New Beer Sunday (Week 745)

Other than “hanging out” with you fine folks here at the virtual bar, I have a couple friends and co-workers into beer that I drink and exchange local beers with from time-to-time. My wife likes beer, but definitely sticks to the BMC AAL stuff. Although, she’s been drinking the low ABV fruited sour beer that’s becoming more prevalent, such as the recent Troeg berry releases and the Sixpoint Jammer Session Pack. So that’s been fun to share with her. I do make her try at least one sip of everything I drink and often get insightful thoughts for my reviews.

Back in the day (before kids) we went to a number of breweries together, most notably, Brooklyn and DFH, which is the majority of what we were drinking back then. I’m hoping to start that up again once the kids are a little more self sufficient.

She also helped me brew and bottle my fourth batch of home brew, as pictured here, in my parents’ kitchen. I won’t share the date, but we wasn’t married yet, and this selfie was not taken from a smart phone cause they weren’t around yet! As you could probably tell by the fact this is a picture of an actual photograph! LOL




Great intro @cjgiant and sorry for your loss last night.

Onto the new beer, which I actually opened last night.

The Rare Barrel - Entanglement (2018)





Look: This beer pours a translucent, hazy, pale golden yellow / straw color. Bone white head that dissipates leaving some lacing in its wake, eventually settling to a thin layer across the top and a thick ring around the edge of the glass. Streams of minute bubbles flow up from the bottom and there is some brown sediment in the glass.

Smell: Lemon and orange citrus acidity with melted plastic Brett along with floral, powdery and honey sweetness. This floral and powdery aspect really opens up as the beer warms. It is Grandma-perfume-like. Some vanilla. It all evokes childhood summer memories of chasing the Good Humor truck down the street for an Orange Creamsicle Flintstone Push Ups. Slight must and barnyard aroma. The vanilla comes out much more as the beer warms up. The 44 degree serving temperature recommendation is a good starting point, but the beer definitely opens up more as it warms beyond 44. I also want to keep noting Citronella, slightly.

Taste: The orange zest and vanilla come through, coupled with the acidity of the base golden sour beer it resembles a watered down orange juice flavor. Perhaps more like a mimosa. It’s not heavy on Brett but the plastic flavor translates to the palate nicely. Vanilla is noticeable. Orange custard like flavor.

Feel: This beer has very low carbonation. It almost drinks like an unblended lambic, but this could be entirely due to a pour corking job on my part. It’s very dry and a bit gritty.

Overall: An enjoyable drinker and easy enough at 6%. Nice orange and lemon citrus fruit and sweetness without being overly acidic.

 

Other Half - Double dryhopped Vapor Ringz


Pours a hazed, brighter yellow color with a stable, medium sized head.


Smells quite fruit forward, while not drifting away too far into the tropical section, this unloads a well pronounced interplay between peaches, red apples and tangerines. Adds a note of flowery citrus, as well as passion fruit and a light note of ripe pear.


Has a thick, creamy mouthfeel, featuring a medium bodied beer, which drinks utmost soft. It does inherit a soft carbonation spark at the same time though, which lends a very well nuanced refreshment to the brew.


Tastes of luscious oranges, lime sorbet and unripe blueberries, creating an intriguing hop composition. This first impression gets enhanced by additional papaya, peaches and a pleasantly dry bitterness, seemingly arising from lots of water melons. The bitterness stays till the end, accompanied by a fruity sweet hop composition with a nice additional kiwi bite to it, blending marvelously well into the longer lasting bitter finish of this.


Extremely flavorful and tasty dipa - fruity, smooth and bitter, with an evolving hop profile from start till end.

 

New Beer Sunday; German Pilsner (questionable)

Afternoon NBSers with an alert about a possible German style Pils.

Gym, yard and groceries done for the day. My second new beer this afternoon is my second from Burial Brewing and is called Shadowclock. It is said to be a German style Pilsner. The reason I think the categorization is questionable is that corn is also used in brewing this beer.

My review, subject to revision until I've finished the beer, can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31722/182303/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas and flavors include some crackery malt and grainy sweetness backed up by some floral, herbal, grassy and slightly spicy hops. Given the dark gold or amber color, the corn sweetness and the balance between sweetness, hop flavors and bitterness I’d not put it in the German Pilsner style category. None the less, it’s drinkable and enjoyable. However, there other Pilsners I’ve enjoyed more and so won’t go out of my way to find more of this one.

Cheers, all!

Cheers, all!

 

Primus aqua fresca watermelon beer
..color is clear watermelon
..medium carbonation with a thin body
...aroma is watermelon rind,lime,watermelon fruit,hibiscus, floral,agave
..taste is watermelon and lime upfront followed by some rind and floral hibiscus. Very mild sweetness and salt is barely noticeable
...this was decent,enjoyable and what made it nice was it tasted real. Not at all artificial and everything advertised flavor wise could be found

 

Had this last night. Spot on review.

I just got a box from John too in a BIF. Would you want to both share either the gem or coconut migration as our next for today?

 

Lol well it’s barely June so who the F knows what’ll happen. We will probably get our team back and then shit the bed for all I know.

 

Back with my first new beer to be consumed today, and it's a big 'un in terms of both impact upon the tastebuds and general alcohol potency.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/335/358875/?ba=woemad#review
Whoa!
At 11%abv, with banana and coconut, plus bourbon barrel aging, this is a HUGE beer. Frankly, it's a bit much. On the one hand, banana goes better in a beer than I would've suspected, and New Holland used a mellow touch with the coconut, something some brewers seem to find difficult. It's still tremendously sweet and boozy, however, and it doesn't really taste like a stout til the finish. At nine months past bottling, there's still a whole lotta hot barrel flavor here. I'd like to hit this again after it'd been laid down a bit and see if the stout flavors might get a little more prominent and see how they interact with the adjuncts. Plus, the mouthfeel is disappointingly thin and watery.

Thanks for this, @ovaltine. You pushed me a little bit out of my comfort zone with this, and that's always a good thing!

 

The only Hefe I like is Weihenstephaner, and no there’s some wheat beers I like. There’s others I just don’t really like, they just hit my palate as being off even if their not really off. Sometimes it’s a bit sharp, sometimes funky, sometimes it’s perfectly fine. Shrug, don’t know.

 

Good evening NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend once again. Another typical weekend, got a huge new beer haul from a couple friends yesterday afternoon. Wasn't feeling very good last night, so I crashed after reviewing only 2 new beers. Some weird migraine or something. Got a nice 12 hour sleep from that anyways.

Beer:

A little old, but should be ok. Excellent Festbier. Fantastic lasting fluffy head retention/thick foamy lacing. Aromas and flavors of big lemon, cracker, white bread dough, toasted biscuit, and light honey/nutty malts; with moderate herbal, woody, floral, grassy, peppery hops. Light-moderate pine, herbal, floral, woody, grassy, peppery bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation, light-medium body, and fairly crisp/clean finishing. Balanced bready/grainy malts and sticky hops in the mouthfeel. Light lingering resins through the glass. Moderate increasing bitter dryness, no hop astringrency. Perfectly clean lager flavors, minimal fruity/yeasty notes. Very flavorful/refreshing, not watery for 5.3%. Perfectly balanced clean Pils/Munich malts, and German noble hops. Minimal residual sweetness with crisp dryness. Very impressive for a pale festbier. 4.03


Cheers

Just discovered this Deathcore band today. Awesome stuff.

 

Thanks to @cjgiant for a another great start to NBS. We just got home after spending 10 days on the East Coast going to a wedding and a college reunion, and I'm enjoying catching up on the BA threads this afternoon. Thinking about today's opening NBS "theme," I had hoped to catch up with a few BAs during the trip (@cjgiant, @zekeman17, @thebeers, @CanConPhilly) but plans got in the way each time. Hopefully next time!

Today's new beer is courtesy of the very generous aforementioned @zekeman17. Not only a new beer, but also a new brewery for me:


4.2/5 rDev +7.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Looking at my rDev, I noticed that the last BA review of this was from 2015 (!). Looking at recent UT checkins, my numbers seem right at the average.

Look: a hazy golden color with a bubbly white head.
Aroma: ripe peaches, dough, some phenolic funk, and oak.
Taste: slightly tart lemony flavor that was met squarely with peach sweetness, and the combination was delicious. Mixed in was a sticky, grassy funk that played well with the fruit. Finally, there was a nice oaky presence. Crisp and dry on the finish.
Feel: medium-bodied and carbonation was medium. Light on the palate.
Overall: outstanding. The fruit, oak, and funk blended superbly. Thanks again Jeff!

 

NEW vermont BREWERY SUNDAY

Courtesy of @jhavs

This beer captures my first experience with River Roost Brewery out of White River Junction, VT.

Since I’ve never had a beer from this brewery I’m going completely blind other than the information on the can.

Mas Verde IPA. 6.7%. Canned on 5/15.



Look: The beer pours an opaque, golden yellow & light amber color. The murk monster rears it’s beautiful head here. No visible carbonation. Bone white, fluffy head that settles down leaving a lot of lacing in its wake. The appearance has NE written all over it.

Purely based on personal preference I’ll note zero sediment upon final dump of the contents into my glass.

Smell: Gummy bear candy. A lot. Cooked grain, like that smell that whacks you in the face when you walk into a brewery. On the back is a green, skunky, dankness. There is a banana / coconut aspect to this IPA that screams Sabro. I don’t know what hops are in here but I’m guessing that’s one of them. This aspect shines beautifully as the beer warms and it’s absolutely delightful. Touch of spearmint and any previously noted skunky/dank notes are gone.

Taste: Light banana (think hefe), coconut and overly ripened mango. Not the most spearmint forward IPA I’ve had, but a nice undertone. Sweet, bready malt flavor. Slightly grassy and herbal bitterness is soft at first but really grows on the finish. Rather old school West Coast on the finish. The beer dries out slowly and nicely, adding some depth to the drinking experience.

Overall: The nose is really nice, but the cooked grains come across as rather unrefined and slightly detract for me. Though the fruitiness takes over and this aspect goes away as I go through this can. I really like the flavor. What I think is Sabro combined with the spearmint, and green, bitter finish are really tickling my fancy. This IPA has a unique flavor profile and feels natural as opposed to manufactured like some of these new school lPA’s. Well crafted.

I would agree with the statement printed on the side of the can:



Cheers, NBS and thank you Jon for introducing me to this new brewery which I’m liking a lot based off one beer haha

 

Happy NBICS (New Beer Ice Cream Sunday... sundae pun unintended... maybe)

This is the stout flavor in the Haagen-Dazs "Spirits" series. It's "stout infused chocolate ice cream with notes of toasted malt" and it has chocolate covered pretzels in it. Digging into the specifics, it has less than 0.5% ABV, and "beer" and malt extract are in the ingredients list.

When it comes to beer, my preferences do not lean towards the brews that treat beer as a canvas for other flavors. I'm the opposite with ice cream. I sometimes seek out "odd" (sometimes traditional, sometimes not) flavored ice cream: cream cheese, rose, olive oil, tequila, corn, etc. I've had ice cream that imitated an IPA... and a Belgian Wit. Here's my first stout one (which is the most common beer style ice cream flavor as far as I've seen).

I went into this fully expecting a gimmick. In other words, I thought it would taste like chocolate ice cream. I was surprised by how wrong I was. This is definitely going for "stout." It's odd. There is a roasted malt component and what seems like some bitterness. The chocolate covered pretzels are terrible in this, mainly due to the texture. I'm not a fan of the sum of the parts here. I know my wife won't be into this, so I have the full container to get through as an opportunity to change my mind. Come to think of it, I'll have to try giving some to my kids without telling them what it is as an experiment.

 

I have something new before me and I want to share, both my thoughts on this brew, and the situations surrounding it. But first, a little history.

Boulevard Brewery opened up in 1989 with very little financial support from financial institutions, after all, the horse stable and rice farm across the state had been producing beer for decades. Surely that was enough for Missouri? After much tribulation, John McDonald's modest 35bbl system, purchased from a closed brewery in Germany, began pumping out beer. Today that brewhouse still produces beer, alongside the thousands of additional barrelage Boulevard has added over the previous 30 years. Today's beers coming out of the original 35bbl system are often test beers brewed and tested by Boulevard staff, or brewed as 'test' beers for the Beer Hall. The beers that get released in 'to-go' formats are considered Brewhouse One releases - and this is the first hoppy beer release out of that series. Previously, the series has seen stouts, brown ales, and strong ales - all of which have spent some time in barrels. This marks a new style to reach the public market, and one that drummed up plenty of anticipation and intriguing, along with disappointment - as the price tag dipped into a territory most wouldn't dream of hitting with a 4x16oz pack. History aside, I want to share my notes on this beer as I drink it, as it may be one of my last participation purchases in the Brewhouse One series due to price points.





Boulevard's Brewhouse One: Squeezy Like a Sunday Morning.

Pours a murky, opaque dirty orange with a finger and a half of dense, white foam. Head retention is good. Aroma is notes of tangerine, papaya, mango, herbal and zesty hops. There is hop bite right out front, but it dissipates as it warms. Flavor profile is a continuation of dense hops, hitting notes of mango, herbal, tangerine, zesty, papaya, and lightly sticky. It carries a light hop burn at the back of the throat, but again, it disappears as the beer grows warmer. As the beer warms, it becomes a symphony of earthy, tropical fruits, and citrus hops. In the end, it's a dense forest of hops with no substance behind. Mouth feel is soft and creamy, soothing the tongue as the hops dance and frolic on the tongue. It has a medium-thick consistency. Overall, big, big hops with nothing substantive behind. Hops are unique in that they aren't simply a tropical fruit shotgun blast, and mold together well.

Score: 4 | 4 | 4.25 | 4.25 | 4 | BA Score: 4.13 | rDev: N/A

Personal notes: I've only had two of the release, three if you include the re-branded, lower pricing on a third, and this one makes me question my involvement. This is a solid IPA, but it doesn't speak volumes above Boulevard's tasting room series, which is $15-18 (12oz x 6 pack), or above what is available as 'test' beers in their Beer Hall. All that to say, this one gets googly eyes for being limited and expensive, but they are producing better stuff currently, and I would gladly take those home at their price points.