New Beer Sunday (Week 770)

This Porter hails from Poland; Komes Raspberry Porter, 8.5% ABV, 3.69 overall

Pours an effervescent mahogany with one finger of tan head. No head retention or lacing

S: Raspberries, not much else

T: Follows the nose, some chocolate notes, plus leafy hops up front. Chocolate, raspberry & dryness as this warms, a touch of dark cherry as well. Finishes dry with woody hops & raspsberry & just a little choclate

MF: Medium body, slight carbonation

A solid take on the style, pretty darn drinkable

 

You're approaching this situation with a great attitude that will serve you well. I wish you all the best as you recalibrate!

 

Was at Holler Brewing this afternoon, and they had a new clear IPA

As per usual, they have a ridiculous pun for a name.

Are You Not Entertained? IPA, 6.6 % ABV

Using Strata Hops for this.


Pours a mostly clear golden/yellow, with just a touch of what use to be called haze, but I guess that is an outdated way of describing these. Anyway, a one finger white head forms with good lace.

A pungent and aromatic aroma. Peach, mango, citrus aromas that are great. A bit resinous and dank, and a perfect melding of old world versus new. Flavor is much the same, with a strong dank/pungent flavor. Peach, mango, citrus, and just a bit of caramel malts, lingering bitterness brings everything together beautifully.

A medium body with great carbonation. Effervescent and super clean. Incredibly easy to drink, very moreish, and I had several at the brewery. Hopefully this sticks around for a while in whatever place a murk bomb would have no doubt taken up space.

Sorry to be a bit passive aggressive to the haze boys, seriously no offense. I'm just so tiered of seeing "IPA" and having muddle murk bomb with limp/nonexistent carbonation. While there are some "regular" IPA's hanging around the Houston market, I can't remember the last time a new one came out. This is just excellent. A soft 4.24 rating that I could easily increase with another try.

Added the review below to Holler's page:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/45647/451372/

 

One of my all time favorites, and really glad it has come back to the Houston market after several years of being absent.

 

Thanks for the post, Dave. It's good to hear from you and I'm glad you're receiving good medical treatment. Please don't be a stranger!

 

Great review. Magnify can brew some very good Stouts but this isn't one of them. I agree with you about the sweetness and the unappealing appearance. A lot of their stouts have little - if any - head and lacing. I have one bottle left and I'm seriously considering pouring it over vanilla ice cream.

 

greetings all,

seems like there's a fair bit of cutting-down-on-beer going around and I'm adding myself to that list, if in a milder way than some others. I have officially run out of other places to cut calories and shave off this stubborn 25 pounds, so I'm going from 2ish beers a day to 1ish beers every few days. So far so good but I'm glad I waited until Oktoberfest season was over.

Notch is a strictly session strength brewery here north of Boston, but they've started up a side label to give them an outlet for stronger (though still not particularly strong in the scheme of things) brews. They call it 'The Voll Project' and today I've got Red Headed Stranger, their Harvest IPA which I'm assuming is a fresh hop beer and sits at 6% ABV.



Look: Much lighter than the picture. It's a golden amber color with a half inch head of loose white foam that recedes to a ring fairly quickly.

Smell: Very bright and crisp nose of pine, earthy spice, and some biscuity, amber ale, style malt.

Taste: Follows the nose. Really well balanced between the hops and malt. Moderate bitterness at the end with a clean finish.

Feel: Lighter on the palate than the color suggests but not at all "thin". Both easy drinking and satisfyingly savorable.

Overall: Excellent beer! I'm generally not the biggest fan of Red IPAs or amber ales but this avoids the coppery, harsh pitfalls that those often present for me. Notch seldom disappoints.

Cheers and hope everyone has a great holiday!


@superspak Floating bridges are indeed kind of a pain to string up but I agree that they stay in tune fantastically. I've had a Strat with a Floyd Rose floating bridge for, eek, 25 years now that, barring big temperature changes, still won't go out of tune for weeks on end. I'm kind of a slacker on changing strings as well so I can only imagine how great those new ones feel after so many years Best wishes with things going forward as well.

 

New beer #2. Boss Tweed from New Orthodox brewing.

M-43 on steroids, and a different hop combo. Magnum/ Simcoe/ Citra/ Mosaic. Dry hopped with Simcoe, Citra, mosaic, azzaca.

9.3 abv, a more creamy beer, nice head with zero floaties, and I find that interesting. Imo it’s a bigger beer and a bit better M43. The M43 was about a 4.4 kinda beer , this one imo is a bit better, maybe a 4.6 or so kinda beer. A big beer, but not obnoxious on the sweet, actually not at all imo, not boozy at all. Fruity, but subdued, an always buy if I had the opportunity. creamy but a very nicely done beer. A bit more viscous, as it should be, imo this is a tremendous beer.

 

Stella Artois Midnight Lager. Just got a single but I really enjoyed this, would gladly drink it again.

 

It may very well be a trait of theirs to brew maltier / sweeter beers, but to be fair, they are hardly the only brewery who brew beers of these two styles that tend in that direction. And, if they've been doing this for 19 years, I expect that is how they intend these beers to be and they will not grow out of it!

They are based in the Amana Colonies of Iowa, which has a strong Germanic heritage.

They have a seasonal bock that is out now, and is distributed to MN. I may give that one a try, although that is a style that also emphasizes the malts.

 

Great review! I like TE's versatility. They seem to relish brewing obscure styles. I may not have done justice in my review. I think I'll have to try it again. My son will be visiting this week and we'll probably hit TE on Friday.

 

What did you think of Chingas? When they brewed it last March I was absolutely blown away. I came close to comparing it to Carton's Epitome which for me is the gold standard for the style. This batch is not quite as malty and I was told they tweaked the hop bill. It's still a great Black IPA.

 

Ahhh... understood.

I also realize I use “malty” and “sweet” as near synonyms more often than I’d like, sort of like “hoppy” and “bitter” - though there is/used to be some overlap in the concepts.

 

Drekker Struggle Bus Breakfast Sour, 6.5% ABV. Pours opaque orange with no head, but lots of floaties. Nose is orange juice and a touch of grapefruit. Taste is 100% orange juice, slightly sweet and slightly tart. Excellent chunky mouthfeel, overall outstanding. If you handed this to someone and told them it was carbonated orange juice, I seriously doubt they'd realize it wasn't. Looks, smells, and tastes like it. By far, the best Drekker and best sour I've had.

4.3/5 rDev -0.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

Good luck with everything. If you don't already reading a bunch is the best way to find other worlds. I have found so much solace in my life reading and writing. These are my very best obsessions and my Mom is responsible. I predict from how you are approaching all of this that you will emerge better than ever.

 

Glad you like those, if I had half a brain, you would've had those in last year's NBS BIF, but I somehow didn't realize that driving 6 miles into Michigan to a little hole-in-the-wall convenience would yield a beer bounty of Michigan beers that at that time were Michigan-only distro, like New Orthodox and the M-43/Boss Tweed beer nerd exacta jackpot.

There are times when I kid about what an idiot I am, and there are times when I'm pretty serious. This is an example of the latter.

PS: if you ever fly, and if you ever specifically fly through Detroit, they have M-43 available uber fresh at Kat Kora's restaurant. The first time I went there (July 2017) and saw that, I literally yelped with delight - freaked out the bartender (until I left the tip inspired by M-43 acquisition and enjoyment).

 

That's the same approach I take. Limit of 2, with food, and a few hours, and I'm good.

 

Thanks to the ever-generous @Snrubnivek for today's new beer. This one presses my buttons:

The beer was a slightly hazy, pale gold color with a medium sized white head that lingered. Nice lacing in the glass. Big aroma with tropical and berry notes and a serious dank presence. Same on the palate. The resin outshined the tropical fruity notes and the bitterness was old school, lingering on the finish. The malt was there, featuring subtle dry, bready notes. Dry and clean finishing. Overall an outstanding, flavorful, and assertive DIPA. Recommended for those who like big resinous IPAs. Cheers!

 

NBS x 4. Might be my new record. Been eyeballing this beauty since @thebeers sent it my way a couple of weeks back.

Wicked Weed
Funkatorium- Black Angel





Big thanks to Arthur for the bottle. Very excited for my first from Wicked Weed!

What a gorgeous beer. From the bottle shape, to the label itself, and ultimately this gorgeous mass of reflective obsidian that resides in the glass. A beautiful tight-knit lightly tanned foam create a mattress above, descending into a lovely perimeter ring leaving behind minimal spots of lace.

The aroma is magical as well. Sour cherries covered in chocolate with a slightly tannic red wine and oak base. As it warms, the chocolate only intensifies.

Oh wow, this is very nice. The tart elements strike first with sour cherries and lemon juice. Chocolate and holiday spices come quickly behind. Wood and booze, again more resembling wine than bourbon to me, come in lightly on the finish.

Quite the perfect feel to support such a unique brew. It really has it all. Tart and crisp at first, transitioning into slick and smooth center, then back full circle into an even more tart, dry finish with just a touch of barrel influenced warmth.

What an experience. A balanced and extremely flavorful wild ale. Definitely going to take my time with this one.

After my official review, I gave Black Angel a rating of 4.54 with an rDev of +7.6%. Cheers!

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, on this currently phoneless New Beer Sunday,

Beautiful late fall day here in the Republik of Spokanistan. Probably our last of such days for a while. The next couple days are to prominently feature some light snowfall, per the local weather witchdoctors. I am phoneless because the simcard reader in my aged android has stopped working, so now I'm the proud owner of a battery powered paperweight. I'm only posting now because my misguided attempt to get a new simcard, thwarted by my phone's decay, brought me near to a branch of the local library that is open on a Sunday.

Also open not too far away was Perry Street Brewing. After a pint of their GABF ' 16 gold medal winning Session IPL, I had their Zero Daze IPA, a new (to me, anyway) variation of their flagship IPA that is brewed with a new, mega-juicy yeast strain. It imparted a juicy, stonefruitiness to what was already an excellent IPA. Old school hopheads looking for a dry, more traditional west coast hop experience might not like it, but I found it delicious.

If I hit anything new at home, I won't be posting it, as I will have no way to do so, as my phone was my only internet device. Maybe I'll mention them next weekend, when I'll be having NBS at my folk's place after a delayed Thanksgiving meal.

Cheers!