeably vinegary, and grounded with just enough horseblanket and spicy phenols.

The first wave on the palate is incredibly tart. There's that floral rose hip quality up front as well, with a solid blast of lemon, and then potent horseblanket and wood come on late. It gets less sharp and more cohesive as I get deeper into the glass, and noticeable tannins are coming to the fore. Very well structured overall, and it's getting more enjoyable by the sip.

And that's where I am at the moment. Be back later on with the reveal. Cheers! until then.

 

Perhaps women and children should know better than to position themselves there in the first place.

 

Enjoying this variant of Monday Night Brewing's Situational Ethics. This is the Chocolate Coffee aged in 10 year old Tawny Port barrels...and with a few exceptions I will respectfully decline to list, these are a few of my favorite things. Killer. 4.46 for me. Cheers!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26516/386489/?ba=StraightNoChaser#review

 

NBS x2. Snow in the forecast, so this seems appropriate.

Level Beer
Neon Snowsuit- Winter Warmer



Just like those represented in the image, the confidence in this beers appearance makes me uncomfortable. Like that guy who insists on undoing the third button on his dress shirt, exposing himself to the ungrateful world. It has it's qualities, of course. Such as the remarkably rocky and foamy cream colored cap that plasters everything it touches. But the lower grade unfiltered maple syrup burnt orange body along with the initial sanitizer aroma burst has me cautious.



Reluctantly digging my nose in… it's not so bad. Not really too much going on either. Caramel slathered white toast with a little burn on the crust, some pepper sprinkled in, and a big floral hop finish.

The flavor is certainly less malty than I was expecting. More like equalized with a light toffee and baked bread sweetness, an orange pop in the middle, and some extra citrus influenced hop finish to go with the herbal, woody, lightly spiced varietals.

Very smooth and bright feeling. Not at all syrupy and sticky like the pedigree of the style. Kind of refreshing actually, with a spot on balance though the can claims otherwise. And the elevated abv, undetectable.

Not your standard malty, caramelized Winter Warmer, but refreshing and unique in its own right. More of an “Imperial Amber” if there were such a thing, but I guess that's kind of what a Winter Warmer is, huh? I could hit the slopes with a couple of these, especially given the 19.2 oz can size.

3.75s across the board.

Cheers!