New Beer Weekend #28

Another cross post from the Barleywine thread:

A relatively new, and new to me, beer - Cigar City Brewing’s “Cosmic Collision” a Sauternes BA Wheatwine-Style Ale, Bottle 1168 of 2000, El Catador Club 12th Edition (2020):





Bottled 8/7/20. Poured at 56 degrees. Deep amber/ruby brown with deep brilliant color and excellent clarity; light tan mixed bubbles/rocky head; ok cap retention, solid ring, soapy lacing; lots of suds, thin legs on swirl. Nose is white dessert wine/Sauternes; grapey retro nasal. Honey, toffee, apricot, caramel, oak and vanilla; sweet dessert wine with a dry oaky bite. Slick, vinous feel; medium full body; moderate carbonation; very little warmth. Overall an awesome BA ale that looks like a Barley Wine, smells like a Sauternes and tastes like Tio Pepe Sherry with layers of malt flavors; the most interesting ale I’ve had this tasting and one I won’t soon forget.

4.75 | 4.5 | 4.75 | 4.75 | 4.75
Score: 4.69 rDev +3.5%

 

I absolutely will. Thanks for sharing that memory, I can relate. PJ was my wife's dog before we met back in 2012. I had a dog of my own, Gilbert, who is still with us. PJ is 15 now, Gilbert is 14. We'll still have some time with her, but the idea of one of us not being in the household is very surreal right now.

 

Here's another crossover from the big barleywine thread. Voodoo's Caution! Contains Real Pumpkin! is not a beer that is new to me, but this 2020 cold brew coffee variant is. Poured into a snulip, the color was a blend of amber and copper with a cloudiness that cleared up as it warmed. There was no head to speak of. The aroma was of cinnamon, vanilla, and bourbon. Bourbon was the first flavor that hit my palate with coffee finishing out the sip. In between was some restrained dark fruit and light molasses. As it warmed the coffee began to fade and the cinnamon and vanilla became more prominent. Also more forward was the touch of hops that combined with the coffee to give this a somewhat bitter finish. The medium body kept it drinkable, but also felt like it shortchanged some of the flavor notes. I would have liked a bit more of the dried fruit flavors in the mix. Overall, it wasn't bad, but not one of the variants that I prefer.

 

Firestone Walker §ucaba Vintage 2018 (crossposted from the Barleywine tasting thread):



Poured cold into a tulip glass and allowed to warm to cellar temperature. Dark brown in color (I'm guessing around 40 EBC ), with a thick tan head that left some nice lacing as it settled. There's nothing subtle about this one. Huge aromas and flavors of caramel, molasses, dark fruit, and licorice, accompanied by notes of bourbon, oak, and vanilla. Very sweet and quite boozy, with a little sweetness lingering on the palate. These FW boxed beers are a little spendy, but the BBA barleywines (I've tried §ucaba [2018] and Helldorado [2017] for the barleywine tasting) seem to be something special.

4.63/5 (rDev +1.8%)
look: 5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

 

That's it, spoil her rotten and all of you enjoy every minute of it !!

 

Greetings All from the Great Northwest, where we are watching the storms to the south, and having mild January weather.

This weekend we have Head Pin IPA. First I has reviewed from this brewery, although it's just down I-90 a piece.

Nice sweet IPA. I'm going to remember this one come summer.

Until next time,

 

Howdy all, seems I have once again stayed up juuuuust late enough to sneak in one of my entries I would typically reserve for "Sunday proper" before I hit the hay. This is my first of three new beers for the last day of January 2021. Hmm, maybe I'll grab a couple other new ones... I did take the Monday off, after all, since we have a snowstorm coming over the next 24-36 hours and I didn't feel like dealing with driving in it.

Here goes... this is Spyglass Brewing's Blockchain, an imperial NEIPA featuring Citra, Motueka, and Simcoe hops. Spyglass, a tiny little brewery based out of Nashua, NH, has been very good to me thus far, though I've only had a handful of their offerings. Hoping this one lives up to the quality seemingly implied by that excellent hop combo!



Poured into my brand new 21.5 oz(?!) Beer Store-branded Willi Becher glass! This place (which is right across the street from this brewery, mind you, so theeeere's the tie-in) has been a great source of fantastic NH beer for years, but they've been getting even better recently stocking stuff like this in their cooler. This is an opaque, milky-orange beer with a massive initial showing of head that settles down to a solid ring of sticky white foam measuring about two-fingers after five or so minutes. Great looking stuff if you like the haze, and the lacing here is pretty great, too! Very excited to see what's in store here...

The nose is a big ol' wallop of zesty citrus and passion fruit with strong suggestions of lychee, dank pine resin, and pineapple. Man, I'm really into this so far... doesn't hurt that the combination of Simcoe and Motueka alone is a home-run when it comes to balancing aggression/complexity with understated simplicity. The Citra feels like straight icing-on-the-cake here, to be honest, bringing out some undercurrents of ripe mango and guava that feel right at home among the lime, grapefruit, pomelo, and hints of anonymous tropical fruits that dot the outer edges of my sensory interpretations here...

Juicy as hell on the tongue... straight-up smoothie-style with a big blast of mango, passion fruit, and bright, vibrant key lime. First few sips finish with a hint of bitterness, but that smooths out after a few more minutes, which simultaneously allows the experience to open up and breathe with a hint of biscuity maltiness finally working to bring a little balance to an otherwise explosively-hoppy brew. Some light flavors of papaya, strawberry bubble gum esters, and a hint of spice come across toward the end of the glass. Definitely feeling some yeastiness here, and the hops feel a tad less saturated, like they lose a bit of their grip toward the second half of the can (maybe some settling happened?), but I find that is the case with a lot of smaller breweries' NEIPAs, and it's definitely not "unforgivable" by any means, so... hey, this is damn good stuff. It deserves praise. Support your small local (or local-ish) breweries!!

 

I have finally finished up my trove of JWL built up through the years. I'll try to find more, but my memory of these beers is everlasting.....The one beer to have when you're just having one! No shit, ya'll.....

 

Walking on gilded splinters, eh?. We saw Dr. John in 2014 at Jazzfest, along with Tom Jones and an ungodly good Robert Plant rendition of Led Zeppelin greats. I love New Orleans....

 

Threes Brewing is new to my distribution area (well, when it comes to their packaged beer anyway... I've had their stuff on tap here and there back before the pandemic), and the stuff I've had has been pretty solid overall, so I figured giving their newest DIPA shot wouldn't hurt. This one is called Beyond the Void, and it's an 8.2% beer which was canned on 1/5/21.



First of all, big fail that this is just showing up to my area now. The store I got this from posted about getting it three days ago, meaning it was already 24 days old when it arrived... that is pretty much unacceptable when it comes to getting beer (especially in a style that is expected to be consumed fresh) out to new distro, so I will absolutely call that like I see it. Anyway, BTV is a bigger IPA featuring a nice, heavy-hitting (aaaand maybe slightly redundant...?) combo of Citra, Galaxy, and Vic Secret hops. Some sources (including the brewery's site) claim this also features Enigma. Guess that's a mystery... err, a riddle... wait, no... some kind of... I dunno, conundrum...? There has to be a more fitting word for this situation...

Pour here is way darker than I expected... like, 12-13 SRM dark. Most NEIPAs these days don't get darker than, say, 5-7 SRM, so this was unusual to see. The head is pretty tight and well-developed, though, building up to a solid finger-and-a-half and leaving behind soapy, consistent lace and nice legs as it fades. Though the hue itself is a bit deeper than usual, the haze/opacity level is par for the style, and some research into the recipe here indicates that they did, indeed, use Golden Promise malt. Typically, this shouldn't add much in terms of coloration to the beer (the Lovibond differential is extremely small, like 1.8 for 2-row and 2.3-2.5 for GP), but who knows what percentage they used? Interesting, to be honest. I wonder how it got so comparatively-dark?

The nose is ripe mango, papaya, and funky pineapple with, well... more funk appearing pretty rapidly. I am getting a distinct WLP644 aka "Sacch Brux trois" element here, which is... I dunno, kind of disheartening in a sense. The funkiness is a bit pervasive and kind of shuts down some of the hop character I would otherwise find complex and fun. Now, I don't have proof that this was a WLP644 (or similar) pitch, but I could never get into this yeast, and I tend to think of it as an "off" element unless its presence is specifically mentioned/invoked in the press release/social media info for whatever beer it's involved in, because the character it can bring is so "Brett-like" that it's tough to justify as "purposeful" without a statement of intent. I hope I'm not coming across as overly critical here, but it deserves to be pointed out that something about this seems off to me, and it wouldn't be very Advocate-y of me to pretend everything is on the up-and-up when my instincts say otherwise.

Flavor profile has a lot of what I figured it would have based on extrapolation from the nose... white grapefruit, funky pineapple, off-kilter stone fruit ranging from apricot to plum-esque undertones, and hints of spice and musky tropical fruit. Moderately-malty (more than I'd want, honestly) with exaggerated yeastiness making the proceedings a little tough to put back. I am not sure about this one... I enjoyed their Logical Conclusion IPA three or so weeks ago, but this feels distinctly off. I wonder if it picked something up somewhere along the line that "infected" it, or if this is how it was intended to be. I would like to think this is not right, but that also means something might have gone wrong during brewing or packaging.

Before signing off for the night, I will note that the can of Logical Conclusion I had from them was brewed at SingleCut, whereas this was brewed at their "home" location, so, like... I don't want to make assumptions but, I wonder if that has anything to do with the issues I just mentioned? Not trying to start anything, of course, but the fact that this feels to me like it has a fermentation issue and was brewed at a different location than the only other IPA I've had from them (which was clean and crisp and, well, normal) seems worthy of mention. Wonder if anyone can opine on their findings...

Now that means I only have one more new one in the fridge for tomorrow proper... yes, I am up late. Yes, I should go to bed. Don't worry, I'm judging myself plenty. Maybe I'll grab a couple more new ones to review for y'all when I'm out on my travels during the daytime... seems so far away, though. Cheers, and good night!

 

Feel for you @Pinz412 the only thing that brings me peace when this happens is at least knowing the pain is gone for them. Sorry to hear, sending thoughts.

 

Good day BAS! Off to NBS with this:



Mornin’ Latte from Toppling Goliath. Purchased 0n 27/1/21 for $ 4.00 (Including tax) for 16 oz can ($ 0.250/oz) from Franklin Beer, Franklin, PA. In reefer at store and stored at home at 42 degrees. Reviewed 31/1/21.
Stamped on bottom rim “PKG 12/21/20 BEST BY 6/19/21”. Served at 46.5 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. Final temperature 50.5 degrees.
Appearance – 3.
First pour – Brown (SRM 20), clear.
Body – Black (SRM 40), opaque When rear-lite, same.
Head – Average (Maximum 2.2 cm, aggressive center pour), buff, high density, short retention, leaving a 0.5 cm crown fed by massive effervescence, and a complete cap. Second pour produces a three mm crown and a single-bubble thickness cap.
Lacing – Fair. Wide, sketchy band of near-microscopic bubbles, much more open space than torn curtain lacing, like a net for medium-sized whales.
Aroma – 3.5 – Light coffee and milk, no hops, no malt, no yeast.
Flavor – 4 – Begins slightly bitter with mostly coffee and a hint of cocoa. No alcohol (8.9 % ABV, according to BA, NOT marked on container) taste or aroma. No gastric warming. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl. Subsequent belches generate some coffee memories.
Palate – 4 – Full, bordering on creamy, soft and billowy carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 3.5 (Minus 0.25 point for no ABV on container) Decent but unremarkable – Seems a bit main-stream for TG.
Rating 3.72, rDev -12.1%.

 

2SP son of Ben.

yards did this recipe too as well a while back.

A chill hazed darker shade of orange. Khaki head of poofy pillowy head with fantastic lacing and a half finger of head lasting throughout drinking. Smells of orange and pine. Lemon ring. Grapefruit. Some caramel malts. Kings Hawaiian bread. Old school 100%. Very hoppy. Medium bodied. Bustling carbonation. Lingering bitterness. A hop bomb. Centennial is the main star here. And it is aggressive borderline violent. It feels green for being dated in October it is now a few days to February. I remember Yards doing a Sons of Ben pale ale and they called it “rowdy”.....well......this is a rugby player of a hoppy beer and I like it. It is a little green from me but very tasty

 

I was able to get a four pack of that this year for the first time ever. I had my expectations exceeded as well. Great beer.

 

Good morning NBS/NBW and thanks @SawDog505 for this weeks event. I have been enjoying the Barleywine Tasting this weekend quite a time. Todays offering is from (Name to long!)
The Brewery at Four Star Farms, Dark Oast is the house Porter and a beauty, the touch of rye and wheat are welcome, excellent dry finish, with an appropriate amount of cocoa and char.
Stay well
Do good

Dark Oast

Porter - American | 6% ABV

The Brewery at Four Star Farms
Northfield, Massachusetts

3.92/5 rDev 0% | Average: 3.92
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from an undated can (purchased at the brewery) into the imperial pint glass
A - Dark cocoa color. Carbonation is well hidden in the depth of this. The mocha colored loose knit froth is quite lovely. Rings of lacing cling to to the glass during the experince.
S - A touch of char, certainly some cocoa, earthy element in there maybe from the hops maybe. A spicy element from the rye is quite welcome.
T - That rye bite is pitch erfect, not to dominant, classic porter elements are more prevelant, bitter cocoa, char, milk chocolate.
M - Great feel, medium is body, pleasantly dry, excellent tactile experience. Carbonation is near perfect.
O - A very good Porter, this will be a staple in the fidge. The dance between the tradional porter elements and the rye/wheat are a lot of fun. The feel again is superb

 

Love the album Joes Garage.

 

TMI...