New Beer Sunday (Week 792)

I can taste that beer when I close my eyes. Well written and considered.

 

Hey now! Glad to see you back in the game.

 

Another NBS for me. Welcome back to @cavedave - great news on the health front.
So, to this.
An Outer Range Brewing saison named HUSH. 6.4% - overall an outstanding effort (4.35'ish overall). *disclaimer: I made the mistake of having this last night as one of my last beers and just... admittedly could not given it my full attention as I was cooking too. So I am treating this as my clean palate NBS'er today.

L - clear, like a cider in Normandy, with a big, lush full head that stayed foamy for minutes on end. Fantastic impression with this pale-straw color.
A - The aroma on this is just drop-dead awesome. Take your favorite cider, add pear, add clove, now imagine all the layers but with a clean spicy cracker note. You're close. Like driving a cart through apple and pear orchards, but near a spice plant.
T - This is where this sucker shines - it's all of the aromas you imagined, but done in such a focused, clean way, it's hard to describe it as "just" a saison. Clove/cinnamon intermingle in those apple-pear-almost brandied notes, and yet it finishes clean with a nice spicy after-taste. Full palate impression - still graceful at 6.4% - clean clean clean.
M - Feel is fantastic, keeps its zest and effervescence all the way through, and never falls off its own horse. A great balance between crisp, the fruit impression, and the spice emerges even more as it warms to the upper 50s. Really shines towards the end.
O - maybe the most technical and deftly-made beer I've had from ORB. I need to drink more of their NON-ipa offerings, it's clear.
Cheers to all - have a great Sunday - let's see what you have in your glass today!

 

Good to see you here in the old familiar. Kinda like my old LL Bean slippers! Cheers Dave.

 

Triple Crossing Paranoid

Pours a light very hazy amber golden color with a slight head and lacing
Aroma has nice mango, apricot and floral grapefruit orange hints
The taste follows the nose with a pleasant and a very well balanced tropical and citrus flavor
A medium bodied well carbonated beer
A great Pale Ale

 

And I sincerely hope for future Sundays as well.

Cheers to NBS!

 

Good morning guys and gals. Figured I'd throw one in while waiting to hear if my dad has corona or not.

Wander Brewing (Bellingham, Wa) - Single EyePA Citra



16oz can poured in to a nonic glass. Can is dated 02/06/20.

Look- Hazy darker gold color. Modest off-white head with great retention and solid lacing. Light carbonation streams visible. 4

Smell- Citrus (orange, grapefruit and lemon/lime), mango, gooseberry, a bit of pine and other floral/grassy hop notes. 4

Taste- Similar to the aroma, citrus and light mango, tangy goose berry, bready malts followed by light bitter pine and grassy/herbal hops. Well balanced. 4

Feel- Medium/light bodied, dry and crisp. Moderate/heavy carbonation on the tongue. 3.75

O- A solid WC style single hop Citra IPA, nothing over the top but nice. Worth checking out if you see it. 4

 

I'm still very new to the BA forums, especially compared to most of the participants of this thread, but I was delighted to see @cavedave start the thread today. When you first join a community like this you don't have a lot to go on when it comes to learning about the fellow members. As a longtime deadhead I immediately paid attention to what @cavedave has to say simply because of his avatar. I soon realized that he imparted a lot of great wisdom and observations to the community, all while not actually being able to imbibe. It was inspiring to see someone that could maintain such a presence in a community geared towards and activity that they couldn't participate in while loving it so much. When I saw the thread begin today I expected a wonderful kickoff of my favorite thread of the week with some well wishes for the rest of us to drink and be merry. It makes me so happy to see that you're doing so well that you can enjoy the occasional beer, @cavedave. As a new member I just want to say thanks for being a welcoming, level headed, and thoughtful member of this community. It's folks like you and so many others here that have made BA feel like a family very quickly. All the best to you going forward!

I hope everyone else is doing as well this week. While things are obviously still abnormal and weird all around, I feel like I hit a real quarantine stride this week. Maybe I'm just slowly adjusting to the new strangeness. I spent a lot of time doing projects around the house and relaxing on my back porch watching the birds fly between the rooftops and power lines. One positive I've found is having some extra time to seek out some locals that I might not usually get a chance to visit. Four Points Brewing is a small brewery that is located in Charleroi, PA. That's a 45 minute drive at minimum from Pittsburgh without any traffic at all. I don't usually have the time to make a normally 2 hour plus drive just to pick up a few 4-packs. With the quarantine they've seen a big increase in distribution around the city in grocery stores, bottle shops, and distributors. I've been reading great things recently about the way they've dialed in their IPA's and have been meaning to see for myself. When I saw what they were releasing on Friday it seemed like the perfect place to start.

Four Points has begun a single hop DIPA line called Overbranded. On Friday the released a variant using only Citra hops. Citra is commonplace these days, but in my mind that makes it the perfect place to start when evaluating what a brewery can do with it. Overbranded - Citra pours an opaque bright yellow with a one inch creamy white head. This is the type of opacity immediately excites me in a hazy. The aroma was fragrant hoppy citrus with a mix of fruits and your other typical descriptors. To be honest, the aroma was a bit muddy with nothing in particular standing out. The big concentrated flavors got things back on track though. A punch in the mouth of orangey citrus and pineapple was the first to land. This beer is the definition of a juice bomb to me. There were some underlying floral notes that added a bit more depth and delicacy to such a big pummeling of Citra up front. It was not overly sweet and hid the abv almost entirely. Feel is usually not a rating category that stands out to me. I'm rarely wowed by a beer's feel and am also just as rarely disappointed by it. The thick and rich yet soft mouthfeel of this beer was a distinct high point for me. Much like the appearance, this is everything I want in a hazy DIPA. Overall, I really loved Overbranded - Citra. This was a great example of the style, and something I could drink on a regular basis. The look and feel were the high points with flavor right behind. A great offering from Four Points. If their IPA game stays consistently at this level, then I see myself drinking a lot of them in the very near future.

4.42/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.5

Enjoy your Sunday, all! I plan to drink a long time want later today for another entry to the NBS thread. It's still a bit early to dive into a pastry stout for me.

 

Huppendorfer Vollbier


Pours a crystal clear orange to golden color with a huge, stable head.


Smells of toasted grains, lighter hay and dried noble hops. Has an additional note of grass to it, together with salted crackers.


This drinks perfectly refreshing with a light and well carbonated body.


Tastes of caramel covered straw and white bread dough, highlighted by a noble hop dryness. Atop its well balanced foundation settles a vivid carbonation, toning down the sweeter malt aspects in this effectivly. Finishes with an unforseen rusticness, a lighter toffee sweetness and just a glimpse of maintaining, leafy hops.


Very enjoyable and easy drinking, this exhibits an intriguing balance together with a very well-witted flavor composition.

 

Wishing you good health CaveDave. I used to go to the gym, play soccer and referee soccer to stay healthy. My wife would go to the gym, swimming and CrossFit to stay healthy. We had to modify both of those and created a replacement home gym. Exercising everyday , but, its not the same. Was eating primarily vegetarian for health reasons prior to the pandemic and now I am successfully thinning the herd. Need to re-focus on a more vegeatarian diet again.

The shelter in place has limited my ability to procure new beers. No more standing in lines to get he latest Treehouse beer, no more “detours” from my business trips to pick up something new or different. I am a ticker and I like finding something new , fresh and different. I have drained my beer fridge of all of the “onesies” that i had accumulated. I have visited my closest brewer to buy their fresh, new , local offerings. I have gone to my local Craft Beer Cellar to find new brews. My Sunday new beer is a Colorado recommendation from my beermonger. A very good recommendation.

In the Steep by Outer Range

4.5/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Can poured into teku

Two finger soapy off white foam cap , very good retention , sticky lacings, settles to a solid ring after five minutes over a hazy orange liquid

Aroma is pineapple, juicy fruit gum,

Taste is tropical fruits , pineapple

Hop taste , no bite , low sudsing

Good beer

 

Good morning, NBS! I'm going to start off today with a beer I bought because I thought it was brewed specifically for me, after all it is called "for giants" as I read it.

After the GF called me an idiot (again!), I read the back of the bottles and saw it is a new brew that is a combination of four other (unnamed) beers are that Founders' brewers' favorite recipes. They did name the combination, at least: 4 Giants.


Well, the beer in the glass is a lovely dark golden to copper color indicating the use of some darker malts. The clarity is refreshing, and the head builds up well - its remnants are washed away on my first sip.

Nose is floral and citrusy, with a toasty malt presence and something else that I'm thinking is along the lines of strawberry. Taste has a similar vibe with the toasted malts and strawberry-ish sweet fruit note laying the groundwork. The bittering agents tread lightly upon this ground at first - a little peach and grass.

The hops get bolder before the end of the taste, though they don't overpower the beer. A mélange of citrus, grass, pine, strawberry, and malt notes close the taste, without any single note taking the lead.

This, to me, is a nicely put together beer. It has the maltiness that comes with a 9% beer, but the counter-bitterness constrains it nicely. The volume of alcohol is similarly constrained, leading to a very enjoyable feel. I am quite happy with this beer, as if it actually were made for me.

 

I’m seeing a lot of Outer Range recently. Of course in Colorado but also here in Boston. Also saw them on a beer buying service out of California. Nice new brewer for me

 

Nice to see ya back. Sounds like you are doing very well, keep it up.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, good to hear about their "reach" to Boston and Cali (kinda surprised). Like a lot of small but good brewers, I think they quickly scrambled to get more retail on the shelves, and their own distro going, instead of just relying on taproom/keg sales (smart). We're seeing a lot of adaptive learning on the fly here, from the folks who know what they're doing. Those that are staying with bricks'n'mortar fronts are getting crushed however. Cheers to you!

 

Great news about your improving health, @cavedave and welcome back as a fellow imbiber in this thread. I always enjoy your reviews.

 

Welcome back @cavedave thanks for sharing and congrats !

 

Great to have you back. Glad to hear all the positive updates.

 

Sooo nice to see @cavedave open this morning’s thread and give such a positive health update!

Today’s new to me beer is from Lakefront Brewery, Inc., Milwaukee WI, “Barrel Aged Doppelbock”, aged in Bourbon Barrels six months. Bottled 1/21/19.







Poured at 53 degrees, a frothy/rocky off-white head sits atop deep amber colored liquid; good clarity, but lots of suspended particles; ok cap retention, thin ring; no lace, no legs. Nose is bourbon, vanilla, oak and white vinegar. Taste is sour dark fruit with a slightly sweet malt/biscuit base; a little bourbon, vanilla and oak; black pepper and tart dark cherries finish. Medium lite body, moderate minus carbonation; no warmth from 10.3% abv. Overall, the white vinegar and sour fruit flavors overwhelm the barrel notes and the malt base; the bourbon, vanilla and oak are clear enough in the aroma, but not so much on the tongue; easy drinking and tasty, but in a tart way; not at all what I was expecting.

4.0 | 3.75 | 3.75 | 3.5 | 3.75
Score: 3.74 rDev - 8.3%

 

Dave, that's fantastic news on all fronts, and it's great to see you joining us today! May your success and continued good health keep up for a long time indeed.

I'm not exactly awash with new beers lately, but I shall see what I have in the cellar and have it in your honor.

Interestingly enough about Plan Bee, their Barn Beer is one of the items I can have delivered from my local shop, and I always make sure to get a few each time. I just had one last night, in fact, such a great pleasure each time. You can't get much better in terms of price/quality/availability. I certainly hope that places like that will still be with us when this situation finally comes to an end.