New Beer Sunday (Week 770)

No, I'm sorry, you have always written well. Perhaps you had a nice combination of insight and stimulation!

 

Omnipollo Hypnopompa Imperial Stout, 11% ABV. Pours black and thick with a one-finger brown head. Nose is chocolate and marshmallow/vanilla. Taste is roast malt, chocolate, vanilla, slight sweetness, slight bitter close. Decent mouthfeel, if a bit over-carbonated. Overall excellent.

4/5 rDev -1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Getting ready to watch the Packers game, which is too close to call

 

Followup. This is the verbiage on the side of the cans. It has always felt to me like they legitimately just wanted some freedom from the "session strength" restriction. They have plenty of pale ales and IPAs under the notch label, so it doesn't seem as if that was the motivation. Especially given that their session IPA is, I believe, their #1 seller. We shall see I suppose.

"After 8 years of brewing only session beer, we had an itch to brew many of the Czech, German, and US beers we admire. However, Notch is known for keeping you out of trouble with modest ABV, so we needed a new name for them. "Voll" is German for full strength, and seemed like the perfect name for these full strength beers".

 

ANTEAD is fabulous and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Probably the best Stout brewed in New Jersey. It's really hard to get bottles of ANTEAD. I've only had it at the brewery. When it's available I always have multiple pours. Just stellar!

 

La Cumbre Malpais Stout



Canned 6 weeks ago.

Pours near-black with a persistent tan head. 4.5

The nose is bittersweet chocolate, malt, and char. 4.25

The taste is pumpernickel bread, baker's chocolate, and faint ashy bitterness. Minor metallic undertones that subside as my palate adjusts. 4

The mouthfeel opens medium+ and dries out. 4

Overall, very nice. A classic stout. 4.14/5

 

#2, this magnificent RIS is from @larryi86. He also sent me the BA version, but suggested I tackle 2SP’s non-BA two-times gold-medal winner at the GABF first.

So it is said, so it shall be done.







4.35/5 rDev +3.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

This pours black, with mahogany colors on the edges, and a rich tan head on top. The nose is a Rubik’s Cube of RIS aromas - spin the glass one way, there’s rich dark chocolate notes, twirl it another way, you get coffee. Give it the hydron accelerator treatment, it’s packed with molasses notes.

The molasses and dark chocolate are most prominent on the taste, but there’s also some coffee notes. Just a flavor masterpiece. The mouthfeel is full and creamy, as expected.

It’s easy to see why this won Gold twice at the GABF - there’s massive flavor, which are balanced exquisitely, and that’s packed into a 9.5% ABV package. What a magnificent example of the style.

 

Well, I'm back NBSers!
Went to have some tea at a fancy tea house this evening with my old lady and now I am back and getting ready to have a tea beer. The latter was planned but the former was not at all. Nice flavor theme coincidence either way. She had a London fog there, which is an earl grey latte I'm pretty sure so I got to drink some of it and now I get to see how that could possibly translate to a beer. This is a collaboration between David's Teas, a big tea chain, and Beau's, a big craft brewery that makes solid, unflashy beers that I have reviewed on here before.

It pours fairly clear gold with a medium-sized head that settles at a quarter inch. Okay retention, some lacing. The aroma is mainly vanilla and lactose with some tea, smells a little artificial. The flavor is better, but just as artificial. Black tea, pale malt, some lactose sweetness and a lingering vanilla character. It is pretty creamy feeling with moderate carbonation. This is probably the high point of the whole beer to me and the closest it gets to it's inspiration. As a general rule I am not a big fan of beers that try to be other things (cocktails, desserts, etc.) but I feel like I can appreciate when they at least get close and this one did do that. However, I feel like the lactose and vanilla are a too heavy handed. Not bad, not great. Middlin'. The main thing I don't like is its sweet artificialness, but that seems to be David's Tea's schtick. It's like a potable bed bath and beyond. Really over the top flavors and aromas for something as subtle as tea. So perhaps that is exactly what they were going for. This was kind of interesting but not my really bag (wocka wocka).
Santé!

 

Another DIPA from Winooski, VT.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/34222/376808/



16 oz. can.
Canned?
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a one inch white head over a very hazy light golden body with some sticky lacing. Nice nose of tropical fruit (pineapple) and sweet citrus (orange, tangerine.) Taste mirrors nose somewhat but with a bitterness that the aromas do not portend. Finishes dry, a bit harsh, and a tad young, green, and yeasty. Nice feel and overall, a fairly solid DIPA from Winooski, VT. Cheers!!!

 

The limit here is .08, they’re talking about lowering it to .05. That'll be one beer and a sniff of a second. Getting close to zero tolerance here, I’m not so sure I disagree though.

 

@Squire’s review early sounded good and I remembered that a friend gave me bottle recently so I figured I’d open it.

Traquair Jacobite Ale

4.4/5 rDev +5.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

500 ml bottle poured into a tulip

A- A clear deep ruby red with a two finger light tan head.

S- Plums, dark fruits, pears, some oak, touch of coriander, toffee, caramel.

T- Plums, toffee, dark fruits, caramel malts, oak, pears, earthy.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- Very easy to drink, very well balanced and easy to drink.

Cheers!

 

An Asian beer to a Mexican God! This was a lot more molé for me, but I loved it.



L: Nearly black as the night but with a red tone creeping in there, and a one finger tan to cram head lasting to a wispy cap then a thick ring with great retention and little lacing.

S: The absolute bitter purity of cocoa nibs,...roasted malt, and earthy undertones of the chilies and ginger.

T: The sweetness of caramelized sugars hits me first out of nowhere. the chili heat comes in, but unlike a lot of beers this does not remind me of fresh pepper capsaicin, but more deliberate with the peanut I think it feels like a molé. And while that is Spanish and not at all of Asian descent, it is delicious none the less!

F: Quite thin for ABV but nicely smooth.

O: Underrated. Period. But I'll add that though the ingredient list is of dried spices and extracts - the result is truly balanced and expressive!

 

Much appreciate the beers, every one of them has been a joy to drink. Both of these were a pleasure and I’d always have some in my fridge.

 

Yet another DIPA from 4Q, Winooski, VT.
A huge disappointment.
Oh, well...

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/34222/320789/



16 oz. can.
Canned?
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a 3/4 inch slightly off white head over a murky golden body with scant, sticky lacing that disappears in a couple minutes. Nose of tropical fruit and citrus. Yet another 4Q offering's taste that belies its nose. Good feel and overall, an unbalanced, green mess; and for the price, even more unacceptable.
Cheers?

 

That was a fun read!

 

A couple late NBS entries from me... have tomorrow off because I went to a buddy's birthday celebration earlier. Kind of a potluck deal considering we're close to Thanksgiving. Good times, good beer, good friends. Now back home with some new liquid in my glass. Hope y'all are having a great weekend!



A lot of people might think of Pipeworks as a primarily "hoppy beer" brewery, particularly those of us who don't count them among our "hometown hero" breweries... forget what you have learned, however! These guys have been pushing a ton of flavored imperial stouts into the New England area, and they pretty much all kick major ass. Then there's this, which appeared in a recent delivery to my favorite local beer store. A 7% smoked bock. I am absolutely in! Perfect time of year for something like this.

Pour is... well, dark. As you can see, this is definitely akin to a "doppelbock dunkel" style lager, as it bears an intense brown/mahogany body with some slight highlights if held up to direct light. Decent, slightly-off-white head that retains for the entirety of my experience with the beer. No lace, not much in the way of legs.

Nose is straight-up meaty smoke... very intense! Reminds me of Schlenkerla Eiche! Slight roasty notes and sweetness with some light caramel, savory earthiness, and wood. Restrained but present Noble type hop notes with some light herbal undertones. Very slight dark fruit; nothing obtrusive or overly-apparent, but I can pick them up if I spend time with my nose right in this beer... which I honestly want to do, because it just smells so damn good! Smoke fiends and rauch-heads are gonna love this one, I can tell.

On the tongue, this is nice and warming with a good upfront smokiness held down by a toasty malt mid-palate. Kind of bready and "brown ale"-like with decent caramel/toffee undertones. Herbal hop carrying through to a finish that feels smokier than ever... wow, this is good! I mean, I probably wouldn't want to drink more than one a session, but I know a good rauch when I taste it, and this is definitely in that category. Doesn't feel quite as "doppelbock"-y as I figured it would, but that's not really a fault. I actually rather enjoy that it isn't overly chewy and aggressive/thick. If this sounds good to you, grab a can or two! Very good stuff from Pipeworks!

 

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated. When you wrote “the Voll beers I’ve had so far” in the first post, I immediately realized their play on words with “Vollbier” thanks to your word order. That’s very clever on their part, but the pedant in me cringes a little at them painting themselves into an even tighter corner. I can’t imagine they’d take a popular 4.5% ABV Notch branded lager and rebrand it as a Voll beer even though it would be better off lumped into a Vollbier category than a session beer category. Yeah, I’m being idiotically literal, and I’m sure the brands aren’t meant to REALLY function like that, it’s just that they always struck me as the types to treat their classifications with more reverence than most, so I’m just holding them to that standard.

@AlcahueteJ

 

As a fan of both brands, I have to disagree. While they have produced the requisite hazy IPA and DIPA, the brand seems to focus the majority of its attention on more traditional full strength styles, like a hefeweisse, dopplebock, an export helles, and my personal favorite so far, a pale fest beer. It fills a gap in our local market.

 

I can honestly appreciate that. I caught on to their play on words with Vollbier with @meefmoff ’s second post and I made a follow-up post at the same time as yours.

 

@TongoRad alert.