New Beer Weekend #22

Poured into a 16 oz Nordic pint glass not sure when it was canned. Pours a hazy orange yellow with a 2 finger sticky white head that leaves thin bubble lace with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma peach, mango, ripe melon, tangerine, and apricot. 4

Taste follows peach, mango, honeydew, tangerine, pineapple, and apricot. 4

Mouthfeel is bigger than average, soft gentle carbonation, a tad sticky not dry, and at 7.2% really easy drinking. 4.5

Overall very nice, a tad more peach than I would have liked but still very nice. 4.25

 

I've been aware lately that I'm becoming a bit curmudgeonly and finding stupid, nitpicky faults with every single beer I drink and review. Well, sweet merciful boogers, today may just be the first day of the rest of my life after all...



Stay Elevated
Other Half Brewing Company, Brooklyn, New York
a double dry hopped IPA at 5.5% abv

4.31/5 rDev +16.5%
look: 4.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.75

From a 16oz can, dated 12/08/20. Served in an IPA glass.

Pours a very lightly hazed, super-pale pee-yellow with a big, beautiful puffy head of lathery suds. Retention is excellent, leaving a thick, bubbly, merengue-like cap and fat, sticky gobs of lacing. This is one very good looking glass of beer (my indifferent photography notwithstanding).

A relatively faint malty-fruity aroma. Apples and oranges.

Taste is dry and crackery. Orange peel, soda, berry, bitter tree leaf. Finishes dry with tingly, citrusy hop oil.

Feel is bright, clean and quenching, oily, medium-light bodied and aggressively carbonated.

Overall, a terrific easy-drinker. I don’t know if I’ve ever had such a relatively-low abv beer so packed with flavor and zip. It’s relatively common to pass IPA’s off as APA’s but this may be a case of the reverse - I would have pegged this as a pale ale and one of the best ever at that.

 

There's a holiday tasting thread????? Given the relatively significant amount of time I spend on this magnificent site, why did I not know this?????

 

Okay, that GIF made me LOL so hard, I scared a fart out of a sleeping Ranger.

Somehow I never saw (or more probably, registered in my feeble melon) that thread, but I have now.

I was gonna go with BA Bigfoot (in the 750ML bottle) from 2017 IIRC for NBW, but it looks like it's time for "Plan B" for today's beers.

 

Good afternoon NBS/NBW and thanks to our leader this week,
We have spoken with both sons, and are currently decorating the tree, seems like a good time to have this Christmas ale again, the review is a cross post from the tasting thread.
Enjoy your families/traditions this holiday week
Best from WMass

Corsendonk Christmas Ale

Strong Ale - Belgian Dark | 8.1% ABV

Brouwerij Corsendonk
Oud-Turnhout, Belgium

4.16/5 rDev -0.2% | Average: 4.17
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from the 330 ml bottle dated BB 02/21/23 into the test glass.
A - Dark mahagony color, allows light to pass in ruby hues, Excellent off white frothy cap last quite a long time.
The lacing during the experience is art by itself.
S - Abbey dubble catagory, raisin brown sugar, plum, pumpernikle, Then some nutmeg, ginger, pith, and the slightest clove.
T - Steers toward the beautiful malt, belgian candi, dark fruit, dried plum, a bit of cigar tobacco. Second wave brings on the spiced elements, there is excellent yeast expression contributing fruity esters.
M - Not a hefty beer, dances across the palate, stays in the sweet lane for sure, but avoids being cloying. The finish is surprisingly dry. Linger carries the dark fruit flag forward to the next sip
O - A very good warmer, the spicy elements are in proportion to the lovely base offering.

 

Cross post from the Holiday Beer thread:

New to me, and a Christmas beer - Hardywood’s “Christmas Pancakes”:



Poured at 55 degrees; fast fizzy tan head; poor cap retention, no ring, no lace, no legs; ruby brown body. Maple and cinnamon nose. Sweet caramel malt entry with maple syrup with a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg right behind; maple finish with some honey on the backend as beer warms. Silky and sticky (honey?) tongue coating; medium light body, moderate minus carbonation; little warmth from 9.2% abv. Overall, to be honest, this stout is just ok plus; it’s thin for the offering and the maple is the only standout feature; it’s tasty, but I’m left wanting more...

3.50 | 4.0 | 4.25 | 3.50 | 3.75
Score: 4.01 rDev-4.6%

 

Surly BA Molé Darkness RIS, 12% ABV. Pours thick and black with no head, hence no lacing. Nose is vanilla, cinnamon, and slight chocolate. Taste is chocolate, bourbon, peppers, vanilla, and cinnamon with moderate sweetness, slight bitterness, some pepper heat, and some bourbon burn. Decent thick and smooth mouthfeel, if a bit under-carbonated. Overall outstanding to world-class, though I preferred the Rye Double Vanilla variant.

4.45/5 rDev +0.9%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Still have the Rum BA Vietnamese Coffee to try in the next few days. Probably too late, but I'll have to try to get more of these. I note that Molé had been reviewing the highest but is now the lowest.

 

Good morning, Sunday NBWers! Hösl Märzenbier from Privatbrauerei Hösl.

500ml can served in a big snifter. EXP 2022/05. Day 20 of advent calendar.

Pours clear ruby amber with a small head, not much carbonation. Smell is rich and grainy, a whiff of grass in the background.

Taste is nice. Nutty, a little toffee, grassy/nutty bitterness, grain sweetness. Maybe the slightest shadow of a yeasty funk.

Mouthfeel is moderately thick. Overall, this is a really nice beer -- would be nicer (to my taste) just slightly less sweet.

Either my favorite or second favorite of the advent beers so far.

 

Pours a cola brown color with a very creamy beige head, 1/4” cap was present for the duration.

Nose is seriously sweet with caramel, brown sugar, sweet cream and vanilla bean.

Flavor begins with caramel and vanilla, roasted coffee flavor comes on to offer some balance. Boozy alcohol warmth plays in the background the whole time.

Finish leans toward the bitter from the coffee, the sweetness and alcohol warmth are still there though.

Viscous body and subtle carbonation let this one hang on the palate a little, but it’s a desert beer in every way, so this wasn’t surprising.

Always been a fan of Southern Tier’s flagship beers, and I’m glad that I gave them a mulligan after trying the 2xmas.

This brew is not a daily drinker, but I could definitely see keeping a few stashed in the fridge during the colder months.

Happy Sunday, and cheers BA’s!

 

Poured into an a 8 oz tulip glass not sure when it was canned. Pours blood red with a little thin pink head that leaves residue along the sides of the glass. 4.75

Aroma raspberry, blueberry, vanilla, and strawberry. 4.75

Taste follows huge raspberry, blueberry, vanilla, and strawberry. 4.75

Mouthfeel is thick like your are drinking a fruit smoothie, gentle carbonation, not dry at all, and at 7% ABV it drinks much bigger but still goes down easily. 4.75

Overall this is a one of a kind brew and I am glad I had to share it. So thick and juicy. 4.75

 

You should be a sales rep for them....who could say no to that description?

 

Back with three more new ones today... it's snowing outside unexpectedly and I'm enjoying sitting inside and warming up. First up in my glass is Dream Machine, a new "milkshake sour" from 603 Brewery in Londonderry, NH.



This is brewed with blood orange, raspberry, vanilla, and lactose and clocks in at a healthy 7.3% ABV. Pretty high-octane for this type of beer, honestly, but we'll see how it goes. The pour is a mostly clear reddish hue. Decently-sized head with pretty alright retention here. No lace as it thins out to a quarter-finger of soapy pink-ish suds. Average look, though the color is pretty nice.

The nose here is like rainbow sherbet almost, with a hit of sweet citrus followed up with some dense berry elements. Seems like it'll be pretty damn enjoyable, honestly. Notes of lime, strawberry, orange, raspberry, and even mango come across pretty heavily here. I'm thinking the stronger ABV will be a boon to this one, though I'm also hoping the vanilla/lactose combo isn't overly dense/creamy as such ingredients can be in this type of style.

First sip is puckeringly-acidic, but it acclimates pretty quickly and I start to pick up the vanilla here and there, which helps lend some balance to the proceedings. Flavors of lemon-lime, blood orange, black raspberry ice cream, pineapple, and mango meld well with one another and give this a fun and lively profile that I honestly like a bit more than I thought I would. Feel is somewhat close to syrupy at times, but it luckily never quite jumps all the way into that side of the pool. This is good stuff. I am surprised how much I like it, and I still think a good amount of my enjoyment is being helped along by it being bruisingly strong for a fruited sour. Recommended if you like the idea behind it, probably one of my favorite 603s in a while, though they're somewhat spotty overall. Food at the place was freaking great, though, I do remember that.

 

Next up is this can of Bones Shirt from Suarez that I've had hanging around for a few months now. I'm a huge fan of Suarez beers. This one doesn't quite stand out the way some of their other offerings do. That said, it's really nice to see a well done black lager. Not a style we see a ton of in these parts.

3.81/5 rDev -5.5%
look: 4.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Excellent appearance....like dark RC Cola but with thick, long-lasting head that left behind tons of lacing. Exactly what I would want out of a beer of this style. Smell is on point for the style, but not particularly noteworthy. Faint notes of bread and a subtle mineral element to the aroma. Taste has some nice roasty notes along with rye bread. Clean and fairly crisp. This is a beer I can imagine sitting under a beer tent and drinking all day.