New Beer Weekend #8

Good to see you back here, Dave! Enjoy your beer!

 

Good afternoon NBW/NBS (812) and thanks to our host this weekend. Lots of fall like feel out there in the past week. Frankly my favorite time of year. Todays offering is in keeping with that theme. From Zero Gravity a lovely Fest Bier that avoids the sweet Marzen trap. I will be buying more for sure. Conveniently my wife and I will be in Burlington next weekend.
Do good
Be well
A special shout out to @cavedave so glad your well, and can stop in on occasion!
Keep up the good work!

Oktoberfest Märzen Lager

Lager - Märzen / Oktoberfest | 5.4% ABV

Zero Gravity Craft Brewery / American Flatbread
Burlington, Vermont

3.9/5 rDev -0.5% | Average: 3.92
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a 16 oz can dated 09/01/20 into the test mug.
A - A light copper color, excellent clarity, vigorous carbonation sustains a nice white froth.
S - Mild grains, some toast, a bit of caramel very slight. A touch of nobel hops, adds some eathy grass to the equation.
T - Solid malt base, again with some fresh bread, a bit of biscuit, the sweet side brings out a touch of caramel, and dark honey. Hops again add a bit of earthiness
M - Medium in bdy, sprints across the palate, carbonation acts as clean up. Finish is pleasantly dry, with the linger nodding toward the fresh bready element.
O - A very good fest bier, avoids the sweet, caramel elements. Very easy to drink, and not very heavy, which I like quite a bit.

 

Thanks, guys, very great to be back with you all enjoying a great beer with great people. I can truly say you all kept me enjoying beer without drinking any for 52 weeks of stupid, complete, but necessary change of life. Am on the last 4 ounces of this, and raising it now to you. Cheers!

 

Weiherer Summer Ale


Pours a hazed orange color with a bigger, stable white head.


Smells of dried grass, lemon zest and sweet caramel among old oranges.


Has a soft, smooth mouthfeel, showcasing a light bodied, refreshing beer.


Tastes of fresh cut limes, toasted barley, bakers chocolate covered toffee and dry garden herbs. Brings a lively effervescence to the palate then, with sweeter malts becoming a little more pronounced, nontheless balanced by the complex hop flavors of this. Finishes with a mineralic quality, whole grain bread and wet hay among maintaining limes and lighter oranges.


Very refreshing with a fantastic balance and out of this world smooth mouthfeel to it.

 

Feels weird watching football today, but watching the Eagles playing and looking good is helping life feel a little more normal. Starting my Sunday with a very well brewed Saison from Forest & Main, Celestial Spheres, thanks @zekeman17!

4.35/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Thank you Zekeman17 for this
16 oz can poured into a tulip

A- A slightly hazy golden copper with a three finger white head.

S- Wheat, pears, some lemons, slightly tart, earthy funk, floral with hints of spice.

T- Wheat, floral, pears, touch of tart lemons, earthy funk, touch of spice.

M- Smooth, soft, light to medium body.

O- This is slightly tart but still has a lot of the great funk and wheat found more traditional Belgian saison like Saison DuPont.

Cheers!

 

So glad to see you back, @cavedave! I have some very cool beers on deck for today... went to Portland, ME from Friday to yesterday for an overnight trip with the lady I've been seeing and hit up Novare Res, Foundation, and Battery Steele as well as a ton of shops and whatnot. I got a very rare pour of Hanssens Oude Lambic (three years in oak and unblended... so good) at Novare, so everything else was just gravy. Stopped by Bier Cellar and found some things I really wanted, too. Let's start with OEC's Coolship Lager!



This is my very first beer from OEC (aka Ordinem Ecentrici Coctores, which is loose Latin for "the order of eccentric boilers"), a CT-based brewing and blending outfit who have been operating for the last few years and who generally do bizarre sour ales and other fun oddities. I've heard a lot about them, but this is the first beer they've distributed outside of the brewery.

To start, let's examine the can for information about what the heck the process was when they made this. I, along many others here probably, associate "coolship" with "lambic" and "wild ale," but this one seems different. The can says it is "brewed using a traditional double decoction mash in our copper kettle and hopped with fine European noble hops. After the boil, it rests in our copper coolship for 1 hour. It is then transferred over our baudelot cooler down into open tanks for fermentation. After a cool fermentation using a classic Czech lager yeast it is lagered at cold temperatures for several months prior to release." Sounds quite labor intensive. Let's see if all of that translates to the most important element: how the beer actually is as a drinking experience!

The pour is a golden-yellow with only mild haze to it. It's mostly translucent, though it's definitely unfiltered. The head is finely-built and based on an incredible concentration of micro-bubbles that is constantly being buoyed by active carbonation rising from the bottom of my glass. Lacing is consistent and based on spotty (as opposed to "web-like") patterns that tier as the head settles down and as I casually sip on it.

The nose here is slightly sulfury and quite fruity with a hint of apricot and peach hiding behind some grainy, crackery, and doughy elements and a very lightly-dosed addition of leafy, semi-herbal hoppiness. It doesn't really jump out of the glass or anything, but the understatedness of it might be for the best when it comes to the actual flavor profile, which is clean, crisp, and difficult to fault. It's somewhat bready but mostly just tastes like a plain ol' Euro lager (not a pilsner!). Some slight esters that remind me of a hefeweizen or something, plus some grassiness and a sturdy, defined finish that seems to be quite dry overall but which does have some nice malt here and there. Good feel, somewhat bubbly and bright. Maybe a little less crisp than some other Euro lagers, though perhaps that's my preference for Czech pilsners speaking...

Give this one a shot, but don't expect it to be too different from other well-made modern lagers done by American brewers in the European style. At the end of the day, the coolship aspect seems to not really matter whatsoever (I mean, the wort was only in there for an hour anyway), so it seems like they might be trying to sell it based on that gimmick, which feels... I dunno, maybe somewhat deceptive? Anyway, back with some other stuff soon!

 

Ok, football is on this nice Sunday afternoon in the DC area. Took the chance on a cooler morning to hit the local HS track to get in a little running - yet another attempt at improving my physical fitness. Need to balance that out with a new beer.


I am not sure why I was a little surprised that El Segundo's Broken Skull IPA received a strong rating from Todd, but since a couple other people have chimed in and liked it as well, I am looking forward to it. The GF tried one yesterday and said she thought it had a "weird taste for an IPA." She didn't elaborate (she rarely does), so I'll have to see if I can figure out what she means (the hop profile from the can isn't exotic).

A near-clear pale golden beer has a lively white head, the spongy remnants of which are staring at me as I type this up. Nose has a grainy aspect to it, along with a familiar citrus (lemony) and grass notes. Is the grain influence what the GF was talking about?

The opening notes mix the light-color grain with a near lemony wine-like flavor. Medium light, fairly clean feel with a good amount of carbonation. Citrus rind and grass come next, leading the IPA towards the bitter. A grape leave peppery green bitterness comes as an increase in bitterness. There's an ever so slight chalky note in back mixing with a light resinous aspect I notice more when the beer is cold.

Ok, I am not sure what the GF was talking about. Maybe she's just too used to hazy IPAs though she said it was strange for an old school IPA as well. Best I have then is what I get as a peppery to hearty greens aspect to the bitterness. Either way, I enjoyed this quite a bit.

 

Haha! Good

Here's to the health of both of you - nice of you to drop in on us today. Cheers!

 

Alright, up next for me is Foulmouthed Brewing's Hypnotizing Chickens. How about that name and label, eh?



This is a 5.5% grisette (which they call a "farmhouse-style ale;" fair enough) that is aged in bourbon barrels with Brett yeast. Not sure how long it spent aging, but it sounds quite fun and funky, so let's jump right in and get hypnotized!

The pour is shandy-like... bright yellow with a decent amount of haze to it. I can see a lot of carbonation rising from the bottom of the glass, and the head itself is stable at about one solid finger with good legs. Nice, drippy lace here too. Overall, pretty good looking.

Smells like a big-time dose of Brett right upfront... jeez. Funky, lemony, somewhat acidic, and horse blanket-y with a bit of graham cracker and pie-crust-like sweetness in the back. Some light white pepper and rustic graininess. Reminding me a ton of Bam Biere by Jolly Pumpkin, which I refreshed myself on about a month and a half ago or so. This has that "classic" American Wild Ale Brett character to it... hope it translates to the palate.

Nice and crisp with some fun lemony flavors and a twang of rye-like, earthy spice. Whipped cream and vanilla in the finish from the bourbon barrel aging. Heady, soft wheat-like complexion with some light doughy notes and a touch of stone fruit mingling with understated papaya and mango. Perhaps some mild pineapple as well. I assume this was probably under 5% before Brett and barrel-aging got to it, and I feel that's made even more apparent by the intense dryness of this. A good, slightly-tangy, bright sipper, but not really something I'd want more of. The Brett here is almost too funky to make it more than an oddity, though if you like Jolly Pumpkin's less sour/more rustic stuff, you'll probably really enjoy this. Foulmouthed seems a bit underrated to me, as I've had a couple of their beers before that have been surprisingly pretty good despite their relative newness to the NE scene.

 

At first glace I was amazed at the scalloped head!

 

A family member that works in NH brought this to our house yesterday. Tropical Haze from Great Rhythm Brewing. I am not familiar with this brewery.
Neither of our current dogs have any interest in beer. If you spill they don't lick it. If you drop bacon or similar, look out.

3.64/5 rDev -9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Poured from an undated 12oz can into a Nonic.
Light yellow opaque body, medium white head that fades rather fast. Zero lacing in a hand washed glass.
The smell is mostly pineapple with dankness.
The taste is all citrus pith with a bitter finish. Not bad, but not really tropical.
There is medium body on the tongue, Despite the head death and lack of lacing the carbonation comes alive in the mouth.
A so-so hazy IPA, not bad but its a tough category to stand out in right n

 

Tried 7 beers from Hop & Sting in the last month, with about a 35/65 success rate for my tastes.
This is the last of them, saved for today, and one of the better ones.
Frigid Underworld Imperial Espresso Stout

4/4/4/4.25/4
12oz can with no visible dating. Purchased at the brewery 8-17-20. Opened 9-13-20.
LOOK
3 finger tan head with very good retention.
Dense foam with a fine bead slowly recedes to a solid cap for the duration.
Black stout with ruby edges. Full lacing.
SMELL
Mild roast coffee with cream. Toast. Subtle fig/date fruitiness. Earthy/clay.
TASTE
Coffee and roasted malt bitterness followed by dark bread and light brown sugar.
Some woodsy/green in the finish.
FEEL
Full body with a smooth/velvety mouthfeel.
Low-medium carbonation. Lengthy and roasty finish...off-dry.
OVERALL
Very Good.

 

Greetings, NBWers, on this apocalypticly Smokey Sunday.

On Monday, local fires were on three sides of my workplace. The next few days were normal, but on Friday the smoke that's been plaguing western Washington & Oregon arrived here in spades. Yesterday and today, the air quality has been "Hazardous."

Yesterday, I hit this mass market witbier, something I was randomly gifted by the universe, for science:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/1212/?ba=woemad#review
Despite it's Coors pedigree, I have to say it's not bad, but not particularly good, either. It's really dumbed down for mass appeal. I'd much rather have a real witbier so I'll not feel a need to hit this again.

Right now, after kicking off the Seahawk game with an epic Carnitas Breakfast Burrito & a Verde Mary at Watts 1903 (seen here) -

I moved next door to Brick West, where I had their Something Good, a 5.1% "new school" APA. Grapefruity hoppiness up front, with a bready malt backbone.

If I survive the walk home and am sufficiently shielded from black lung with the N95 mask I liberated from work, it's possible I may hit a high octane stout later on today.

 

Had a great mouthfeel, very creamy. I rated it a 4.0 overall

 

Good afternoon, NBW(Su)ers. Started my day lazily watching the sea, and this heron eating breakfast reminded me of Fremont's logo...

...and Head Full of Dynomite sounded fantastic, so here we go...

From Fremont's website:
Down & Dirty: 2-Row Pale, Rolled Oats, Flaked Wheat, White Wheat, and Malted Oats with Simcoe hops, Simcoe Cryo, and Hop Oil Blend.

16oz can served in a wine glass because that's the only clear glass available in this house. An upgrade from yesterday's heavy, ugly, greenish glass. Can is dated 08/26/20. Bought it at Malt and Vine a couple days ago.

Pours a hazy orange-golden with a big fluffy head and lots of fine carbonation. Head sticks around for a while. Smell is hop resin and tropical juice, citrus.

Taste is right along the same lines -- resin is noticeable but not in-your-face, actually nicely balanced. Builds up a pleasant bitter aftertaste.

Mouthfeel is medium, dry, effervescent. Overall, I like it a lot. Not that I'm surprised. I've liked every one in the series that I've tried.

 

It is with great trepidation that I announce my decanting and subsequent attempt to drink the oddity known as O'Fallon's Pumpkin Whip, a "cream ale" clocking in at a diminutive 4.3% ABV. I know nothing about this brewery other than that they popped out of fucking nowhere with six(!) different pumpkin beers (a regular one, a vanilla one, this one, a Mexican chocolate pumpkin stout which I will be reviewing next, a salted caramel pumpkin stout, and a coffee pumpkin something-or-other) in my market. I don't have a superb feeling about this, but... well, here goes nothing.

This pours an attractive clear orange-yellow color with a tight head of bone-white foam measuring a finger or so. As it slowly receds to a half-finger, it leaves behind moderate lace and legs, all while lazy carbonation slowly ascends from the bottom of my glass. I have no clue what to expect here, but I'm going to assume the "whip" in the name means "whipped cream" and I'm hoping it's not awful.

The nose is comically "whipped cream"-forward... diacetyl and honey are the only things I can really pick up. It's "appreciable" diacetyl, I guess, cuz... well, that's what they're going for, but it's still kinda strangely off-putting and artificial even though the label does claim natural flavors. I am immediately noticing, however, the lack of pumpkin and spice here in the nose. Did they forget to add them? Will those things show up on the palate? Man, I freakin' hope so, because... what the hell is this?

Okay... look... this is just a whipped cream flavored seltzer with some light honeyed grainy undertones, as far as I'm concerned. WHY does this exist?! I mean, it's missing any kind of pumpkin or spice elements, so I'm just totally confused about what they were trying to do here. This brewery seems really pumped on their pumpkin beers and goes into detail about how much pumpkin they use, their custom spice blend, etc... so why don't I taste any of it?! This actually would probably be kinda fun if it had slightly more body and, you know, any of the "pumpkin spice" flavors it seems to want to subliminally convince me it has. I mean, it still wouldn't really be too "beer"-like even with that glaringly-wrong aspect fixed, but it would at least be enjoyable beyond the gimmick of being a whipped cream seltzer. Jesus. The things I do for new beer sometimes.

*gulps down entire glass and slams it on counter angrily*

 

Cute doggo! Incidentally, I've never had one that didn't love beer or any other form of alcohol they could get access to.

 

Wishing you great success, Ian!