New Beer Weekend #18

Came across this second new beer to me at my local craft store. Never heard of it before, and I don't recall seeing it in this thread or WBAYDN. My first beer for NBS 821 / NBW 18 is brewed by Schloss Eggenberg, Hopfenkonig.



Can Notes: Can code L 260521 06:53. Could indicate this was canned May 25, 2020, not certain. 16.9 oz, 5.1% abv, product of Austria.

Appearance: Poured into a large Pilsner glass, very light clear though lightly foggy faint straw color, don't recall any Pilsners lighter this this. Bubbly white head leaves clumpy lacing and layer over the top. Carbonation trickles off after initial pour. 2.75

Aroma: Bread cracker leads, floral lemongrass and pepper as well. Bold and pleasant. 3.25

Taste: Light bread and cracker, not much else. Somewhat muted, definitely lighter than the aroma would lead, no complexity. Seems flat as well. 2.25

Mouthfeel: Faint to no carbonation, flat light body, almost like water, lightly dry, no aftertaste, clean finish. 1.75

Overall: Clear miss for me, could be stale, not sure that would matter with the little I enjoyed with this one. Glad I only bought a single to try. 2.25

May grab a final new pour for the weekend, will catch up with the thread in the interim.

 

Taking a leap of faith takes balls. You’ve got em my friend. Have to do it to see who you truly are. Good luck!

 

It's hard to imagine that being anything other than an issue with how that entry was added to BA. The brewer's website only has the "unfiltered/Nefiltruotas" version of that beer... and they call it a lager. It's possible that there was a previous version of the beer that was filtered... and that explains the two different BA listings. The picture of the beer in the listing with only one rating was uploaded by the person who added the beer... and it looks like the "unfiltered" version as well... but it's very hard to read the text on the upper right portion of the label to be sure. I'm inclined to guess that it's really just a duplicate listing of the beer (and it should be classified as a lager), but on the other hand, the same Lithuanian person added both beers to the database, and they would obviously know better than me. At the very least, if there were ever two distinct beers, the Lithuanian brewer would have to have a crazy sense of humor to make the unfiltered version a lager and the filtered version a "saison" with only a small word on the label to distinguish them in some cases. @FBarber

Here is one label with "Nefiltruotas," and one without:

 

I was positive that I had this beer in the past, but there's no evidence I did, so here's my new beer for today: Acclimated APA from La Cumbre Brewing Company in Albuquerque.
Brassy color, small white head, some lace.
Aroma of citrus and sweet malt.
Taste of grapefruit, lemon, and tangerine. Late pine.
Crisp mouthfeel, nicely hopped.

 

The Garden Brewery Huell Melon Pale Ale


Pours a pale, clouded golden color with a medium sized, spongy head.


Smells of jammy raspberries, orange zest and ripe papaya among a lighter note of wet hay and lighter lemon pulp.


Has a light, refreshing mouthfeel, with quite a lively, almost metallic carbonation to it.


Tastes of dried limes, fresh washed blueberries and lighter abricot pith among a well pronounced caramel maltiness. Has a prickly mid palate with guava and kiwi coming up against additional toffee from the malt backbone in this. Finishes with a heavy dose of bakers earth and glazed toffee, together with lighter hops and an aqueous softness, ensuring a subtle dryness during the finish.


While this is quite an interesting Pale Ale, the beer tends to lacks a little in hoppy flavors during its finish, compensating this with a more pronounced, sweet maltiness.

 

Ok, New Beer Sunday starts with another side-by-side, though I might question if this fits my own definition of the term. For one, I have two beers that I do not have the faintest clue as to what the difference between them is. The only difference on the labels - and I mean this literally - is the letter 'P' (twice). The can dating is different, however, with Plush being a week and a half older than Lush, both from Frost Beer Works.

I have seen these posted a bit in WBAYDN and I see from the near-duplicate labels they are from Vermont, so they have to be good, no? My store had a handful of beers by them, and how I choose has evolved to this: sort a brewery's beers by number ratings. Find the beer in the store with the most ratings, and choose based on description, score, reviews. I didn't go to review for these, since there were enough reviews for both and I expect them to taste like good NE IPAs.

Anyhow, I guess for this side-by-side, I am a tad curious how similar these beers are. If they are similar, is there anything that makes one better to me, for whatever reason? Or are they truly interchangeable to me? And would I think they might be interchangeable to others? Let's see as I share with the GF...



First off, each of these beers suffered from something I've noticed (and possibly created) in the past - one pour from the can has different characteristics than another. One pour has a nice head, the other was a little disappointing. Evening this mistake out, I'd say the beers had similar head and lacing characteristics. Lush seems a little darker, more of a burnt orange relative to Lush, which leans yellow-amber from orange. Lush seems a little more cloudy, as well.

Plush has a slightly funky tropical vibe - pineapple and overripe mango with an apricot side. Lush doesn't seem as bright - some fruity notes but a little more grounded. I'd say Lush leans a little more towards older school IPAs, in a relative sense at least - hints of dank and grapefruit rind vs Plush's tropical juice.

Plush isn't as full or soft as Lush, seeming a tad watery in the opening. This would seems to work with the juicy notes if they carried from the nose to the taste. However, there's a dulling of the fruit - almost like someone threw the rinds/skins back over the flesh between my smelling the beer and drinking it.

This causes the beer to taste a little more like Lush, which has its flavors agreeing more with its aromas. There is a significant malt/adjunct(?) influence to provide a raw grain aspect that I have noticed in many NE IPAs. There's a pine woody bitterness with a light grapefruit/tangerine highlight delivered in a pretty straightforward fashion.


Ok, so midway through I asked the GF which she liked better. She answered here standard, "I like them both." This of course is useless to me, but she realized that and immediately took a couple sips of each. After a pause, she proclaimed, "I think I like the one in the Flying Dog glass better."

Note here she didn't ask, "Which one is that?"

There could be multiple reasons for this, but if I was to transfer my own feelings to the observation its that neither of these stand out in the grand landscape of cloudy NE IPAs. These are decently made, and I'd probably enjoy having Frost as a local option, but these two beers didn't stand out enough to make me care if the recent drop will lead to more or not.

Oh, and in the end, I ended up agreeing with the GF - that Plush was slightly more enjoyable overall.

 

All right, here's my next new beer for the weekend and it's another from @Snrubnivek

Here Lies... from Moonraker Brewing 8% ABV.

Here lies... a hop bomb. Just tones of pineapple and some grapefruit and pine backing it up. One hell of an IPA.

4.68/5 rDev +2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75

Pours a straw colored golden. 2 1/2 finger head. The head is quite frothy and fluffy - it looks quite soft and creamy. Head retention is damn good. Some really nice lacing on the glass.
The nose is full of hops. Tons of pineapple. Just overflowing with it. There's also a slight pine and grapefruit aroma to this beer as well, as a backup.
Taste - Pineapple bomb! There's the backup of the grapefruit, and just the faintest hint of pine.
Creamy and soft. Very thick and full bodied.
This is one hell of a hop bomb, but not in an offensive way. Tasty, and delicious.


Maybe one more for the weekend. Not sure yet.

 

I hope everyone out there in the extended NBW family is having a good weekend. I was absent from the thread yesterday, but rest assured I was enjoying a number of beers. During the day my wife and I drove to the second largest cemetery in the area to walk around and enjoy a slightly warmer day than we'd experienced all week. It was rainy and drab, but still nice to get out in the quiet calm. On the walk we came across one of the more unique graves that I've seen in western PA. The size of it was truly spectacular.

After coming home and drying off I needed a beer that reminded me of a warm southern CA day, and luckily @2beerdogs recently sent me an assortment of beers from that area. My first new beer of the weekend is a collaboration WCIPA by Chapman and TAPS called 2+2 Crew. It poured crystal clear honey color with an inch and a half fluffy white head. The carbonation raced to the surface. Aroma was only a touch of malt that was overshadowed by floral and piney hops. There were also some citrus notes, but those become more prominent in the taste category. In fact, citrus was the first big flavor that hit me on the sip. It leaned closer to lemon than orange or grapefruit. The first sips were much juicier than I had expected from a WCIPA, but eventually I found some of that pine on the finish which was clean and dry with only a whisper of bitterness. The feel was rather light bodied and easy drinking. I don't drink many WCIPA's, but this one was a pleasure. Thanks, Derek!

3.99/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

As the night grew darker, so did my taste. A few weeks ago a friend brought me back a mixed 4-pack of beers from The Alchemist. With only one can left, it seemed like the right time to finally try Luscious. It's listed here on BA as a Russian Imperial Stout, but the can calls it a British Imperial Stout. In any case, I was excited for this one. It poured jet black and looked like used motor oil as it flowed into the glass. It was topped with a one inch tan head of varying sud size and disipated to a thin layer of foam on the surface before disappearing entirely. The aroma was a familiar array of roasted malts that was similar to many of the classic imperial stouts. The first sips had a lot more bitterness up front than I was expecting. It was probably a bit colder than optimal serving temp in those opening moments. As it warmed it really smoothed out and that bitterness faded, but never disappeared. What took it's place was an ocean of roasted chocolatey malt that finished dry. The feel lived up to the name as it was full bodied and incredibly smooth. The high abv was nowhere to be found on the taste or feel. I savored every sip of this can.

4.41/5 rDev -0.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.5

I hope to return with another offering later today, but these beers were so good that I ended up enjoying a number of old to me beers after them. I'll try to rally, but time will tell.

 

Good Sunday afternoon, NBWers. Given my late start, I have not read ANY of the posts, yet (not even @SawDog505's open), so I'll have some catching up to do.

I never really understood why the pumpkin beer season seems to die after Halloween. Who has pumpkin pie for Halloween? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, sure. Peeps? Absolutely. But, not pumpkin pie! This being the last Sunday before Thanksgiving, I'm having a pumpkin beer today.

Now, pumpkin beers have never been something I would seek out. I did try a some for the online tasting we had a couple of years ago, and found them to be very mediocre. Truth be told, I didn't read the label carefully when I bought today's beer. I thought I was buying a winter brown ale. When I got it home, and saw it was a pumpkin beer, I decided to save it for this weekend. So, let's hope for the best.

Oliphant Blizzard of '91 Brown Ale (Pumpkin Beer)
ABV: 4.1%
IBU: NA



Crystal clear light golden amber with moderate carbonation. 3/4 inch off-white head that has rather short retention, leaving little lacing. Became a cap with a creamy ring before I even took a sip (but, then, I was being a bit unhurried as I was taking notes.)

Spicy bread aroma. Somewhat sweet. Smells like fresh-baked sweet and spicy bread. Very nice. Off to a good start!

Taste retains the sweet bread from the aroma, and amplifies the spiciness to a definite pumpkin pie flavor. There is a sweet nuttiness as well. This beer is quite smooth, no bittering at all, and flavorful. There is a substantialness to the bready backbone and to the flavors. IOW, it is not all spice. While the pumpkin pie spices are obvious, they are not at all overdone. So, it is well-balanced, flavorful, and quite good. I use the word "sweet" a lot, but this is not an overly sweet beer. As I said, well-balanced.

The body is a bit thin, but more substantial than I would have expected for 4.1% ABV. It has a smooth feel, with some contribution from the carbonation.

While my sample size is small, this is the first pumpkin beer I have tried that is above mediocre. And, this one is well above that. As I said above, I bought this beer without looking at it too closely. I thought I was buying a winter brown. Had I known it was a pumpkin beer, I probably would have passed it up. In this case, not reading the label carefully turned out to be a good thing.

L: 3.75 | S: 4.0 | T: 4.25 | F: 3.75 | O: 4.0 | Rating: 4.06

 

I had one of these "fresh" when we still lived in Minnesota, so 4 or so years ago. It lit me the FLOCK up. Our son still talks about calling me whilst I was drinking it and how I was ..... out of sorts.

Raw? Yeah, fresh Tweak was R-A-W as a muddertrucker in my experience.

 

I may be cheating a little bit here. Green by Tree House is one of my favorite beers, and I know that I've had Very Green, and I may have had Very Gggreennn, and it is more than a little possible that I've had Gggreennn! and just don't remember it? At any rate, I never reviewed it. It's all very confusing, and double IPA's are known to play havoc with your cognitive abilities but, really, how could I have forgotten this!?!?



Gggreennn! by Tree House
NEIPA 7.5% ABV
4.61/5 rDev +0.9%

From a 16oz can, dated 11/11/20. Served in a Foam-branded cervoise for no good reason.

Pours a bright and cheery, fresh-squeezed sunshiney-orange with two fingers of whipped, lathery suds. Retention is just shy of excellent, leaving a creamy, sudsy cap and collar and a thick, gobby blanket of lacing. Looks as close to a 5 as anything I’ve ever seen, so... (5.0)

Powerfully aromatic aroma of tropical fruit basket. Pineapple, sweet orange, papaya and lemon. (4.5)

Taste is pretty much exactly what the look and smell were leading me to expect, just with a little background citric bitterness. Ripe pineapple and orange slices with whipped cream, papaya, lemonade and grapefruit juice. (4.5)

Feel is creamy, soft and doughy. Medium-hefty bodied but with ample, near-aggressive levels of prickly carbonation brightening and lightening things. (4.75)

Sweet merciful Dionysius, this is total human catnip. Just lay me down in a trough of this stuff and leave me to flop around until the breath has left my body. (4.75)

Nap time.

 

The Garden Brewery Hazy IPA HBC 692


Pours a hazed yellow color with a gigantic head atop. Very experimental.


Smells of blueberries, lime zest and honey among ripe passion fruit and flowers.


Has a light, soft, yet well carbonated mouthfeel, leading to a smooth refreshment.


Tastes of bitter lime, pickled cucumber and blueberries, tied together by bread dough and cakey caramel. Brings some honey and fluffy jogurt among more profound limes to the palate, with a lovely ripe orange sweetness. Finishes with prickly kiwi, lighter passion fruit and crackers, balanced by maintaining honey.


Solid, a little weird with a lovely mouthfeel to it, almost concealing certain flaws in complexity and flavor composition in this.

 

Hello NBWers V.18.0
My new beer this weekend is Sierra Nevada's latest hoppy effort, DANKFUL.
7.4% - this set of six was canned on 10.30.20 and that's not bad for SN around here.
More? Ok... and Cheers!

3.93/5 rDev -2.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

L- copper amber - great head and lacing. Best quality of the beer.
S- Pine resin and Earth. Danker as it warms.
T- ass-end-of-Gaia earthy and a very bitter but not too astringent taste. A little one dimensional but I like its FU attitude. Old school, y'all. Almost reminds me of a less complex version of Cumbre's Elevated IPA pre-2014.
M - a little weird off kilter abv burn or gin like quality in the mouth - hop mix gives off an interesting juniper mouth feel effect (could be the Neo Mexicanus indigenous hop here?). Strange. Good carbonation though.
O - not my fave but really happy to find and try this new SN offering.

pic from last night - imgur and postimage have been giving me fits the last few days. could be my internet is slowing down.

 

Good Sunday afternoon NBS/NBW and thanks to @SawDog505 for the kck off this week.
Grey and cool here in WMass today. I have been on a 2020 project with 2 friends to hike the New England Trail and extend on the M&M trail to MT Monadnock, yesterday we finished the trail work and next week will spend a leisurely day on the mountain as a gift to ourselves. Its been fun to see the area from different views during this project.
Todays offering is from Notch Brewing in Salem MA. A delicious Black Lager coming in at 4% with excellent mouth feel, clean as a whistle finish, simply put a lovely lager.
Stay Safe, and as always
Do good
Be Well

See You On The Other Side

Lager - Schwarzbier | 4% ABV

Notch Brewing
Salem, Massachusetts

4.13/5 rDev -2.4% | Average: 4.23
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Poured from a can dated 11/03/2020 into the test glass.
A - Dark Chestnut in color, excellent clarity, allows for the carbonation to be on display. The offwhite loose knit froth, lasts the entire experience. Lacing is loose and abstract.
S - Touches of cocoa, hint of coffee, earthy hops
T - A bit of char, and again the ever so slight hint of chocolate, dark toast.
M - Light on the palate, body punches above its weight, carbonation acts as its own leg of the chair. All this adds to a rich experience. Clean and crisp finish, with a dry linger.
O - A very good offering, the narrow band each element runs in, screams focus. The brewers talent on a canvas that would lay bare any flaw. In the case of this lovely lager, only pleasure.

 

Great beer, was able to drink it at the brewery a few weeks ago. In my top 3 favorite NorCal breweries, for sure.

 

Howdy y'all! I have a few new beers up today, three of which are IPAs, and one of which should serve as a pretty decadent nightcap courtesy of a friend of mine who doesn't like the style of beer on order. Let's start off with an intriguing one...



This is "It's An Enigma," a Kveik-fermented NEIPA from Progression Brewing Co. Obviously, it features Enigma hops, which is a pretty cool new-ish varietal that tends to bring some unusual elements to the beers it features in. I always see berry, pinot gris, and tropical fruit mentioned when reading about this hop, and, sure enough, Progression claims all of those as aspects this one gives off. Sounds pretty cut-and-dry, I guess, but I'm interested to see how Kveik does here, too. I've only had a few IPAs (and a couple non-IPAs, actually) fermented with this traditional Nordic yeast, and I've been less-than-impressed with it for the most part. Perhaps I'm picky, but I usually like London III and other similar yeasts for NEIPAs. Anyway, let's see what's up here.

Pour is pretty decent. It's an extremely-pale yellow beer with a dense opacity to it. The head doesn't really build up much beyond an initial showing of a finger-and-a-half, but it does leave behind some solid lacing patterns as it slowly recedes to a thin ring. Good, flocculant surface coverage of bone-white suds as well, here. It's not really anything spectacular looking, but certainly not bad either.

The nose is a bit muted, honestly, but it does come across with some herbal leafiness, a touch of rustic grain, passion fruit, pineapple, and a slight note of red currant. It's definitely a bit more subtle than a lot of more aggressive NEIPAs I've had recently, but there are some good scents popping out, for sure. I think the Kveik helps give this a bit of "funk" as well, but it's not really a defining characteristic of the nose.

Flavor profile is a definite improvement. This one has a silky-smooth feel and solid upfront flavors of ripe raspberry, candied citrus rind, pineapple, and mango. I don't really pick up anything that reminds me of pinot gris/pinot grigio wine here, but I suppose there is a light herbal component, some apricot, and a suggestion of tempering acidity that one might associate with some wines made from those grapes. At 6.8% ABV, this isn't really a heavy-drinking beer, but there is a density to it from the yeast. I probably would not revisit it but I enjoyed giving it a shot. Progression's beers have been mostly below-average to me, honestly, but this one is a bit better than a handful of their core offerings. Also, it doesn't have a dumb name like "Onward," "Further," or "Upward" unlike their other beers. Naming stuff like that might feel consistent and cute, but it also makes it even more impossible to delineate each beer from the next, especially if they're all freakin' IPAs. Okay, another new one soon... cheers.

 

Starting my Sunday with Barn Town Ecto Coolest, thanks @Orca_Whale! This a really fun novelty beer.

4.11/5 rDev +10.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Thank you Orca_Whale for this
16 oz can poured into a pint glass

A- A clear bright green with a small light green head.

S- Tart, blue raspberry hard candy, some sweet oranges, hints of lactose.

T- Tart and little sweet, sweet oranges, blue raspberry hard candy, touch of lactose.

M- Smooth, light to medium body.

O- A fun novelty beer that delivers on what it is advertised as. Good balance between tart and sweet.

Cheers!