New Beer Sunday (Week 782)

NBS. Cumbre/ModernTimes/PizzaPort collab, BIG WEST DIPA. 9.2% - think a bigger, clearer version of Pliny the E or their Elevated IPA.
L - Crystal pale straw, visible carbonation rising for almost an hour in the glass. Unusual these days.
A - Smells like a bitter tropical fruit forest, some hay in there as well. Love it.
T - Doubles down on the aroma, a little forest floor pine astringency mixed in with some tropical guava (?) and near-pomegranate notes. Interesting.
F - Perfect carbonation, warming, but not "hot" on the palate from the ABV. Dangerously smooth and good.
O - One of Cumbre's best collaboration beers of all time. Get it if you see it. Already rated this in the 4.25-4.3 range out of 5. If you don't like it, well, I guess you and your horse can go... yeah.
Cheers...

 

Or, as @Ozzylizard said, dead.

However, I was looking at the beers I have to choose from for today, and maybe I'll go with two here the sum of their ABV is ~15% (6.2+9). We'll see.

Maybe a mod could change the title of the thread to "15th Anniversary New Beer Sunday (Week 782)" to grad some browser traffic!

 

Interboro w/ Oxbow - All City Vienna Lager

This is a lovely copperish color. Great clarity (better than the pic suggests). Poor head. There’s a nice level of toasty melanoidins that aren’t strong enough to hurt drinkability. Really nice balance. I’m pleasantly surprised by the level of subtlety of this one - That's not something you often get with a 16oz local can. There’s quite a bit of character (mainly that mentioned toast), but as a whole, it’s a deliciously measured beer that goes down easy. Just what I needed. Way too expensive to be a repeat purchase though… but you know they aren’t rushing to brew this again so it ultimately doesn’t matter anyway. Isn't that a good encapsulation of the issues with the "local" beer market - Too expensive to buy twice, but they'll only brew it once anyway. At least this one is a winner as far as enjoying the drink goes.

 

Happy Sunday, NBS crew! I have wanted to try this beer for quite some time, and (knowing this) @AyatollahGold sent me a can to try this week. Hopefully the anticipation matches the actual execution on this intriguing beer!

Bamburana - Oscar Blues/ Cigar City
BA stout - 12.2% abv
Canned 1/10/19
Score: 4.58 (+2.2% rDev)



Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2681/382422/?ba=CanConPhilly#review

Synopsis:
Everything I hoped it would be. This beer strikes me as an adult candy bar dunked into an adult milkshake. You know the booze is there, but it’s not in your face and only provides warming versus actual alcohol smell/taste. The barrels used are fascinating, and provide flavors I have not experienced before in a stout. Thick molasses, poured slowly into an expensive red wine, then doused with vanilla bean, chicory, and pureed dark fruit. If a queen suddenly decided she wanted to try a dark beer other than Guinness, I’d suggest this. It’s regal as fuck. Thanks again Dayton!

 

Round #2, and it's time to go big, or go home.... Wait, I am home.

Time to go big, with a beer so kindly sent to me by @FFFjunkie .

Deth's Tar from Revolution Brewing. This beer is a heavy hitter at 14.8% ABV.

Holy cow! This beer packs a very tasty punch. It's so well made. It's packed with a beautiful nose, and flavor (which I'll expand on in my review). Thick bodied. Damn tasty, and a well made beer.

I am amazed by how good this beer is. I also am grateful that this was sent to me by @FFFjunkie . I am in awe here, and will be sipping this for quite a while.

Review:

4.5/5 rDev +3.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Pours thick pitch black. 2 1/2 finger tan head. The head retention is actually damn good for an almost 15% beer. No lacing on the glass.
The nose is a barrel bomb. Caramel, mocha, chocolate, dates, figs, raisins. Just a total aroma bomb.
Taste - First sit is at 61 F - Like the nose, the flavors are there. Lots of caramel up front, That's mixed in with chocolate. The dark fruit flavors seem to be more of a backside flavor to me. There's also a slight bitterness to this, but very slight, and also pleasing. There's also, even though it's not the coffee version, a hint of coffee to this.
Thick, creamy, full bodied. What should be expected from this style.
Solid beer of this style, and damn tasty!


I'll see if I can do one more after this monster. If so, see you later.

 

Tree House In Perpetuity


Pours an entitely hazed orange yellow with a huge, spongy and stable head.


Bursts of passion fruit, ripe pineapples and fresh cut limes, establishing an exotic fruitiness from first glance. Has a white bread dough undertone adding to the hop inspired nose, revealing additional mango, tangerine and white wine grapes.


Has a soft, smooth mouthfeel to it with a fitting, complimenting carbonation. This has a lighter to medium body with a nice, refreshing effervescence during its finish.


Tastes of ripe mango, luscious peaches and bitter limes, accompanied by an ice bonbon freshness and a noble hop dryness. The beer then develops an intriguing old cheese, ripe oranges interplay with a resinous peak to it, gently balanced by flowery limes and breadcrust malts. Finishes dry and bitter with a vivid fruit basket, lighter and a bit more crisp, creating a great complexity on its way out.


This is quite unusual for a hazy ipa, making excessivly use of the great Nelson hop, which works marvelously well together with Citra. It‘s creating an unforseen depth which not solely relies on fruit forward flavors, but introducing a cheesy, resinous complexity, even showing off a lighter note of sweet malts. Everything in this comes together in perfect harmony, making you wish for this to last on your tongue in perpetuity.

 

Lemke Budike Weisse Waldmeister

The Shelton Brothers have their example of a Berlin brewery trying to make the most “traditional” Berliner Weisse they can make in the face of very untraditional American (and German) takes on the style. That brewery would be Schneeeule. Four vowels in a row. Can you beat that? Seems like B United has their example too (of a Berlin brewery… not a four-vowel word). It’s Brauerei Lemke, and this can is part of the “canned in the US” B United tanker series. I've never heard of this brewery before. Confusingly, this beer is brewed with woodruff. Proof that one man’s tradition is another man’s bastardization.

I was wondering if this beer would be a pretty standard beer color or if it would have a greenish element to it. Surprise! It’s actually a murky and milky pinkish color. The pitiful head is noisy like soda. Crazy. Smells heavily of yogurt like acidity and a slight touch of funk. Well, there is brett and lacto in this one. The taste is very tart, earthy. Yogurt and lemon. Once you adjust, it’s actually really nice. there’s an earthy complexity to it.

Philosophically, the woodruff addition is a total misfit. Why go through the trouble of brewing a Berliner Weisse in a traditional way, and then adding woodruff in a way that wouldn’t be traditional at all - not in the sense of a really traditional pre-syrup Berliner Weisse, and not in the sense of a pre-revival Berliner Weisse with some sweet, green woodruff syrup added to it. This beer is more of a play on concept than a recreation in that regard. So, how has the woodruff contributed to the flavor of this beer? I have no idea. I wouldn’t know what to look for taste-wise. I’ve never had a beer exactly like this without the woodruff, and I’ve never smelled a woodruff plant. Nothing stood out in the beer in this regard.

Nonetheless, this seems like the nicest execution that I’ve ever had of a style that I normally don’t click with. This is significantly more appealing to me than any American version I’ve had, but I also haven’t had the standard revival take from Schneeeule (only their "Americanized" version).

@Snowcrash000

 

Turnstiles a 5.3 % ABV Pilsner from Twin Elephant Brewing. Looks like TE is starting to brew more lagers and that's a good thing. MY guess is that this beer is called a Pilsner because it's brewed with Pilsner malt. It does not taste as one would expect a Pilsner to taste because it's dry hopped with Stata and Saphir hops. It pours dark yellow with a white head.. Nice aroma of malt and lemongrass. The taste is also malty and has hints of various citrus fruits. The mouthfeel is full and the finish is dry and crisp. Overall a very drinkable and refreshing brew.

 

Easy cash for the brewers, so you can't blame them. Brew essentially the same beer, tweaked a bit, with a new name and new artwork, and sell it at a premium. Too expensive for repeat purchases, but they've convinced us it is not a "repeat" purchase (even though it basically is).

We (the craft beer consumers) have only ourselves to blame for this. Always seeking the new, the fresh, and the local.

Take me, for example. I did a quick count of the beer in my 'fridge. It is about evenly split:
1/3 are repeat buys
1/3 are one-time buys by me (but not one time beers by the brewer... some of these will likely be repeat buys, maybe...)
1/3 are one-ofs by the brewer

The fable The Emperor's New Clothes comes to mind.

 

Hey what's going on?!

Time for some beers this long weekend for us down in the USA. Make sure that bee fridge is stacked up!

Done good so far, however I had a bit of a kitchen "accident" which is always a shame. Let's just say there was much cursing and bandages and leave it at that. nothing serious.

With that though picking up some local cans... what's going on with that?

What's new for our hero today?



Poured from the can into a tulip glass.

Very dark for a single, but with an excellent clear and beaming brass brown yellow, polished like a dark rail. Fine micro carbonation, even one dead center, meeting to a simple bright white two finger head. Gleaming and glowing like a gem, great looking beer.

Good solid aroma. Slightly hop forward with touches of herbal spice. Malt toasty crisp with only a little hints of candi like sugar. Hits a bit large and aggressive. Some faint malt toasty notes if any.

Palate is real solid. Honey feeling and tasting and more sturdy malt backbone is noticeable on first sip. Pleasant amounts of herbal flavors, particularly in the finish mixing a touch of sage, and almost sharp pine hop bitterness. There's a much more unique malt bill going on here that flirts with peanut, but gets more into toasty character. A bit of a playful carbonation in feel and flavor also. With some time there's a little bit of fruit apple and pear like sweet flavors, followed with a good contrasting hop bitterness.

A very solid Belgian single

look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4 | 4.04/5 rDev -3.8%

Cheers!

 

I don't have a new beer to share yet (I'll have a couple later in the day), but the theme for today's thread put forth by @lordofthewiens is one that, for me and Joy (and James, though he lives in Minnesota), is especially close to our hearts.

We're dog people - really, REALLY dog people. Since we've been married (30 years this coming St Patrick's Day), Joy and I have had dogs. When we were first married, Joy brought two dogs with her, Ruffie and Peanut. Ruffie was a big ol' retriever mix (70 lbs or so) and Peanut was a cockapoo.

Ruffie was just a sweet, sweet dog - he was everyone's friend, and he LOVED treats, specifically DB's (Dog Biscuits). Peanut (or Pee Wee) was a little more feisty and a little less loving - he slept on the bed with us, and every night when I came to bed, he growled at me when I pulled back the covers, then when I would shush him, I'd get yelled at by Joy. As I said, we're dog people.

Ruffie lived to 15 years old, which is REALLY old for a dog his size. We had to put him down on 6/1/96 when the dementia he was suffering from became debilitating and his quality of life started to decline. Joy and I were holding him at the vet when he was put to sleep, and that was especially hard on Joy - she'd had him since 1981, when she graduated from college. Really a tough day.

Shortly after Ruff was put down, we moved to Indianapolis (August 1996) and Peanut went with us, as did our cat Milo, who joined the family in 1993 (Milo was a stray kitten we got from the lady who found him sleeping under her car). They both made the move to Minnesota, too, in September 1999, but that was a hard move on Pee Wee, who was 16 years old, and we had to put him down at the end of the year, right before Christmas. We went back to Indiana and Ohio for the holidays, and the time with our families helped, especially Joy - Ruffie and Peanut were our dogs, but they were really her dogs.

As I said, we're dog people, so when we got back to Minnesota, I looked in the classified section of the paper and saw an ad under "Dogs" that said the Humane Society had a litter of 7 shepherd mix pups. I didn't say anything to Joy, but I stopped at the HS that day at lunch (1/3/00) to check them out.

They were ADORABLE. One in particular stood out - he had a "freckle" on his nose and pranced around the kennel the pups were in like he owned the place. When I approached them, he walked up to me, looked up and barked, then sat down with his little tail wagging, looking me right in the eye. I was hooked.

I called Joy and told her she and James should come and meet me there after work so we could pick one out (there were 5 left when I was there at lunch). She hesitated until I gave her my "We're dog people - we need a dog" line, and she agreed. When we met at the Humane Society after work, there were only 3 left. We picked the freckle-nosed little pup and named him Otis on the spot (to go with Milo).

Otis was 7 weeks old when we got him. He and the other pups were German Shepherd/Collie mix. The mother dog (she was the German Shepherd) had died when the pups were 3 weeks old, so they were cared for by the HS employees (who are truly heroes, IMHO), but they needed work on their socialization skills. Otis in particular was trying to figure out how he fit in with his new pack - after a couple of weeks, Joy (whom Otis took great pleasure in trying to boss around) said, "He's too aggressive - maybe we should take him back."

No, we just need to let him know who the alpha is, and he'll fall in line, which we did at home and by enrolling him in "Puppy Kindergarten" classes at the Humane Society. Otis did great (German Shepherds are very work-oriented dogs), and he eventually grew into a 45-pound "Miniature German Shepherd" - he looked like a German Shepherd that went through the dryer 3 times too many and shrunk.

He was a fantastic dog. We put in an invisible fence in our backyard and he patrolled that yard like it was his - because it was. He loved EVERYBODY - the only danger to anyone entering our yard was being licked to death.

Unless you were a squirrel or a rabbit (or, once, a deer) - then Otis would go berserk, barking and giving chase to the offending critter. He never (thankfully) caught one, though, because as much as he disliked the bunnies and squirrelies, he had that much more respect for the invisible, which zapped him once right after we had it put in (I had to train him for a week). That was all it took - he'd hear that tone from the collar, and he'd freeze.

We had Otis for 12 years, and all 12 years were fantastic with him, save for the final 90 minutes, when he was struck by a severe case of bloat (which afflicts shepherds and other breeds with broad chests and narrow hips like mastiffs, etc) and we had to put him down in 5/19/12. That hit me especially hard - he was our family's dog, but he was MY dog. I could give him a look, and he knew what I was thinking. He was just a terrific dog, and I still tear up when I think about him.

The way he went was particularly brutal - completely healthy, at least to the eye, one minute, less than an hour later, you're trying to decide whether to drive him 90 minutes to an emergency surgeon in Minneapolis that he probably won't survive, and if he does, he'll have a very arduous recovery that'll last upwards of 6 weeks, and his quality of life will definitely decline.

We loved him too much to put him through that at 12 years old. So we put him down, and didn't get another dog for 2 months, then in July 2012, I started looking again for rescue pups. In 2000, the rescue pups were about 2 miles from our house, we drove to the Humane Society, and less than an hour later, we had our puppy.

In 2012, I went online and searched "shepherd mix pups." An organization called rescuedpaws.org in Minnesota popped up, so I went to their site and looked around. They primarily did rescues for Rottweilers, but also had some puppies, which is where I found Ranger. He and his 5 siblings were abandoned when they were 2 weeks old in a box under a trailer in southeastern Tennessee.

A 4-page application and phone interview later, we had our puppy. Ranger, one of his siblings, and 30 or so other dogs made their way from Tennessee to Minnesota and we picked him up on 8/11/12. He was around 10 weeks old and weighed 9 lbs. During the phone interview with the young lady from Rescued Paws (they're no longer around), I patiently answered her questions - and she had a LOT of questions - before I told her, "You know, the dog we're going to adopt has just hit the Doggie Lotto." The interview ended right after that.

Nearly 8 years later, our little Ranger is all grown up .....



..... and we love him dearly. He's around 75 lbs, and is a really sweet dog. He's an uber mix of probably 5 or 6 breeds (including Shepherd - his snout is pure Shepherd), but his primary breed is supposedly Mountain Cur, a breed that is good at hunting critters and birds, and Ranger is certainly that. Like Otis, he patrols the yard, and keeps a sharp eye out for squirrels and rabbits, but he also tracks birds - I've even seen him track a plane on a few occasions.

He definitely takes it personally when any birdies enter Ranger's airspace, which includes his yard (and it is definitely his yard - we're just allowed to use it) and our street, so he's constantly at work. He loves to be outside, and he LOVES "Happy Hour" when he gets to enjoy an "FP" or Frosty Paw, otherwise known as Doggy Crack .....



...... but his most important job is inspecting his Dad's beer boxes when they arrive as he did this box from @Ozzylizard during NBS BIF 007 in March 2018 .....



My apologies for the tome I wrote, but as I stated, we are dog people, and I agree vociferously with the point @lordofthewiens makes about rescues - they make wonderful pets, and they need help, or they will be euthanized. No dog deserves that - they're literally on this earth to love humans. If you show them a little love in return, you'll have the most loyal, loving friend you can imagine.

 

Hey gang! For my first NBS post, I'm enjoying a beer that has been on my radar for a while, Fayston Maple from Lawson's.


Appearance - Pitch black with a nice tan head.
Aroma - Mostly just getting a roasty smell.
Taste - This is where it really shines. Getting lots of roasty flavors, some smoke, very dry. Just when I thought "Well, where's the maple?" you get it on back end, very subtle. I've had some maple stouts that are way too sweet (like IHOP sweet), but this is so well balanced. Really delicious as it warms.
Texture - Thick, but not chewy. Great mouthfeel and good carbonation.
Overall, great beer and glad I got to try it (thanks, @SierraNevallagash). I would give it 4.5

Cheers and hope everyone enjoys their new beers today!

 

Thanks!

 

Distance Haze from Revision Brewing courtesy of @Snrubnivek
4.19/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pours a milky yellow with a fluffy one inch white head that left spotty lacing all the way down the glass. Smells of orange, tropical fruits and a hint of malt. Tastes of orange, orange pith, apricot, papaya, grapefruit, passion fruit, grass and a bit of malt. Medium bodied and carbonated, soft mouth feel with a lingering dry finish.

Going with the theme of the day, our rescue mutt.

 

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We had to put down our golden retriever, I was crushed. My wife and kids surprised me a year later with a rescue dog that was named Max. We named the new family member " Tuukka" after the Boston Bruins goalkeeper. Very playful and a handsome dog, he is an important family member.

Call me Ishmael...I nabbed a whale this week......a lot of dog references this week


King Jjjulius by Treehouse

4.78/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.75

in Worcester on business. Finish up work early and I have two options: head back to the office or head over to TreeHouse. You know where this story is headed. They two beers that I want, one of them being King Jjjuliuss.

Relatively short line for a rainy Monday, cute golden puppy in line ahead of me greeting everyone. Great breed. I am called up to the serving line and am waited on by an original pour girl, Lauren, aka "L-Dog." We exchange niceties about a mutual friend and former treehouse employee, “ The Dentist.” I get my beer and pay up and the memories of Dean yelling, “Bigggg Tipper” echo thru the canyons of my mind.

Canned on 2.4.2020, opened on 2.10.2020, poured into a Treehouse teku glass

“Stay hungry, stay foolish”

Two finger soapy white, big bubbled foam cap with great retention, settles to a thick white ring and solid island after five minutes. Floating above the obligatory NE style hazy orange liquid.

aroma is orange, mango, apricot, tangerine, kumquat

taste is “oh my!” orange dominant, mango

hop taste, no bite, chug a lug smooth, hop taste nicely lingers

excellent beer

 

Welcome to the party. As @lordofthewiens said, join us any Sunday, we’ll be here

 

Will do. Thanks!