New Beer Sunday (Week 753)

Time to up my game!

Trappist Achel



A-Pours a dark color with a generous head and lacing
A-Aroma has nice fruity and spice hints
T-Taste follows the nose with a fruity and spice flavor
M-A medium bodied decently carbonated beer
O-A good Belgian Strong Dark Ale

 

Yet another beer I’m adding to my wants due to your review. Thanks for scouting out all these new beers for the rest of us!

 

A-Pours a dark color with a generous head and lacing
A-Aroma has very nice fruity and spice hints
T-Taste follows the nose with a very nice fruity and spice flavor
M-A medium bodied decently carbonated beer
O-A good Belgian Quad

 

Glad to see the return of the 100 point scale system. Visited a new brewery to pick up two 4packs ( reviews next week maybe) and then went to a beer store that had been a go to for me. Hadn’t been there in some time. The beer department had changed and had less options that’s before. Did notice a BA shelf tag for one beer though...

Four Seams by Idle hands

4.2/5 rDev -2.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Can poured into a teku

Canned 6.12.19 opened 7.26.19

“Get well soon”

Hazy orange liquid, creamy one finger off white foam cap, great retention over 5 minutes, settles to a solid creamy layer, good lacings

Aroma of tangerine, citrus, mango, guava , tropical fruits

Taste is citrus hops, bit of melon

Mouthfeel is thin , low sudsing , hop taste no bite

Good beer

 

Since the abv was upped from 4.4% to 5.2%,
I'm considering this a new beer.

On a rare Sunday off, I'm going to get a couple new ones in before heading off to Burlington for this:
https://www.lcmfestival.com/
I will have a designated driver...


First review on August 26th, 2017:
Canned 7/10/2017.
4.4% abv.
4.0/4.0/4.0/3.75/4.0_3.98
Moderate pour yields a 1/4 inch off white head over a pinkish orange body with no lacing. Nose of strawberry and slight lemon. Taste of unripened strawberry and slight lemon at first with a more pronounced tartness on the finish. Okay feel and overall a nice little refreshing number right here.

Today"s review on July 28th, 2019:
Canned 07/18/19.
5.2% abv.
3.75/4.0/4.25/4.0/4.0_4.09
Moderate pour yields a 1/2 inch off-white, pinkish head over a pink body with no lacing and head is down to a ring in a couple minutes. Nose of strawberry and not much else. Taste mirrors nose nicely and very easy to drink; not too sour and not too sweet. Nice feel and overall, a very refreshing summer offering from ZG. Cheers!

 

I like this beer a lot, but I find there’s really a batch variation that is sometimes quite noticeable. It’s never a bad beer nothing even remotely along that line, imo it has more to do with the bitterness. Sometimes it seems to be really quite balanced, and I’ve had it at other times and it was incredibly bitter.

 

A-Pours a dark color with a generous head and lacing
A-Aroma has nice fruity and spice hints
T-Taste follows the nose with a nice fruity and spice flavor
M-A medium bodied decently carbonated beer
O-A good Belgian Quad

 

Serendipitous discussion topic of the week for me...

@AlcahueteJ and @meefmoff were having a discussion in the "How many sub-styles of IPA should exist on BA?" thread this week on my expressed view that all a beer needs to be is hazy and be an IPA, and someone here will classify it as a NEIPA in the BA database. I explicitly named Toppling Goliath's "Fire, Skulls, and Money" as a particularly egregious example of that mis-classification. @AlcahueteJ disputed this, based on his tasting of the beer. This led to a discussion of whether the beer has changed from the original brewery Decorah bomber days (when I reviewed the beer) to the new brewery pint can days, which is the currently distributed beer.

So, I went on a hunt for FS&M to taste the "new" version, and along the way, I decided to do a comparison of 2 local NEIPAs from reputable brewers. This isn't intended as a "which is best" kind of tasting, but rather a comparison of all three against the BJCP guidelines for the style (although I'm sure a bit of comparing / which is best will be inevitable).

So, here are the three. (I'll get this underway in a couple of hours or so...)
Toppling Goliath Fire, Skulls & Money India Pale Ale
Surly Brewing One Man Mosh Pit Hazy IPA
Fair State Co-op Mirror Universe Hazy IPA
(note: none of these brewers call their beer a NEIPA, for whatever that is worth - not much, IMO)

 

Good afternoon NBS and thanks @cjgiant for the thoughtful start today. As for the question, I look out for offerings to include on NBS in my travels, keep a small backlog ready for reviews on this thread.
Today's offering is one I have seen around but needed to read about before tying, and glad I did.
Cheers all


Agrestic # 9 - French Oak Aged

Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
American Wild Ale | 6.20% ABV

4.16/5 rDev +0.2% | Average: 4.15
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a 375 ml bottle into the test glass.
A - Red cedar colored backdrop, steady carbonation feeds an off white tightly gathered cap.
S - Red currant, overripe cherries, barrel tannin, mixed culture thread includes some grape must, mixed with dirt floor basement.
T - Woody fruit, cherry skin, oak tannin again, a bit of caramel, and then back to the fruits with some lemon zest, and white grape skin.
F - Spritzy on the palate, tart in the best way, with a nice spicy dry element that keeps it all together
O - A very well executed offering from talented brewer/blender, the dry body with just the right level of tart is a treat.
Flavors are complex, with a beautiful aromatic element.

 

Quite delicious as a Fruit and Field Beer;
Leipzig Gose, not so much!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33136/430468/

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/styles/16/

"Straw to medium amber, the contemporary Gose is cloudy from suspended yeast."



I added this beer as a Fruit and Field Beer yesterday and lo and behold it is now a Leipzig Gose!
16 oz. can.
Rating for Fruit and Field Beer:
4.25/4.0/4.0/4.0/4.0
Moderate pour yields a light pink head over a purple body with some lacing. Nose of blueberries. Taste mirrors nose with a salty finish. Nice feel and overall, if I added this beer as a Leipzig Gose the rating would be lower; much lower, as it is now.
Rating for Leipzig Gose:
1.0/2.5/2.5/4.0/2.5

Cheers!

 

I meant a nice amber color.

These Quads are doing a job on me!

 

For reference purposes:

New England IPA
Emphasizing hop aroma and flavor without bracing bitterness, the New England IPA leans heavily on late and dry hopping techniques to deliver a bursting juicy, tropical hop experience. The skillful balance of technique and ingredient selection, often including the addition of wheat or oats, lends an alluring haze to this popular take on the American IPA.

I am waiting for the Grand Slam IPA .....

 

Today I am enjoying one that I was very excited to receive in an unexpected box from @JFreres

Beer: Mother of all Storms (2017 vintage)
Brewery: Pelican Brewing (Tillamook, Oregon)
ABV: 14%

Pouring from a bomber into a PAA Dino tasting glass, this beer pours out clear and caramel on the downstream. It forms in the glass with much more darkness; I’ve seen stouts that aren’t as dark. A pinky width crown forms of butterscotch colored bubbles.

The nose carries in the warming bourbon along with barrel aspects of very dry oak, leather and dark fruit. Layers of sweetness show with fig Newton cookies, caramel and maybe slight molasses.

The taste brings thick caramel, like caramel chunks mixing with dark fruit like raisins, dates and plums while the strong background consists of the barrel notes of warming bourbon, dry oak and leather.

The barrel brings a huge dried out effect on this. So dry at points that it’s like licking a freshly emptied barrel. Full bodied with a coating stickiness. The alcohol has a kind of sting to it in the very back that surprises me for being a two year old vintage.

Overall, this is an enjoyable barleywine. One where the barrel plays a huge role.

Huge thanks Jason and cheers NBS!
Can’t wait to see what you bring to the share!

 

Thanks to @Dragginballs76 for this fine beer, Brewery Bhavana's Grove.

4.24/5 rDev -0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pours a cloudy orange with a well retained half inch fluffy white head that left little spotty lacing. Smells of citrus and tropical fruits, one and a hint of bready malts. Tastes of grapefruit, grapefruit peel, pineapple, lemon, apricot, resin, mild pepper and bready malts. Medium bodied, prickly carbonation, moderate bitterness, dry finish. The bitterness increases as the beer warms and the finish becomes more dry and resinous.

 

Looking forward to it! Just for the record though, my posts in that thread were more responding to another poster's claim that Toppling Goliath has never made an NE IPA which I thought was an overly narrow reading of the category. I don't actually disagree with the point you mention above as I do think that tends to happen these days.

 

In a roundabout way, my oven brought me to picking up my current new beer. Just last week it made a big boom sound and shook a bit about 30 seconds after I had set it to preheat, and I don't think ovens are supposed to go boom . So, yeah, it would seem that there's an ignition/timing issue and, with it being 19 years old and all, it's just time for a new one. Our closest Home Depot is in Hackensack, and I've been wanting to check out a new brewery in the area, so that's where I spent the afternoon yesterday.

The newer one, Hackensack Brewing, is literally within walking distance of the more established Alementary Brewing, so it's kind of nice to hit up both places at the same time. And fortunately both places currently have fairly varied taplists, so there's not too much overlap when you do.

I enjoyed a crowler of Hackensack's Czech Pilsner last night- it's a pretty good attempt at the substyle, with a pretty deep malt profile, and a nice change of pace from the more hoppy North-German type takes we're accustomed to in this area. I found that by the end of the 32oz crowler it was starting to wear on me a bit, but with just a bit of tweaking it could be a great brew.

Today's beer comes from the other place, The Alementary, a Kolsch called Shore Day:

This is actually pretty odd for a Kolsch, and after the first glass I'm starting to wonder if I was given the wrong beer, so I don't know where to go from here. I'll just give some impressions for the time being, and try to just take the beer in my glass on its own terms.

The crispness, body, and dryness are all spot on; and it's actually a real pleasure to drink. But there's also a spiciness to it that goes beyond whatever contribution from the hops would be. It's actually coming across as phenolic, with an underlying smokiness as well. If you handed this to me and said it was a Grisette I'd have no quibbles at all, actually. And the way the phenols are integrated into the overall picture is quite well-woven and delicate. Truth be told, I fucking love what I'm drinking, especially how it's getting smokier as I get deeper into the growler, but still crisp, dry, refreshing, even complex. Wish I knew what it was so I could get some more .

 

Good afternoon NBS
I just drove 3 hours back from Indy after a weekend of HS girls lacrosse. @cjgiant this beer was new to me, in the fridge and looked refreshing...

11.2oz bottle coded L263091805 poured into a becher glass at fridge temp 5.7% ABV. The beer pours bright straw yellow in color with nearly white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and a few tiny bubbles. No lacing. The aroma is mostly grass and hay with traces of pils malt and yeast character. The taste is balanced up front with pils malt and grassy hops in a complementary dance finished with a firm, but mild, and drying bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium to thin bodied with adequate carbonation and a dry finish. Overall, very good Helles.

I am lucky that the stock that showed up at my local shop was fresh. They'll sell a single of anything, so sometimes I'll risk two or three bucks on an undated import. I've seen multiple beers on the new arrival shelf that are 6-12 months old. Speaking of old beers on the shelf...I stopped by a favorite store of mine in Carmel, IN this weekend. Checked dates on 15 to 20 bottles of imports (they used to be known for imported beer) and they were all 3 to 5 years old at room temperature. Getting fresh imports of any style is starting to be real cause for celebration here in Indiana.

Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass today!

 

Local Boy from Suarez Family Brewery, picked up last weekend at the brewery which was the first time I had any of their beers. They absolutely lived up.to their reputation. Sharing this bottle with my wife.
4.35/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pours a hazy deep yellow with am extremely well retained head that left blotchy islands of lacing. Smells of lemon, yeast, grass and funk. Tastes of lemon, lemon zest, wheat, yeast, grass, Granny Smith apples, pepper, oak and.funk. Light bodied and carbonation, light to moderate tartness, lingering dry finish with light bitterness.

 

Phase Three - Adhara

This beer is a super murky apricot color. Carbonation is soft snd the body is full. Taste is subtle mango, orange and subtle pineapple. Bitterness seems genuinely low compared to the sweetness for an IPA, and this is a quality that I find to be pretty rare for NEIPAs despite their reputation. Unfortunately, there’s some burn in the back of the throat with the finish that takes away from everything. This beer strikes me as the result of a brewer trying to make a “NEIPA” and checking all of the boxes in the process.