New Beer Weekend #5

Enjoying this beer from @oach. It was in the database but had no reviews or ratings.



Pours a hazy orange juice color with a medium white head and decent lacing.

The smell is strong citrus up front with a bit of earthiness underneath.

The taste is more floral and earthy with a bitter, lingering finish.

The mouthfeel is big and smooth - very nice. There's no hop burn.

Overall, a good beer with a nice blend of flavors.

 

Wishing you safety and clear skies soon.

 

Poured into a 16 oz tulip shaped glass canned on 8/7/2020. Pours a very attractive hazy orange with a finger plus sticky white head that leaves loads of thick patches of lace with excellent retention. 4.75

Smell is toasted coconut, pineapple, passionfruit, almonds, and apricot really pleasant. 4.5

Taste follows coconut is the star of the show, with pineapple, almonds, passionfruit, and apricot lending a hand. It is really tasty and reminds me of Panama from my beloved Kettlehead, but this one may actually be better. 4.5 Mouthfeel is medium, soft gentle carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 6% ABV it may drink a little bigger, but a total summer crusher. 4.5

Overall love Pulpfiction and dare I say I love this beer. Well done and from another local brewery. That is a tasty Brewsky. Enjoy your Sunday all. 4.5

 

I forgot to post this one yesterday.



Pours a hazy amber golden color with a nice head and lacing
Aroma has slight banana, clove and wheat hints
The taste follows the nose with slight banana, clove and wheat flavors
A medium bodied well carbonated crisp beer
A good Hefeweizen

 

Likely having only one pour today, this one a new pour from Firestone Walker for me, Coconut Merlin.



I couldn't find the date on this while at Binny's, and in a rush bought but when I did find the date from my purchase several weeks ago, I noted a canned date of 9/13/19 @12;22. I figured this may or may not have any cocunut or other good qualities left, being on a warm store shelf for nearly a year, and debated whether I should rate. In the end, FW picked this distributor, and if they are selling me a product, it is there to rate so here we go.

Appearance: Rich creamy tan puffy head leaves clumpy lacing. Dark black pour. 4.25

Aroma: Nice coconut aroma, roast chocolate lurks beneath. Underlying milk sugar present, aroma not overly sweet. 4.0

Taste: Very tasty, coconut leads and works well with the sweet milk, Slightly chalky roast malt and chocolate back. All of these flavors are sweet, but there is a balance. Underlying dryness to the pour. I feared this beer wouldn't be up to par after 11 months but this is a very good milk stout. 4.25

Mouthfeel: Thin to medium body, faint fizzy carbonation holds throughout the pour, slight chalky finish. 3.75

Overall: This is a very good coconut milk stout I definitely want to try a fresh batch to compare, but very satisfied with this purchase and would gladly pick up again. 4.0

It's nice to be pleasantly surprised. Firestone Walker has not let me down much if ever in the past, will keep going back for more.

Cheers!

 

Latin lessons: another reason to be on Beer Advocate!

 

I love lazy Sundays. Dogs have been fed and walked, pool work done, and I'm done for the day. We have a couple Zoom meetings with family members this afternoon, a fun way to keep in touch.
I picked up this beer yesterday, Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, pumpkin beer brewed with habaneros and cinnamon. I love chilis, but this one has too much heat for me.
Gold color, small white head.
Aroma of pepper, slight cinnamon. Hard to discern any pumpkin.
Pepper taste, light cinnamon. Got a little pumpkin taste.
Medium-mouthfeel. Strong pepper aftertaste. If you like hot peppers, this beer is for you.

 

Pours a nice hazy amber color with a nice head and lacing
Aroma has tropical and citrus hints
The taste follows the nose with a nicely balanced tropical and citrus flavor
A medium bodied well carbonated beer
A well done and nicely balanced IPA

 

Pours a very nice clear amber color with a slight head and lacing
Aroma has Bourbon and pumkin hints
The taste follows the nose with a well balanced Bourbon and pumkin flavor
A medium bodied decently carbonated beer
A great Pumpkin beer

 

Good morning afternoon all, It's LAGER TIME!

what's new for our hero today!?

Aslin - Much Ado Helles Lager



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Fairly clear body, with a real nice orange almost peach orange like yellow color. Quite dark for a helles. Frothy and creamy forming three to four finger tall easily on the pour. Settles with a good sized collar while rested. Minimal if any very fine carbonation .

Aroma is sticky and pasty malts and yeast. Not so much bready or clean either but tolerable and notthing faulty either. No real hop presence either. Meerly and ok decent nose.

Palate is a little on the missing angle it seems. Fairly syrupy body with touches of almost slick coated mouthfeel without the diacetyl rub at least. A somewhat syrupy but not sugary tasting body that's lacking any malt presence. Crispness is nowhere near to be found on this, and strangely doesn't even come off that light in flavor. Very neutral tasting base.

While drinkable, this lager seems to lack an identity and almost feels kind of mass market in some ways.

look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.25 | 3.44/5

Cheers!

 

Cross-post with WBAYDN thread:
We get most of Portland's beers here in Boise... Portland, Oregon that is.
My bottleshop had this interesting beverage from Portland, Maine. I am a sucker for anything Lemon Lime, so I grabbed one without checking BA rating first (sometimes a mistake).

Pours like soda pop. Looks like ginger ale, tastes like hard Mountain Dew (if there were such a thing), but tart with some hops bitter instead of the Mountain Dew corn syrup sweet.
Unique, and worth the experiment I suppose, if nothing else because the product was as-advertised on the label. Reasonably refreshing on a hot day, but won't be a repeat for me.

3.77/5 rDev -2.8%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

 

Happy Sunday all!

Today I am drinking another new to me old beer from Deciduous Brewing in NH. This one is an imperial porter that they made 2 interesting variants of. I was late to see these and picked them up at a store a couple years after they were released, and then I let them sit in my cellar for another couple years after that unknowingly. Finally deciding to drink these now, I looked into some reviews to see if there was anything recent, and I noticed some people even at the beginning mentioning tartness or possibly being tainted. I was actually going to drink this last night, but after reading some of those reviews and not being in the mood for a potential dark sour, I went for the Mystic imperial stout which was a good move, very luscious and stout. Today I have prepared myself for whatever these beers may bring, including any potential sour or tartness that might come from it. Thankfully, it's not as bad as I might've thought.



This beer pours a dark brown red maroon nearing black, with a frothy receding dark beige foam head. Smells like dark soy sauce, sweet maple syrup, figs, dark chocolate, slight red wine fruitiness, tart dark fruits, roasty coffee, caramel, toasty toffee, molasses, and earthy herbal piney hops. Tastes a little acidic upfront with some tart dark fruits and red wine fruitiness, Mission figs, then sweet maple syrup, roasted coffee notes, dark bakers chocolate, mild soy sauce, licorice, dark caramel, toasty toffee, molasses, vanilla, and earthy herbal piney hops. Fortunately, the dark chocolate roasted malt flavors overtake any potential tartness or sour that might be eking through. There's a little acidity and a slightly vinous fruitiness, but not approaching the full on sour vinegary or straight up infected realm. Feels lighter bodied, creamy and smooth with moderate carbonation. Overall an interesting and unique tasting imperial porter brewed with Black Mission figs and maple syrup.

I'm a little flabbergasted at this. It's hard to tell if it's really infected or not, and with a name like Dormancy it doesn't really help. No funk, only slight acidity, either way this is a nice tasting porter with Mission figs and maple. Cheers!

 

Good morning, New Beer Weekend!
Decided to start super early (for me) today by cracking 7 Seas' Double IPA around 9:30. Up early this beautiful Sunday to pack for a family camping trip, leaving in a couple hours. On to the beer...

19.2oz can served in a big nonic pint. Dated 07-24-20. Bought it a couple days ago at Total Wine in Bellevue.

Pours a rich bronze-gold, lightly hazy, with a medium sized head and medium to low visible carbonation. Smell is toffee, biscuit, and pine resin.

Taste is imperial reddish -- toffee and bitterness. Moderate roasty sweetness and pine bitterness.

Mouthfeel is thick and rich. Overall, it's pretty good.

As I mentioned over in WBAYDN, 7 Seas Double IPA is not bad. Not great. I'd probably call it an imperial red, and I appreciate it for that. It's actually scratching (barely) an itch left behind by my inability to find Lagunitas Imperial Red in the last 8-10 years.

 

Just a heads up - That beer is their Hefeweizen, not their "Helles." It seems you submitted your review to their Vollbier Hell by mistake. Hope this helps. Cheers.

 

Today's new beer is another IPA, and from another newer Minneapolis brewery: Wild Mind Artisan Ales.

Wind Mind started as a brewery devoted to "wild, farmhouse, saison, and rustic ales through blending and barrel-aging... fermented and aged in oak barrels or foeders in our temperature-controlled wood cellar..." using "our custom-designed coolship, where some of our beers are open fermented which to let even more funk develop in our one-of-a-kind beers."

I reviewed several of their saisons and sours, and a couple of others, earlier on NBS, as I was focusing on supporting smaller local brewers during the shutdown. These I got delivered from the brewer in 750 ml bottles or crowlers.

IDK if it is in reaction to slow business during the shutdown, or a "chasing" of consumer preference, or broadening their distribution (or any or all), but they have recently started contract brewing (my assumption, based on evidence, not a statement from the brewer) with a brewer in Waunakee, WI (assumed to be Octopi, but, again, an assumption) for more main-stream and more widely distributed beers packaged in 16 oz cans.

Today's beer is one of those.

Wild Mind Ultra Wires West Coast IPA
(The above, "Ultra Wires West Coast IPA" is from the can label, in fine print, on the back, because, we don't want to spoil to artwork, dontchaknow )



In addition to labeling this as a WCIPA on the can, the brewer label says it is brewed with Cascade, Amarillo, and Centennial hops. I do appreciate the detail (even though I have to spin the can and put on my readers to find this information.)

One-half inch thick and creamy slightly off-white head that sticks around for the first several minutes, leaving spotty lacing. The beer itself is quite murky, beyond mere unfiltered and into turbid territory, with a burnt orange color typical of many NEIPAs. The looks are deceptive, however. This ain't no NEIPA.

The aroma is a bit faint, with elements of citrus, pine, and sweetish pineapple.

Taste is bitter right away, but not overpoweringly so. Hops flavors of citrus, pine, and grapefruit with a balancing malt, slightly sweet but not enough to push the overall that way. The citrus flavors persist throughout, with the finish and aftertaste becoming increasingly bitter, with a bit of pine, as a WCIPA should finish.

Mouth feel has a somewhat on the substantial side body with the bitterness giving the feel a nice edge.

Overall, a WCIPA substyle beer with a murky look. Tasty, bitter, and enjoyable if you like this style. As I said above, don't let the appearance deceive you. This beer is a well-executed example of the WC substyle, as self-declared by the brewer.

L: 3.5 | S: 3.5 | T: 3.75 | F: 4.0 | O: 3.75 | Rating: 3.70

Good luck to Wild Mind as they try to branch out. They are a local brewer I root for.

 

Pours a nice hazy golden color with a nice head and lacing
Aroma has tropical and citrus hints
The taste follows the nose with a nicely balanced tropical and citrus flavor
A medium bodied well carbonated beer
A good DIPA

 

Thanks for the correction! Cheers!

 

Good afternoon NBW and thanks to our host this week.Todays offering is from Oxbow Brewing a Lager aged on rapsberry, Tart, crisp. There is a funky element up front all in all a nice offering
Do good
Be well

Punch Brook

Lager - American | 7% ABV

Oxbow Brewing Company
Newcastle, Maine

3.94/5 rDev -5.7% | Average: 4.18
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a 500 ml bottle dated 07/03/19 into the test glass
A - Garnet colored backdrop, transluscent body, gently carbonated.
S - Rapsberry, for certain, also a strong vegetal thread in there, as well as funky cheese rime. Both are a bit off putting.
T - Mixed culture impats a bit of funky flavors, coupled with the rapsberry they actually work rather well,
M - Crisp on the palate, there is an acidic quality, medium in body. That tart thread is the dominant feature.
O - An interesting offering, think young Framboise, The body is light enough and crisp.