New Beer Sunday (Week 795)

Great review, that’s quite the Phishy glass. It will be ready for Gamehendge.

 

This new brew is very local. Cool Cats & Kittens is a pale ale from Noble Savage.
This crowler pour presents as amber with a slight haze. The is a 2+ cm foam cap and an earthy hop aroma with a wisp of honey.
The flavor is woody with pine and loam. A slight orange bit is noted.
The mouthfeel is clean and the brew is light-bodied and easy to return to. Well done.

 

Great open. Very inviting to new participants, I would say.

 

Congratulations to the family!
Cheers

 

Frau Gruber All Together


Pours an unfiltered lemonade yellow color with a small, spongy head, which soon fades away.


The smell on this is defined by fresh squeezed limes, ripe papaya and passion fruit, together with a lighter note of wet grass. While this is pleasantly fruit forward on the nose the hops in this certainly provide a nice depth.


Drinks refreshing with its lighter body trying to get disguised by a faint creaminess, inheriting a nice carbonation spark during the finish.


Tastes of passion fruit, bitter lime zest and softer white bread dough, enriched by a light caramel peak. Has a breadier, sweeter midpalate with receeding fruits and a maintaining bitterness. Finishes bitter, with limes and mango defining the hop flavors here, balanced by toffee, bread crust and dried berries.


This is solid with a nice bitterness balancing the obvious fruitiness in this. Its mouthfeel is just too thin for what I expect regarding the style though, making this appear a bit flimsy. Just another superfluous hazy ipa with no innovation whatsoever.

 

IIRC, the way Surly identifies the "vintage" of their BA Darkness changed at some point. Surly now identifies the vintage of their BA Darkness based on when it was bottled, not the vintage of the base Darkness. So, BA Darkness 2020 is a barrel-aged Darkness 2019. It caused some confusion when they first did this, since one year of BA Darkness was skipped (which, I suppose, was only an issue to those who were cellaring verticals.)

All of this is based on memory, so open to correction.

 

Congratulations!

First child?

 

Second grandson, thanks!

 

Two solid Chicago area breweries, Illuminated Brew Works and Church Street Brewing, are not generally given much attention as they do not push the hype, but they have a plan, focus, and expertise.
I haven't had enough of either of these two brewery's efforts, but I am really liking what they have done together here.


The review.
"A collaboration between Church Street Brewing Company and Illuminated Brew Works. This beer starts out like a lager with a roasty caramel flavour that follows into a smooth finish. It drinks like a clean Porter with just enough kick to keep you interested. Cheers!"

16oz can poured into a chalice shows a dark, opaque, mahogany brown body that barely keeps afloat a whispy island of white bubbles leaving erratic spotted lacing.

Roasted malt dominates both the aroma and flavor. Hidden 9.5% as there is at best some chest warmth. Really nice.

Smooth and clean, medium feel.

Overall a stellar example of the style.

Slainte!

 

Today, for my opener, in my continued effort to support the small breweries, I have a beer from a small-town brewery about 20 miles SW of my house. I was back-and-forth for awhile about whether to go. Ultimately, it was the beer I will be tasting today that decided it: an ESB! We just don't see this style brewed locally very often. I decided to buy 2 each of 4 of their beers, both the make the trip worthwhile and to throw more support their way during the shutdown.

The beer is from Giesenbräu Bier Co. of New Prague, MN. As the name of the town suggests, this town was settled by Czech immigrants and they maintain their heritage through (among other things) an annual Dožínky Czech Harvest Festival.

And, as the name of the brewery suggests, their "goal is to serve the local community with fresh, locally crafted lagers and ales with an emphasis on German tradition" (quoting their web site).

So, curiously, today I will be trying an English style beer brewed by a German style focused brewery located in a Czech heritage town!

(Giesenbräu does brew a Czech pils for the town's annual festival, but, sadly, it is not on tap presently since the festival is in the fall, so I won't have it for the up-coming on-line pilsner tasting.)

Giesenbräu Bier Co. Ruth Bitter Ginsburg English Extra Special / Strong Bitter (ESB)
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: NA


Here is the brewer's description for this beer:

A classic British style Extra Special Bitter brewed in celebration of International Women's Day. It's exceptionally balanced: biscuity, earthy, fruity, and bitter. Named after gender equality warrior, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this crushable ale is a beer that keeps on giving.

I know brewers love their puns, and while this beer is intended to honor Justice Ginsburg, the name seems more like a parody to me!

Oh, well, in honor of Justice Ginsburg, here is the beer:

Aroma is fairly subdued, but has elements of dark fruit and freshly baked bread.

Color is a nice-looking mahogany deep dark amber, clear, with lots of tiny bubbles. The tan-off-white head was about 3/4 inch on the initial pour, but faded rapidly so it took a second top up for the picture, for a 1/2 inch head. Before I could settle down to evaluate the beer, the head was gone, leaving a thin cap that I expect to disappear soon (as expected, no head or any remnants by 1/4 way through... I know this style is supposed to be lightly carbonated, but for the head to collapse so quickly is a bit disappointing, TBH.)

Initial taste makes the English style of this beer apparent: dark fruits (raisins and figs), bread, a subtle sweetness hinting of caramel. Enough going on to keep it interesting. Just a hint of earthy bitterness in the middle. The finish and aftertaste is all malt and English hops flavors, ending nicely balanced with the hops and a smooth feel on the tongue.

Feel is a bit thin, and relatively flat (but not completely so), which is expected for the style.

A solid effort by Giesenbräu. They get the flavor spot on, and the bitterness correct to style (i.e. not particularly bitter by AIPA standards). It is toward the low end for ABV for the ESB style; should perhaps be more properly categorized as an English Bitter (without the "ES"), but it is at the low end of ESB and high end of EB, so this is a minor quibble. The only truly disappointing aspect was in the "look" category with the fast-disappearing head, but apart from that, as I said, a solid effort.

L: 3.5 | S: 3.5 | T: 3.75 | F: 3.5 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.60

 

This sure is a good beer but I don't deserve any credit or thanks for it as it was not one of the ones I sent you, lol. It is a good problem to have when you have so much good beer you don't know where it came from! Cheers, bro! That photo made me thirsty.

 

A Homestead Brew Graduation Punch Bowl Sour, 4.5% ABV. Pours hazy pale red with a one finger off-white head that dissipated quickly, leaving light lacing. Nose is sweet berries, taste is lightly tart berries, little bitterness, slight sweetness. Decent mouthfeel if slightly under-carbonated. Overall excellent. Had hoped for more fruit and more sour.

4.02/5 rDev 0%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

Those pretzels are incredible, much better than their original.

 

Good afternoon NBS and thanks @jkblr for keeping the tradition alive. You know its spring here in WMass when the local aspargus is at the farm stands, and it has arrived this week!
Todays offering is Fullers London Porter, a porter fan I have no reason to have passed this by for so long, Taddy Porter was my English go to but this here is a beauty.
Complex enough but not overwhelming, first sip was to cold, as my wife quickly pointed out, as the offering warmed the cocoa powder element shited to a rich dark toast and the slightest licorice taunt, likely the english ale yeast.
Stay well all
Fuller's London Porter

Fuller Smith & Turner PLC
English Porter | 5.4% ABV

4.19/5 rDev -0.5% | Average: 4.21
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Poured from 11.2 oz bottle, with best by date of 1 March 21, into the test glass
A - Dark mahagony color, Light can beat its way through, excellent clarity. Steady carbonation feeds a nice tight frothy cap.
S - Cocoa powder, dark toast, Earthy hops. slight hint of cola, and the faintist coffee touch
T - More of the cocoa on the palatte, also more of a roast touch on the palatte, Right down the middle of the strike zone. Superbly balanced flavors.
M - Light in body, delicate even, the start is semi sweet and quickly balanced out with some bittering, Finish is quick deliberate and leaves a fine cocoa powder tease.
O - A very good porter, easy on the senses, while presenting a full slate of aromatics and flavors. I understand why this is so well regarded. This will be in the fridge more often now.

 

Transient Junie

Happy Sunday, BAs. Shout out to all the former custodians of this thread and to all the 2020 grads out there.

Today’s new beer comes to me courtesy of the generous @ovaltine as winnings from a side-LIF in NBS BIF 11: This One Goes to Eleven.

Shout out to Fred Willard while I’m at it:



Junie is an ugly-looking beer. The color itself is fine: black with a slight plum-red hue. But it’s very fizzy and has no head to speak of — only a pencil thin cola-colored crown. That and some whitish-brown chunks floating at the top. I fished the bigger ones out with a spoon, but it was impossible to get them all. They go far beyond usual yeasty floaters that eventually become “sinkers” in many beers.

Strong umami shows in the nose, coupled with a little chocolate, a little coffee, a little vanilla, a little plum, a little tobacco, a little smoke. It has the character of a nice RIS, but definitely on the sweeter side. Over time, gooey caramel underlies the aroma completely, but the umami is what stood out at first.

The taste and feel are the saving graces of this beer. It is remarkably smooth upon sipping: both In the taste and the feel.

The same elements from the nose are present in the taste, but blended in a way where the umami is less present; the tobacco more so; and the sweetness — while still strong and now clearly caramel-driven —is much better moderated. A little umami, plum, coffee bitterness, tobacco and alcohol all linger in the aftertaste. Delicious.

It is smooth and slick feeling with some fizz cutting through.

I was a little worried at first. This is one of the muggliest presenting beers I’ve seen, but, thankfully, the depth and balance of flavors are wonderful. Sweet, but well balanced by the meaty, smokey, bitter elements. A real treat.

 

Ha, @Roguer, I might have sent that to you. Glad to see you enjoyed, I did, too!

 

Thanks! That makes perfect sense. Cheers!