New Beer Sunday (Week 791)

Drinking light this hot/humid afternoon...I’ve kept a look out during my travels for beers to try from Belgian brewery De Cam, and found my only bottle so far in a bar/bottle shop in Edinburgh during our Christmas stay in 2018 - Oude Lambiek, bottled May 18, 2017, an unblended “still” lambic that was aged in oak barrels for at least 3 years:





Poured at 52 degrees, the color is deep dark gold/almost orange with excellent clarity; a few initial white bubbles, but really no head; very little/no carbonation save a few tiny bubbles that cling to the side of the glass. Green apples, light funk, musty antique store smells; grapefruit rind, wet wood, earthy hay, straw nose. Layers of tart lemon, grapefruit rind, apricot, green apples and orange peel; dusty funky fruity dry finish. Light dry body; almost zero carbonation; medium tartness, but not quite puckering; moderate acidic/tannic tongue coating. Overall a world class lambic; after 3 years in the barrel and almost 3 years in the bottle, the initial sourness has softened, with the yeast contributing layers of mild funky earth tones and tart citrus fruity flavors; with some light acidity; no alcohol notes from 5% abv; a great warm weather beer that can be enjoyed any time of year.

4.75 | 4.25 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.5

Score: 4.46 rDev: +5.2%

 

Trying to support local, but will be honest; most just don't measure up. My first beer of this day is from New Province, about 22 miles up the road. They are very hit or miss.
Strawberry Milkshake is a "sour" weighing in at 6.3% ABV. This has strawberries, vanilla & lactose in the mix 3.6 overall

Pours an effervescent gold/bronze with one finger of beige head. Next to zero head retention & lacing

S: Tart lemon and a little vanilla

T: Strawberry, vanilla, tart cherry and dryness up front. Tartness, dryness, a little vanilla & sweet strawberry as this warms, plus a little lemon & cherry. Finishes with vanilla sweetness & fruity tartness

MF: Medium body, fairly firm carbonation, turns fairly creamy as it warms

Very easy to drink , very approachable

 

Fair State Strata NEIPA, 6.2% ABV. Pours hazy orangish yellow, with a two-finger white head that left lots of foamy lacing. Nose is orange with light zest. Taste follows, with slight sweetness and slight bitterness. Excellent mouthfeel if a bit watery, overall excellent.

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

Oddly enough, although this is the first time I've had this beer, I've bought it before. I only got into IPAs (and sours) in the past 9 months or so, and before that I bought this beer for a trade with someone that liked IPAs.

 

Well, despite not making a strong impression on me, that first beer went down very quickly. Up next I'll be giving Blue by Tree House a try. According to the can, "Blue is an homage to Mosaic hops". The can also encourages me to "Don't be blue, drink blue". I have to admit that while I like Tree House, in general I have trouble discerning the difference between many of their beers. While much of that is undoubtedly down to my completely unrefined palate, I sometimes wonder how much difference there really is among many of their IPAs. To those who can tell the difference, more power to you. Ok then. Let's see what this one has to offer.

3.77/5 rDev -8.9%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Pours a golden haze with lots of fluffy white head. Moderate lacing. Nice floral hoppy smell. Doesn't smell as juicy as many of their IPAs do, but still smells good. Taste is somehow less than I was expecting. I can definitely taste the mosaic hops, but the "dank blueberry, mixed berries, raspberry puree, tropical fruit and guava" that the can mentions are missing.
This isn't super fresh (canned end of Jan), but I'm not normally that sensitive to freshness with IPAs. Overall, I just taste normal, solid IPA. This is a decent offering, but nothing I'd actively seek out.

 

I'm all in favor of supporting local breweries and there are some fine ones in the Pittsburgh area near me. It's really important to vote with our wallets and help our locals stay in business! Today though, after a 9-mile hike in the woods (far away from others), I decided to crack open this bomber my son-in-law gave me for Christmas. It's from the other side of the country but he knows I really like this brewery and it was touching he sought this out for me.

Kern River Brewing - Wild & Scenic (10.5% Imperial Oatmeal Stout with Cacoa & Peanut Butter)
My overall rating = 4.35



Having this from a 22oz bottled in 2019

A - Opaque dark brown with a 2-finger tan head and decent lace.

S - Malted milk chocolate, mild peanut butter on toast. Earthy spice. Quite pleasant.

T - Rich, semi-sweet chocolate milk while eating a well-toasted piece of brown bread with burnt edges with a light swipe of peanut butter. Good amount of roasted bitterness and earthy spice to compliment the lactose sweetness and nuttiness in the finish.

M - Medium-full body and light carbonation. Smooth and creamy and then dries out somewhat.

O - This is a very enjoyable beer that sits well on my palate. I have peanut butter toast every day for breakfast so I'm favorably inclined to these flavors. That being said, the peanut butter flavor is isn't dominant and is appropriately a compliment rather than the focus in this beer.

Hope everyone is staying safe and enjoying our community, which is more important than ever as we sequester.

 

Beautiful pics and review and very well said. Thank You

 

Man that's fantastic. Really enjoyed it. Hope to see you every Sunday.

 

It's an opener. It does real well at opening beers without bending the cap, in case you want to re-use the caps for something. It's made of bronze and stainless steel, and underneath it's got a magnet to capture the cap. They were made in the early 1980's, but there's a lot of them still around, some with designs, some plain. Got it off Ebay. Search "Georg Jensen (cap,opener)". Not cheap, but well worth it if you're into openers. Got mine pretty cheap.

 

Don't be so hard on your palate. Their beers share a lot of characteristics. I can definitely see what you mean. In my opinion what TH excels at is extracting and displaying the full possible "spectrum" of a given hop. As far as I understand it, many of their beers showcase a particular variety. I have no proof, but I have always figured they had a limited amount (maybe even one for their core lineup) of recipes and that the beer was like a canvas for the hop expression. Because of that a lot of the similarities come from the similarities across the hops themselves (and potentially from the recipe(s)). One thing's for sure, even if I don't know if I could distinguish certain ones from one another, I like to think that in a lineup of different brewers I would be able to pick the TH beers out. I might be blowing smoke though too.

 

Good afternoon NBS
Rhinegeist Cafe Ink

The review:
32oz crowler purchased Wednesday poured into a teku glass at fridge temp and allowed to warm over 30 minutes 10% ABV. The beer pours dense dark brown bordering on black with mocha brown head. Nearly no light penetration. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of bubbles. A few tiny spots of lacing. The aroma is mild with lightly sweetened & creamed cold brew coffee. The taste is caramel with slight cream sweetness up front. Coffee & dark malt is in the background with a mildly bitter, slightly ethanol finish. The mouthfeel is medium plus in body with less than medium carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Overall, good. I suspect this example is not in top condition. I would gladly try again under different circumstances.

I really enjoy the hoppy beers from Rhinegeist, but have yet to be wowed by anything else. This will be it for me today. This crowler is currently covered in plastic wrap and will make at least one more appearance on WBAYDN today. Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass today!

 

Yup.

The structure and expectations of NBS is what set it apart from LNBA and WBAYDN. There's nothing wrong with those types of "loose" threads, but there's just not much meat on those bones. NBS used to be the Prime Rib of BA.

 

Cherry Meerts from Funk Factory Geuzeria. Brewed to mimic low-abv second runnings of lambic (mars?) and refermented on tart cherries. Gorgeous, delightful tart and slightly sweet - cheers all!

 

Made a run to the drive up at Rebel Kettle brewing today. Picked up some decent looking cans. Also ordered lunch from Flyway Brewing. Trying to keep the locals in business. Flyway dropped off a growler of Blood Orange Radler. Good beer. I'll be sipping on it most of the day.



Pours a beautiful, bright reddish-pink color with a fizzy white head. Tons of blood orange on the nose. The taste follows with bright blood orange throughout. The mouthfeel is a bit thin but not unexpected for the style. Nice beer, easy to drink, enjoyable.

 

I agree with you that @Scotchboy's post was a wonderful addition to this thread, so don't go scaring him off with statements like this

 

Starry Eyed “X X Cream Ale”



Look
Pours a clear, pale gold. Excellent clarity, and appears quite well carbonated.

Smell
Sweeet.... a bit of grain and “corn”, and pretty much what I expect for a stronger interpretation such as this one. Maybe a bit more fusel alcohol character that some people might like, but it approaches Malt Liquor character for me, and as such is not unwelcome as such. ^_^

Taste
Sweeeeeeeeeet! One-dimensional, crushed aspirin Ferrara Pan “Alexander The Grape” candy-like character. A bit of alcohol... and overall, just an impression of “blech!” The buzz had better be pretty damned-rewarding.

Feel
As with the flavor, light and one dimensional. For a 6.8% ABV beer of this style, I’d expect just a bit more heft.

Overall
A textbook drain-pour. No date code that I can see, and it was purchased cold (and kept cold) from Ombibulous, which is one of the up and coming beer stores in this town. Better luck next time!

 

3 Fonteinen Schaarbeekse Kriek 2017/2018


Pours glowing red in color with a foamy white head, receeding to a fluffy, small head.


This smells of candided cherries, inheriting an utmost fruity and flowery composition, together with a lusciously fruit ripeness. Got a marzipan peak to it, revealing toasted cherry piths, as well as a subtle, funky leatheriness. The nose on this is simply phenomenal, revealing an intriguing complexity which is hard to find in a beer.


Has a soft, vivid carbonation, which leads to a great refreshment in this light bodied, smooth drinking beer.


This tastes of an initial, complex funkiness consisting of green apples, blue cheese and old basement, blended together with some additional leather, complimenting the uprising cherry fruitiness in this. The fruits got an intense ripe- and sweetness to them, featuring the unique marzipan flavor from the nose, as well as a gentle, subtle smokiness. Finishes rich and juicy with an underlying, balancing tartness, toasted cherry piths among a stony mineral quality, entagled into wet hay and lime zest, creating a refreshing, long lasting aftertaste.


This is a perfect Kriek to me. The cherries in this work their magic in an astonishing way, they‘re incredibly prominent and complex, at the same time this drinks easy and simply enjoyable. The mouthfeel is velvet, yet sparkling during the finish, the funk is there too, together with a very well working tartness, which makes this quite unique, as far as cherries can define a beer.

 

So after spreading the love to my ultra-local breweries for over a month now, I decided to go farther afield. Fat Orange Cat is 13-miles for me through a lot of back roads (one of them gravel). They had a pretty good setup, order on line, drive through a looping driveway, talk to someone far away from you car, they place your order on a table, walk away, you get out and get it.
My first NBS from FOC is a NEIPA called Keep Yer Claws Sharp. This is supposedly part of the "12 Percent Beer Project", which I really don't understand. Seems they are a distributor, but also have a bar in North Haven with a great tap list that I never got to before the Covid shit hit the fan. Maybe in the future. I see on the web today that they are still alive and doing takeout and delivery in the NH area.

My review is between the pictures.

4.24/5 rDev +3.2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Poured from an undated 16oz can picked up at the brewery today.
Body is light yellow- orange haze that could pass for unfiltered pineapple juice if it wasn't for the pillowy, frothy head above that also has a slight tint of yellow. This head eventually fades, but the lacing is strong.
Dank pineapple/apricot hit my nose as I poured even though the action was 3/4 arm's length from my nose.
Taste is similar with the addition of some hop bite. This thing is pretty sweet (as in sugary, although slang for good would apply also). Decent mouth feel, but not as "thick and coating" as its appearance teases.
I would buy this again. Great example of the style.

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Samplers and commentators. I hope everyone and their family are well today! Aslin Brewing has finally started distributing to New Jersey, as well as other states including Wisconsin based on @GreenBayBA's posts in the Virtual Bar yesterday. Bringing Sexy Back is a Mosaic-hopped NEIPA. There's no evident canning date but I checked the Facebook page and it appears to have been released in early February - so it's older than what I would normally purchase. It's rated "World Class" on BA so I was anxious to try it. And it's held up very nicely. The Mosaic hops really shine in the pineapple, tangerine, and lemon tastes. It's only mildly bitter and at 6.4% ABV it goes down fast. My guess is that if it were fresh my smell rating would be higher - and perhaps the taste rating. But it's awfully good. I'm anxious to try Master of Oranges and in retrospect wish I had bought it instead.

Here's my full review:

4.22/5 rDev -1.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

No apparent canning date, although it appears to have been released in early February. Poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass. It pours a hazy, bright tangerine color with a large, foamy, bright white cap and lots of thick, soapy lacing. The fruity nose features pineapple, tangerine, and lemon, along with onion and floral notes typical of Mosaic hops. The taste bursts with tangy pineapple, orange, mango, and notes of bubblegum and earthy pine. It finishes with only moderate bitterness. It has a fairly creamy mouthfeel with a pleasant level of carbonation, and it's easily drinkable at 6.4% ABV. Overall, Bringing Sexy Back is a solid fruit bomb that is ideal for outdoor, warm weather drinking. It's held up well for its age and I'd really like to try it fresh. I'm glad Aslin is now distributing in New Jersey.

I'll be back with something completely different. Cheers, NBS!