New Beer Sunday (Week 776)

Do or Donut an American Dry Hopped Lager from Twin Elephant Brewing. The brewer at TE made a similar beer a few weeks ago that had flaked corn in the grain bill. That beer was well liked so he brewed another. No corn this time the grain bill is 100% Pilsner malt. This beer is 5% ABV. It pours bright yellow gold with a pure white head. The aroma is malty with floral highlights. The taste is malty with a strong hop kick, 2 hops are used Saphir & Motueka. The mouthfeel is full . The finish is dry, floral and lasting. Do or Donut is a very refreshing balanced and enjoyable brew. Hopefully it will be brewed again in warm weather,

 

A mini-vert, where the beers may be vertical, I may not be! @Justonemore91 just sent me an incredible surprise porch-bomb that was extremely generous, and included a 2018 reserve and two 2019 Two-year Reserves (plus two 2019 Ryes and two BBA Bell's Blackbeard Bear Hugs). I'm comparing BCBS Reserve 2018 on the left with BCBS 2019 Two-year reserve on the right.

Goose Island BCBS Reserve 2018, 15.2% ABV. Pours black and thick with no head. Nose is strong Chocolate and Vanilla. Taste is strong chocolate, light vanilla, some coffee, light bourbon, with some sweetness, some bitterness, and light bourbon heat. Excellent mouthfeel, overall world-class.

4.67/5 rDev +2.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.75


Goose Island BCBS Two-year Reserve 2019, 14.9% ABV. Pours black and thick with no head. Nose is moderate chocolate and vanilla, plus bourbon. Taste is strong chocolate, light vanilla, some coffee, moderate bourbon, with some sweetness, some bitterness, and heavier bourbon heat. Excellent mouthfeel, overall world-class.

4.52/5 rDev -2.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Summary; I previously had BCBS Reserve 2017 and rated it only 4.1, since I found it way too boozy - and BBA and RBA dark beers are my thing. These two were MUCH better, and surprisingly I preferred the 2018 One-year over the 2019 Two-year, primarily since the bourbon flavor and heat of 2019 actually detracted from the experience. I've said it before, while I like BBA/RBA dark beers, I look to the Bourbon/Rum to add to the experience, not be the prevailing flavor. Still, 2018 and 2019 are both really incredible.

Beautiful South Dakota heat wave today, in the mid-30's so we grilled burgers for lunch and are grilling steaks for supper. Watching the Vikings choke at the moment (go Pack!).



Surprise porch-bomb from @Justonemore91

 

Yikes!!! Apparently it’s whalez season on NBS!!!

 

Moinette Blond Belgian Ale






Color of light shimmering gold with white cap and lacing.

A clean aroma of ripe fruits such as apricot, pear and peach.

Taste is a combination of the scent fruits along with touches of yeast rolls and a bit of spice. Can't quite nail down the spice as it's very light but cinnamon and clove come to mind. Complex, sophisticated and quite refreshing.

Light to medium texture with balancing carbonation.

In scent, texture and taste this is a good deal milder than I usually get from a Belgian Blond. Not de minimis but certainly no block buster.

 

Howdy all, and I'm happy to join you NBSers for the very first 2020 iteration of this beloved thread! I have two new ones today... one is a fruited DIPA, and one is an imperial stout aged in an exciting and under-utilized variety of barrel. Any guesses as to what the second entry is? You'll have a little bit to mull it over (this is somewhat of a hint, for the record) as I sip at this first one, Finback's Raspberry Cream Crush.



RCC is an 8% DIPA with raspberry, lactose, and vanilla, dry-hopped with Citra, (Hallertau) Blanc, and Mosaic. This beer was canned on 12/20/19, making it about two weeks old.

Pours a sunburst orange color with a slightly deeper hue than I expected, though I do have to say I'm surprised it's not a little more red/purple due to the raspberry addition, but Finback's fruited IPAs aren't always heavy-handed with the fruit additions. It's likely this doesn't have too much raspberry in the recipe, then, it seems. A thin, inactive head builds up lazily and dissipates to almost nothing quite quickly, leaving behind only minimal lacing. The body is extremely dense looking, and pretty much opaque. This looks more like a beer mimosa than anything else, and it's not too overly impressive, honestly.

The nose is quite forward with the dry hop additions, overshadowing pretty much any of the subtleties of the raspberry addition. As I expected from the appearance, this does not seem to be a strongly-fruited beer. Notes of grapefruit rind, pomelo, guava, and intense resinous earthy funk bubble up from the surface. There must be a lot of Mosaic in here, that's for sure! Some light passion fruit, papaya, and herbal grassiness here, too. It seems a lot more front-loaded and less nuanced than many other beers I've had that utilize Blanc, so that may be getting lost in the shuffle.

Flavors of gooseberry, grapefruit, light raspberry, mango, sticky pine resin, and lighter floral elements combine with a decent smooth finish from the vanilla/lactose additions. This isn't really a milkshake IPA, though; it's not that smooth. Honestly, the body is pretty good here, and the flavors are punchy, but the raspberry is quite light and loses out to the aggressive Citra/Mosaic hopping quite handily. Once I pour the entire can into my glass, I'm struck by a distinct, super-harsh hop burn bitterness, likely from hops settled to the bottom of the can itself, which turns the whole experience kind of excessively brutal (in a bad way).

Yikes. This is... not great. Seems like it saw almost no quality control. Finback has this issue sometimes, and it's quite disappointing, as it leads me to believe they are more interested in putting a ton of SKUs on shelves and turning beer recipes over as quickly as possible instead of developing quality products with longevity. This is an issue for the current beer market as a whole, and it is, unfortunately, a tactic that works well. I am a sucker for new beer, of course... I am frequently in this thread series, after all. As we drink our new beers today, let's reflect on what an intense time it is to be a beer lover. I hope your first new beer experience of the day is more positive than mine. Back with what is hopefully a much better brew in a while.


(incredible tech house, everyone who is a fan of catchy, uplifting electronic music should hear this song)

 

A-Pours an amber golden color with a slight head and lacing
A-Aroma has slight citrus hints
T-The taste follows the nose with a slight citrus flavor
M-A light bodied decently carbonated smooth beer
O-A good Lager

 

Boundary Bay Dark Darkness. Very nice. Nice head retention/spotty lacing. Aromas and flavors of big dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, roasted nuts, toasted biscuit, and dark bread/crust; with lighter notes of molasses, raisin, fig, date, smoke, charcoal, wood, herbal, grass, peppercorn, pine, and yeast earthiness. A bit too fruity/yeasty aromas, but not overwhelming. Light-moderate pine, herbal, woody, grassy, peppery, roast, charred bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation and body; creamy/bready/grainy malts; some sticky/resinous hops, and chalky roast in the mouthfeel. Light-moderate increasing dryness from lingering hop/char bitterness. No cloying/acrid/astringent flavors after the finish. Minimal warming alcohol for 6.3%. Smooth, not aggressively bitter/charred. Great well rounded rich malt complexity, with nice earthy hops presence/balance, and restrained fruity yeast. Light residual sweetness with lingering hop/char bitter dryness. Well made American style all the way. 3.88


Cheers

 

Thanks @woodychandler for a great NBS start. I’ve got a nasty cold this week, so I won’t CANtaminate the thread by drinking a new beer that I CAN’t taste. As usual I am enjoying all the posts. Please CANtinue!

 

Keeping the good times going...

Let's crack this one open!



Poured from the bottle into a Bruery tulip glass.

Really neat looking beer. Muted ruby colored body, a sense of brown and rusted orange color that is solid and has some transparency. There is a nice little peak of fine carbonation up in the glass. The head is quite a unique contrast, the faintest yellow with a fairly white top, making for a very dark body and a light colored head two fingers, and a crowned collar. It is an excellent flip on the beer color wagon train of life from body to head, that I have never I think witnessed before.

Aroma is impressive but unfortunately a little one dimensional. High in cinnamon content and going into apple pie territory. It covers over all the other flavors from white chocolate that I enjoy immensely such as the cocoa butter, vanilla, chocolate, and so on. Good, but not varied or diverse enough and not letting the base beer to shine.

The palate is much like the aroma. Excellent mouthfeel, with a full rich coating palate. However, the cinnamon dominates and makes the beer one dimensional. Soft touches of cinnamon coupled with faint fruity apple and vanilla on the mid palate. Great creamy sensing body at least.

I am a huge fan of white chocolate, but this is actually a bit of a disappointment. Much of what I massively enjoy about white chocolate is overtaken by this hot cinnamon rush. It may not be out of control flavor wise, but it dominates all the classic nuances that make white chocolate great.

look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4 | Final Grade: 4.08

Cheers!

 

Hey everybody! I'm enjoying a fine weekend of NFL postseason football and trying to keep it casual with the food and beer, but I'm more than happy to break out some of the good stuff for some NBS action. The earlier post from @zid got me in a lambic sort of mood, so why the hell not. I even bet it'll go crazy good alongside some chili-cheese nachos .

Here's a series I've always wanted to dig into- LambickX. These beers are blended from a single year, unlike a gueuze which includes up to three separate vintages and degrees of maturity. But then they are allowed to age in wood for a few years. This particular bottle was blended in 2013 and bottled in 2015, at the De Troch brewery.

Wow- killer lemony tartness, dirty hay bales and sweaty horse blankets definitely dominate here. As you'd expect, I suppose . But after acclimating to that there's some gentle spice and dried flowers airing it out, but also balanced on the deep end by a goodly amount of leather gloves and woody astringency. Mouthfeel is muscular and lean, with a super dry crisp finish.

Overall it's very vibrant and full of life still. Yet I'm also left with the impression that some more depth could have balanced things to the point where it would hit that next level. Perhaps that's the ultimate tradeoff implicit in blending things the way that they did; but for the price I'm not complaining. A fantastic value here at $12, and I look forward to trying more of the other bottlings available. Solid A- (4.25).

 

Alright, here's my second and final new beer entry for 1/5/2020, and it's one I'm pretty excited about. Now do you get the "mull" reference from my previous post? If not, recall that "mulling spices" are typically used in apple cider-based drinks during colder weather. Now, see what type of barrels this beer was aged in Okay, it's kind of a reach, but whatever.

I'm going to be honest here and say I didn't do much research into this one before buying it, nor did I hear much at all in the way of fanfare for it for some reason.



An apple brandy barrel-aged stout with cinnamon, clocking in at 12.4% ABV sounds like quite a decadent treat. When I saw that my local store got some of this liquid treasure in stock, I looked into what was going on with it, and immediately decided I'd have to pick it up. According to the head of Boulevard's barrel-aging program, this beer features a rather new recipe for the base beer, which is also exciting to me. He mentions in the linked interview that they "experimented with some new malts to achieve that chocolate-forward flavor and added viscosity," which has me extra-pumped. I had BLVD's 30th Anniversary beer recently, and I guess a strain of it was, in fact, this recipe (sans the apple brandy barrel)... that blend was fantastic, so I'm hoping this follows along similar lines of quality.

Anyway, enough exposition. You're here for the beer, aren't ya? The pour is a dense, deep, black colored liquid topped off with a velvety mocha head that lasts for days. It doesn't leave any real lace behind, but the legs here are quite nice, and it has a nice, appropriate color. The surface is pretty clear, without much crowding from the bubbly foam that mostly sticks to the edge of the glass.

The nose is insane! It truly smells just like mulled cider with a kiss of cocoa powder and some light woodiness. If that's not your idea of a good time, I honestly wouldn't bother with this beer. It's that intensely driven by that element. But, if you do like the sound of that, this may be your new go-to Winter imperial stout. I pick up a ton of earthy cinnamon (but not enough to crowd out everything else), sweet apples, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla ice cream, fruity/semi-acidic espresso, and apple brandy. I've only had one other apple brandy barrel stout before (Prairie Apple Brandy Noir), and, while it was quite good, this just straight-up wins out based on what they were going for. I've never had anything quite like this... it smells phenomenal!

Super flavorful and rich... decadent stuff. My first few sips are laden with rich chocolate mousse elements, vanillins, toffee, whipped cream, apple-driven sweetness, some woody flavors, and a distinct kiss of cinnamon in the finish. Such a delightfully well-made beer. The 12.4% is present and warming, but also restrained in the flavor profile, allowing you to enjoy the sumptuous tastes of spiced cider blended with a spectacular imperial stout base without being overwhelmed by ethanol burn. Mouthfeel is smooth and coating; they definitely achieved a full-bodied, chocolate-y beer that focuses on the unique processes they used in creating it. It's all so damn well-balanced. I'm blown away.

Now I need to get a four-pack of this and a four-pack of Suddenly Comfy and make brutal black-and-tans!!

 

Yesterday I went in search of KBS Espresso, but I think I'm too late. This is my consolation prize and its not bad. It's Founders and its got coffee! This is my third NBS in a row with a stout or stout-like beer that is sweeter than my usual preference, however it is also my third week conceding that I guess I like some sweet beers.

4.15/5 rDev +2.5%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a 12oz bottle dated 12.02.19 to a diagonally cut tumbler.
Dark brown body with a hint of red sits below a decent dark-beige head that lasts about 2-3 minutes but coats the glass well.
Smells like brown sugar-sweetened coffee. The taste is a little different though with only a hint of coffee and a lot of hazelnut. (A cup of coffee sweetened with Nutella?) Despite the sweetness the finish is surprisingly dry (I think the carbonation contributes to the sugar cleanup).
Founders calls this a brown ale but it's trying hard to be a porter/stout at 9% ABV and more mouthfeel than most brown ales.

 

Started up some Metal Slug X. I also have 1-5, but those are the only Neo Geo games I have. Will have to see what else is available.


Icicle Dark Persuasion German Chocolate Ale. Excellent. Lasting head retention/thick foamy lacing. Aromas and flavors of big milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, coconut, caramel, brown sugar, roasted nuts, toasted biscuit, and dark bread/crust; with lighter notes of dark fruit, smoke, char, wood, herbal, peppercorn, pine, and yeast earthiness. Light-moderate pine, herbal, woody, grassy, peppery, roast, charred bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-plus body; creamy/bready/grainy malts; some sticky/resinous hops, and chalky roast in the mouthfeel. Light-moderate increasing dryness from lingering hop/char bitterness. No cloying/acrid/astringent flavors after the finish. Minimal warming alcohol for 6.5%. Smooth, nicely soft and not overly bitter/charred. Great balance of rich malts, coconut, and earthy hops with restrained fruity yeast. Light residual sweetness with lingering dryness. Spot on American style. Nothing overwhelming or artificial feeling from the coconut. 4.03


Cheers

 

Well, I'm back from my winter hike in the woods and enjoying this fine libation, which was also acquired from my trip to Ohio on the Saturday before Christmas. I've got to say that aside from Fat Head's and perhaps The Brew Kettle; Masthead is at the top of my list of Cleveland brewers.

Masthead - Wet Work Fresh Hop Double IPA (8.0%) - my overall rating = 4.25



Had this near Pittsburgh, PA from a recent 16oz can.

A - Partly cloudy straw gold with a 1-finger head that sticks around leaving good lace.

S - Pine, herbal/medicinal, orange, crushed hop bud

T - Orange marmalade on white toast while sipping spearmint tea, at least initially. Then a pleasant pine bitterness, orange zest and children's flavored aspirin come riding in for balance. Really tastes good to me.

M - Medium body and light-medium carbonation. Mildly pricking and resinous. Fairly dry finish.

O - About 75% West Coast, 25% NEIPA. Cleanly fermented and satisfying every sip. Recommended.

 

Sixpoint's. Mega Raspy which came to me from @CanConPhilly.

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

Pours burgundy with a massive pink head that dissipated fairly quickly to nothing and left no lacing. Smells like mixed berry juice with some vanilla. Tastes of raspberry, Blackberry, strawberry, vanilla, brown sugar and a hint of lactose sweetness. Tofu k or bitterness to speak of. Medium bodied, light carbonation, smooth mouth feel with the ABV incredibly well hidden.

 

Westmalle Dubbel
ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 28



Aroma is sweet bread, plums and raisins, spice.

Color is dark brown from the front, murky ruby red with a back light. 1/3 inch tan head from a careful pour into the chalice, thick, creamy, uneven top, excellent retention. Thick sheets of lacing on the opposite side. Upward showers of bubbles.

Taste is somewhat bitter in the beginning, and this remains in the background throughout. Dark fruits, raisins, mild spiciness. The taste is fairly complex, with the interplay of fruit, spice, and a dry bitterness that borders on astringency. The bitterness is more like bitter coffee (albeit with no coffee taste) rather than bitter hops. The finish is surprisingly toward dry, given the sweetness of the aroma.

Feel is smooth and a bit thin.

Overall, a very good traditional dubbel.

L: 4.0 | S: 4.0 | T: 4.25 | F: 3.75 | O: 4.0 | BA rating: 4.08

 

NBS frequently has beers where the name or label art just makes me shake my head... either due to flirting with copyright infringement or simply using bad taste for a food item. This beer is the latter and probably gonna be the clear winner of the week for me. Genuine thanks for choosing it. It's an illuminating thing regarding beer culture. Cheers!

 

I'm nearing the end of the bottle now, and this beer is just getting better and better. The punch and vibrancy remain, and other facets are coming out. In particular, I'm really enjoying a delicate vinous quality not unlike an oak aged chardonnay. Lovely stuff!