New Beer Sunday (Week 741)

Beautiful spring day here in New Mexico, with highs in the 80s. My wife and I are about to hit the pool. We may drink a margarita, which would be our sole contribution to Cinco de Mayo. My new beer is one sent to me by @SomethingClever , Bourbon County Brand Midnight Orange Stout. The beer was bottled 20SEP18 and has an ABV of 15.2%.
The beer is black with a hint of red around the periphery. No head.
Aroma of chocolate, orange creamsicle, and booze.
Taste follows the nose. Chocolate first, then the creamsicle, with the alcohol present.
A beer to be sipped, for sure. The alcohol is complimentary to the chocolate and orange, and adds to the enjoyment.
Thank you, Dave

 

Not a Gose fan, but I do dig this one. Poured on draft at Kettlehead into a 13 oz Snulip glass. Pours a cloudy yellow with a tiny head, leaves little if any lace. 3.75

Smell is salt, lime, and tequila exactly what I would expect and very simple. 4

Taste follows lime, salt, and tequila simple and tasty. 4

Mouthfeel is a tad thin, soft carbonation and it works well, and drinks bigger than 4.5% but easy drinking. 4

Overall this is what I was expecting, not a Gose guy but this is some tasty stuff from Kettlehead. 4

 

Suarez Family Brewery - Domain 4


Pours a clouded amber color with a smaller, solid white head.


Smells of lemon zest, dried apples and fresh squeezed oranges. This also devolops a slightly moldy, herbal and rustic funkiness.


Has a refreshing yet creamy mouthfeel with a mineralic effervescence and a creamy softness to it. Drinks very easy due to its light body, while producing a softening feel, coating the tongue.


Tastes of an immediate citraic bitterness, together with soft wheat and a funkiness, relying on blue cheese and dried mushrooms. Develps a recognizable, effervescent carbonation then with old bread crust and wet corn. Finishes aqueous and soft with a nice, fruity funkiness, including more oranges and lime zest, while the beer maintains its light, rustic foundation.


Light and rustic saison/sour with a refreshing fruitiness to it.

 

New Beer Sunday: American Amber/Red Lager

Afternoon NBSers, with an alert for those who don’t think Anheuser-Busch is capable of making a reasonably flavorful beer.

This afternoon’s new beer is the Copper Lager from Budweiser.

My review can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/365203/?ba=drtth#review


The flavors/aromas of this beer include some vanilla, some bourbon, a light touch of oak and some toasted caramel malt. Overall I’d say it’s a drinkable beer that is worth giving a try if you enjoy bourbon barrel aged beers (while this one is actually aged on bourbon barrel staves rather than in barrels, the effects are comparable and much the same). It’s worth trying at least once but I’ll probably not be having another.

Cheers, all!

 

A-Pours a slight hazy light amber color with a slight head and no lacing
A-Aroma has honey and fruity hints
T-The taste follows the nose with a honey and fruity flavor
M-A light bodied decently carbonated beer
O-A good Farmhouse Ale

 

New beer #5.

Double Plus Good Citra + Mosaic - Sloop
DDH DIPA - 8% abv
Canned 3/20/19 (46 days ago)
Purchased for $5.99 at Monde Market
Score: 3.92 (-4.9% rDev)



Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30081/292506/?ba=CanConPhilly#review

Synopsis:
Very sweet. Not sure if this is due to excess residual sugar, or just from the dry hops fading, but the end result is a sugary ipa. I can still taste the Citra and Mosaic, but both are in the background, obscured by sweetness. Otherwise this is a nice looking and smelling beer, with a decent body. This makes me wary about buying Sloop beers that are more than a month old in the future.

 

5th Of May: 5 4+ First time East Coast Beers
**Barrier / Kane - Know Yourself | Barrier 4.4/5 NJ/NY**
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
Amazingly original and well-balanced, love both brewers, being a shore guy.
Agree w Greywulfken. This category "More misses than hits" but this HITS! Pleased to be review #8!
a) Pretty persistent mocha head that lasts and laces over a ruby-tinged black body.
s) Almost salty to counter the sweetness or tartness of the fruit.
t) Continued triple see-saw between sweet, tart, bitter, salt, grass, and hop.
f) Smooth, soft, medium-full-bodied... Just the right bite, finishing tang.
o) As good as any imperial stout you can find, definitely let it warm and grow on you. It gets better and better.
**Bourbon Barrel SWISHR | Carton 4.31/5 rDev 0% Atlantic Highlands, NJ**
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5
4-25-19 Enjoyed my first and write the 1st review of SWISHR Bourbon Barrel. I love Rauchbier done well, or well done.
Tastes MUCH MUCH bigger than a 6% ABV beer.
A: Like all Carton's beers, sharp fresh carbonation, lacing, sticky head, this a a super smoky, hazed smoke beer black-brown.
S: Smoke. Hard to know how they make the smokiness pleasant, but they do. Followed by bourbon, roasty porter grain, sweet malt and balancing hop (grassy, herbal) bitterness.
T: Follows the smell, would be great with rich foods, indian/asian spicey. Or sweet and sour, or tomato sauce / mexican.
F:As with the best craft, there's a weight, a body, and a long finish that showcases the art.
**The Perfect Disguise | Dogfish Head 4.2/5 rDev +3.5% DE**
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
Thrilled to be 60th review of this DIPA Kolsch. Melds two favorite styles. As 1 reviewer wrote "they dogfished Kolsch into a DIPA." And the meld is better for it.
a) Dark amber golden clear with creamy lasting, lacing white head.
s) on target tropical fruit notes, grass, herbs, bitters.
t) Follows smell but more melodic with sections of berry, peach, tangerine, melon, green hay. Sage, lemongrass, herb garden.
f) Big smoothie. Herbal, cleansing, drying bitter finish.
**420 Strain G13 IPA | SweetWater 4.21/5 rDev +5.3%. GA**
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
One look at this 6% IPA and you know that it's better by far than BAers rated it.
a) Great bottle and label, but even better hazed body sporting thick, hazed, sturdy lacing, sudsing, lusty, lasting head.
s) Large dank, pungent, thorough resiny with fruit and then bitter hop in back end.
t) Follows smell, more fruit and complexity, and very bitter back end. Some oat muffin base creamed with hempy, peppery, and orange marmalade.
f) A fluffy, yet substantial puffy mouth feel - matched to the premise.
o) Best hemped up hoppy A IPA ever.
**Hull | Shelter Island Craft 4.1/5 rDev 0% NY**
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
April 27 2019 at the brewer. Billing this as Bavarian Ale. With strong melon component.
a) All good, darker golden, plenty of creamy white head and lace.
s) Melon first, along with grain, hop, kind of a German hop purebred.
Ripening late season apples, hay, earth, fallen leaves, the sea, the fall beach.
t) Follows the smell, with dankness, not unlike Uflaffen,
f) sticky/ chalky. Clean, cidery, cleansing finish. Great food beer.
o) One of their best.
I tried 8 of their beers in flights and settled on this one to take home with us. Great beer, great artisan brewer. Much to be said of a small batch, local, herbal, local ingredient, over infused craft brewer. A true confectioner, gardener and flower shop. Bravo.
Overall, this brewer packs its small batches with herbs, which are mostly native to Shelter Island, and seasonal. Fantastic tea-like brews to be found here along with good spirits, food, and craft.
Proud to be 2nd reviewer of this brew and this wonderful place.

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beers Samplers and commentators. I'm starting earlier - and lighter - than usual because I have to pick my wife up at the airport and her flight has been delayed a couple of times. I'm reviewing another Northwest IPA from @woemad: Phaser Hazy IPA from Ecliptic Brewing in Portland. This is a tasty ale but it's not what I think of as a NEIPA. It's more bitter than fruity. In my mind, it should be classified as an American IPA. Thanks, Fred, for another enjoyable beer! Here's my full review:

3.96/5 rDev -0.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

I received this from @woemad in a BIF box. 3/7/2019 canning date. Poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass. It pours a hazy, bright tangerine color with a large, frothy, snow white head and thick lacing. The nose is rather subdued: mostly lemon, grapefruit, and pine needles. I'm not smelling much in the way of hops. The taste opens with tart citrus: lemon, tangerine, and grapefruit. The blend of Citra, Azacca, Mosaic, and Calypso hops is flavorful and adds significant bitterness particularly at the finish. The feel is crisp and clean with lively carbonation, and it drinks easily at 6.5% ABV. Overall, Phaser is a fine IPA although to me it's not really a New England version. It would be very good for drinking at outdoor activities in hot weather. I also think the brewery's space theme is really cool.

 

Gun Hill - Local To Locals #11 - Spreadsheet Mafia Helles Lager

My next two local quickies belong to the “Local to Locals” series. These beers (brewed by various breweries) initially celebrated Long Island manufacturers and retailers (of beer)… but it’s extended to other NY areas. A portion of the proceeds go to charity. In an era of more breweries selling directly to consumer, and the recent introduction of Total Wine to the area, it’s the retailer side of the “Local to Locals” equation that makes it special. It seems to be a good idea looking from the outside in.

This beer is a pretty near-clear gold. It tastes of bread crust, snot, and a slight touch of peach. Dry. It’s surprisingly nice. Easily my first choice for a repeat purchase from Gun Hill out of their canned offerings... but at $14 a four pack I'll stick to non-local German beers instead.

 

Great South Bay - Local To Locals #12 - Belgian Style Saison

I'm jumping straight to my second “Local to Locals” quickie. I pretty much dislike everything Great South Bay makes with their name on it despite the fact that they’ve become the go-to contract brewer for the hip breweries in the area.

This is a typical ham-fisted US approach to a non-mixed-culture "Belgian" saison. It's too much of everything except dryness. The fruity and spicy yeast character is too strong here. I love saisons but I hate them like this. This is like a throwback to the way US brewers used to make saisons.

 

This is a beer I have salivated over for months when I’ve seen it posted on various threads here so I owe a huge thank you to @strohme2 THANK YOU JUSTIN!



It looks motor oil thick and used motor oil black and shiny in the glass. Minimal dark tan head rests on top and quickly diffuses into spotty islands of lace and a thin ring around. The aroma is huge vanilla, oak, bourbon, and dark bakers chocolate. Taste is Ah-mayze-ing! Super rich dark chocolate is the first thing that hits me, followed by some tobacco, vanilla, oak, a little coffee, and some slight bourbon heat on the finish. Mouthfeel is a little thinner than I expected, but still on the full side of medium. Oily, slick, coating my mouth at all angles with a dry finish but NOT chalky. Overall this is fantastic and every bit worthy of its high marks.

 

New beer #6. Thanks @Vidblain !

Scotch Barrel Silhouette - Lift Bridge
BA Stout - 11% abv
Vintage 2019
Score: 4.18 (+5% rDev)



Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18563/391225/?ba=CanConPhilly#review

Synopsis:
Tons of peat in the nose and taste. Surprisingly not at all boozy though. Still, it’s definitely a sipper, as the heavy smoke taste is not something you can gulp down. I’m treating this like liquor, and thus this’ll likely take me hours to finish. Thanks again Chris!

 

¡Buenas dias, defensores de la cerveza! Today I have two new beers to talk about and review. There may be a third, but I'll have to see how I'm feeling after the first couple. This past week has been pretty good and interesting (I've been on a couple dates with a new lady who is super cool and loves great beer!), and I'm hoping the upcoming week treats me kindly. I hope it's great for you all as well!

Anyway, up first is a new IPA from Pipeworks called Speed of Sound. This beer clocks in at 7.5% ABV and is describes on the label as a double dry-hopped oat IPA with Mosaic and Cryo Mosaic hops. Interesting, and likely quite delicious. Let's get right into it!



The pour is pretty much ugly-as-sin in terms of hue, anyway... a dingy and dim goldenrod orange color with no light penetration possible whatsoever. The head is a nice, big, fluffy ring of bone-white foam that settles down over the course of about five minutes to a small, half-finger ring that leaves behind some moderate (though not densely-packed) lace. Legs seem pretty nonexistent. My second pour of the remaining liquid in the can rebuilds this foam, once again obscuring the cloudy depths below, but no real change in retention or lace comes from this effort. Oh well.

The nose is bright and punchy with a huge dose of dank resin, pine, orange juice, pithy grapefruit, and ripe berries. A swath of melon and earthiness cuts through the dim as well... yup, this is Mosaic, through-and-through! It's slightly more juicy than I usually know Mosaic to be, but there's just such a focus on resin, dank and citrusy fruit here leaving no room for the more subtle and refreshing tropical character that I can sometimes get from the hop. Perhaps something to do with the utilization of Cryo Mosaic hops as well? Who knows... this smells quite nice and complex, however, and I'm excited to take a few sips.

A little more flat on the tongue than I'd like... doesn't pop too much, but I definitely get the oat-focused grain bill. Slight pomelo and grapefruit on the tongue with some dank earthiness and cut grass notes. Yeasty and palate-numbing with maybe a bit too much of a focus on the oats. Kinda nutty or something? I dunno, this one seems to kind of stumble slightly when it hits my palate. I just split a can of Ninja vs. Unicorn vs. Haze with friends last night and felt similarly about that. It's just kind of boring and nondescript compared to some more-saturated NEIPAs I've had. Maybe I've had too many high-quality NEIPAs from breweries like Finback and Idle Hands lately to get overly excited about this one, because I went in feeling like I knew what I was gonna get (and pumped for that expectation) and felt a bit let down by how it came across. Let's hope my next entry is better!

 

Greetings fellow NBSers! A sunny and warm Spring day here in the Fourth Corner. I have some friends here who retired last year and bought a winter place in Mexico. They were kind enough to bring me back a few new brews to tick, and I'm drinking the last one as my first NBS entry today:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42312/386205/

 

First full review for today Short’s Barney Blood, thanks @Blackop555!

4.07/5 rDev +3.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Thank you Blackop555 for this
12 oz bottle poured into a teku

A- A hazy pink grapefruit color with a small off-white head.

S- Mixed berries, some tropical fruits, some stones fruits, touch of caramel malts, some vanilla.

T- Mixed berries, getting mostly raspberries and strawberries, caramel malts, citrus/stone fruits from the hops, touch of vanilla.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- This is pretty tasty, but the base base comes off more of an east coast IPA instead of a NEIPA. That being said I still enjoy this beer.

Cheers NBS!!

 

Time for another brew!



Poured from the can into a Spiegelau IPA glass. Canned April 9th 2019. See Page 23!

Classic murky and solid lemon turbidy like body color for the appearance. A soapy white very fine bubbled head, with little retention. Big white color and looks like something more of dish soap in quality.

Very interesting hop angle. Comes off experimental as a mix of herbal and strong grass earth tones, with a mellow sweetness of fruit somewhere being picked up in the background.

Palate seems a little one dimensional but solid. Very light bodied but with a simple mild tropical note of pineapple and sharp spicy hop tones. Aftertaste brings a good bit of pepper like quality, and a mixing faint tropical pineapple and possibly mango hiding out. There could be a good amount more body as this comes off as a little session like in feel. It's also luckily not too overly sweet and juicy either.

Definitely seems to be going for the NE angle, but doesn't quite get the big bold richness of one, but definitely nails the appearance. Either way it parrys down the middle for me in what I want in an IPA, and that's just alright with me.


look: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4 --- 4.01/5

Cheers!

 

Pipeworks Pilsner
4.9% ABV
Canned 1.5 months ago



I've been craving a pilsner, and I'm usually limited to old Pilsner Urquell and Sixpoint The Crisp at my go-to store. Thankfully this (sexy) can was staring me in the face the other day.

It pours golden yellow with a light chill haze and a frothy white head. The nose is lemon, peach, sulfur, flint, and white pepper. The taste is lemon, orange, grass, white pepper, and generic hop bitterness. Austere German-style finish.

Overall, good stuff. I had a small sample side-by-side with Tired Hands' Trendler Pils yesterday, and that beer was definitely more pretty and expressive. Like Pipeworks describes it, this is simple and "Beer You Can Drink." 3.82/5

 

Visiting Three Taverns Brewing today and enjoying a Serrano Pepper Crave DIPA brewed especially for Cinco de Mayo. Lots of pepper aroma and flavor with a touch of heat.



Poured on draft at the brewery.

A: Completely hazy dark yellow with an orange tint. Smallish one finger head with moderate retention and light lacing.

S: Bold pepper with a muted citrus undertone. Serrano is coming through nicely on the nose.

T: Vegetable pepper is dominant mixed with light citrus - tangerine and grapefruit.

M: Medium body with average carbonation. Finished with just a touch of pepper head.

O: Nice touch to their Crave IPA for Cinco De Mayo. Very well done.

 

Onto NBS # 2 here players. Once again, this beer is provided by the great @Roguer and his NBS BIF boxes. This one is sure to be more to my liking.

The beer is Last Buffalo in the Park, a bba imperial porter w/coconut, and coffee, from Funky Buddha. The brew checks in at 13% abv and no apparent bottle date.

A slick black color with a frothy brown head. These guys seem to make some of the most strongly smelling dark beers that I have ever had. Big notes of coffee, chocolate, and spices. The drinking starts smooth and silky upfront with tons of lush chocolate malts. A smooth flow that finishes ever so slightly bitter. The coffee falls on the subtle side but the highlight flavor is clearly the coconut. I love coconut and the flavor comes off spot on genuine. Additional notes of tannin, smoke, vanilla, brown sugar, caramel, cocoa powder, and smoke. The mouth feel is superb- full bodied with such a lush and silky feel. Not overly sweet and not terribly sticky but enough to still allow the flavors to linger nicely after each sip. A slight alcohol burn on the finish but otherwise the abv hides very well and it's really warming me right up on the shitty rainy day.

Overall, just crazy good stuff. I think Morning Wood is a bit superior, which is remarkable as well, but I would probably rank this in the mid 4's. The best thing about the BIF is that every round I seem to be blown away by a new brewery. This round it's Funky Buddha. Thanks again Andrew,