New Beer Weekend #17

Good evening NBW
I've worked the last two days and didn’t have it in me to even review one little beer last night. Today was better and I didn’t want to sit on this any longer

Toppling Goliath Hopsmack!
16oz can PKG 10/30/20 BEST BY 02/28/21 poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass at fridge temp, no ABV listed on can. The beer pours hazy golden yellow with quick building off white head. The head recedes to a quarter inch cap and leaves a complete spotty lacing. The aroma is moderate in strength and offers pineapple, melon, grapefruit and dank, earthy notes. The taste follows with earthy dank bitterness right out of the gate and the fruit salad showing up as the bitterness fades. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, slightly smooth in texture with average carbonation and a dry finish. Overall, very good to excellent. I love hops, and don't mind haze, but I need real bitterness to be completely on board. This is a winner.

I have another early morning tomorrow, so I'm done here. Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass tonight!

 

Thanks. My limited research gave me the impression that commercial brewers in that part of Bavaria are using the word as a marketing device, but I wasn’t too sure. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Matron is using the word.

Thanks for the advice on the style marker here. I’ll request the change. Cheers. (Edit: looks like it has already been done!)

 

Poured into a 13 oz Teku glass canned on 10/26/2020. Pours a very dark near pitch black with a 2 plus finger sticky light brown head that leaves thick patches of lace, with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma is cocoa nibs, coffee grounds, vanilla beans, biscuity grain, and toffee. 4.5

Taste follows cocoa, roasted coffee, vanilla, hints of biscuit, and toffee really nice stuff. 4.5

Mouthfeel is big, creamy gentle carbonation, maybe a touch dry as expected, and at 12% goes down really easy. 4.75

Overall this is an impressive Imperial Stout that I will be grabbing more of. Reminds me a lot of Ten Fidy but 1.5% bigger and just as tasty. 4.5

 

Beastmaster is a base stout that's on the sweet side that Modern Times uses for barrel aging, adjuncting, and blending. These cans are just the base Beastmaster stout, not barrel-aged, with only vanilla added. The cans were originally sold as a four pack with four different vanillas. I did a blind taste test with a friend, and I can tell you that the vanilla is all very different when you taste them side by side. There's no coffee or coconut in these, so if you are getting those vibes it's just a characteristic of the base stout, not an adjunct. Beastmaster is very much on the sweet side and that's certainly not everyone's thing, so could be what @FBarber found to be weird, or it could be the vanilla itself. When I was doing the blind tasting, it was definitely a situation where the vanilla would remind me of specific brewery's stouts, and the Madagascar was the typical vanilla flavor.

 

Well Hello Late Night NBW (on Sunday)
I barely had time to read any of y'alls musings as of yet. I always look forward to hearing from so many of you here. Great start @zid .
And I agree with @JackHorzempa re: Flower Power. And as is frequently the case, I learned something new- one of the advantages of Cryo hops.

As for me, thanks to @Roy_Hobbs for gifting me a new HF beer.
Harlan

Pours opaque gold. A loose, fluffy head pushes 2 fingers or so in height, then recedes to a thin film. Not strong on retention, but a decent lacing.
Aromas of pine, peppery grass, grapefruit zest, and some hard to nail down tropical tones.
Flavor definitely starts with a blend of the piney, citrus, and tropical notes, soon followed by weed and peppery spice. A gentle, bready malt note carries this all along.
Mouthfeel is on the fuller side for the style, damn near perfect. Carbonation is there for the whole ride, but this is a smooth one. Damn, what is the mineral content of the water? I love what I can only guess is the water, a tad "minerally."
Overall, a smooth, glorious ride.
4.04/5 rDev -6.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4

 

I had a similar experience. I was wondering what was wrong with ME.

 

Used to be a good beer

 

@Dimidiata is correct that the canned Beastmaster Vanilla variants released earlier this year only contain vanilla. This was a common source of confusion a couple of years ago as Modern Times released a few different pastry stouts with adjuncts - Beastmaster, Dragon Mask, and Temple of Silence specifically - then decided to use those beers as bases both for barrel aging and other non-BA variants with different adjuncts.

The BeerAdvocate entry for Beastmaster is correct as far as the adjuncts it contains, but all other Beastmaster releases have specified what adjuncts were used - if any - and do not automatically contain coffee and coconut.

 

I'm down to my last couple beers from @Pinz412 and the NBS BIF 12. Opening this one to celebrate a good weekend is pickleball. My wife and I played mixed doubles in a 3.0 and below tournament yesterday. It was our first tournament together, and we got 4th out of 18 teams. Our only losses were to the top 3 teams. Then tonight I opened my rotating partner men's doubles league going 6-0. Had a lot of fun.

Celebrating with

11th Hour Brewing
BYS 2020 Caramel Vanilla
Imperial stout aged 18 months in Weller barrels



The beer pours a dark black with no head and no lacing.

The smell hits from three feet away with chocolate and caramel. Also there's a hint of char and good barrel presence. It's really amazing on the nose.

The taste highlights the caramel and the barrel, especially strong on a slightly bitter finish. There's nice char and leather underneath.

The mouthfeel is slightly fizzy but ultimately smooth and very thick.

An incredibly good beer I'm lucky to have been able to try.

 

Daily Serving Tropical Fruit by Trillium

4.59/5 rDev +1.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Canned 11.6, opened 11.15

16 oz can poured into a chalice



Thin white foam layer rests atop an apricot colored hazy liquid

Aroma is passion fruit, guava, mango

Tastes like a juicy tropical fruit salad, mango, guava, passion fruit, pineapple, coconut

Nicely tart sweet, low sudsing, crisp finish

Tastes good, its a good beer

 

Good book!

 

Very true, but glassware collections are muy, muy bueno!