New Beer Weekend #31

Good evening NBW
I worked twelve hours today. Settling in with a new beer now.

Short's $plurge DIPA
12oz bottled 01/13/21 (38 days ago) poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass at fridge temp, no ABV listed on label. The beer pours hazy orange amber in color with off white head. The head recedes to fluffy ring and island leaving behind some lacing. The aroma is dank, over ripe tropical fruit with lesser notes of caramel. The taste is semisweet tropical fruit punch with a side of caramel and dank. Moderate bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with average carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Overall, very good. Very middle of the road between east & west coast DIPA, but with the good elements of each.

Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass this weekend!

 

Thanks for reviewing this from the vantage point of a tea connoisseur. I'm too lazy to check but I think this was the variant I had on the BCBS tasting thread and I recall initially liking this, then faded to lukewarm and rallying to ultimately positively inclined but thinking a tea maven might *really* enjoy this.

 

Poured into a 20 oz Snulip glass canned on 2/03/2021. Pours near pitch black with a finger plus light mocha head that leaves some thin streaks of lace with nice retention. 4.5

Aroma hazelnut, cocoa nibs, coffee beans, toffee, and vanilla. 4.25

Taste follows hazelnut is the stand out, cocoa, coffee, toffee, and vanilla in supportive roles. 4.25

Mouthfeel is above medium, gentle carbonation, actually not dry, and at 10% extremely approachable and may drink more like 8%. 4

Overall this is really tasty, with a nice look, but I wish it was chewier with a little more carbonation. Recommend for sure. Nice Imperial Stout from Spyglass Brewing. 4.25

 

Abita PB & Jams Dessert Beer, 8.0% ABV; 3.25 overall

Pours a very effervescent honey color with a pinky of beige colored head. Some head retention & zero lacing

S: A little grape jelly, some peanutty notes

T: Strawberry jam notes, faint peanut butter, some dryness up front. Dryness, strawberry (kind of fake ) & a little bit of peanut as this warms

MF: Medium body, starts out with prickly carbonation and then flattens out

Seems a bit fake, one & done

 

New to me yet unfortunate.



Erdinger
Weissbier Dunkel
Dunkelweizen
5 something percent ABV.
Germany

Opague darkest brown possible. Faint smells of bubblegum and coffee. Barely smell it. Bland. Tastes like almost nothing. Yeast esters. Lively carbonation. Estery. Creamy

I do not have covid. I am not sick. I ate right before two of these this is my second one. I taste the food. Not the beer. It is the fourth beer I’ve had from Erdinger and they are all bland. I taste nothing it’s weird. Just like this one it’s no flavor literally even Dasani has a flavor and it is extremely unfortunate

don’t overestimate my flavor descriptions. This literally tastes like nothing. Not even water.

somebody please pick up something from Erdinger and confirm this.

u know how some people have a gene that they can’t taste cilantro? I don’t get it. I just drank two and burped like a dinosaur and no taste. Only taste the food I ate. It’s just 100% bland. Same when I had the original weissbier

 

The only Erdinger beer I have had is their Oktoberfest.

Here are selected quotes from my review:

"...Weak aroma; hard to pick up anything distinctive. ... Taste is better, but still subdued. ... I have to try hard to imagine it is there. ... In a word, disappointed."

 

To further accentuate how good 41 Minutes was, I had a New Holland Dragon's Milk as a nightcap and it was a major letdown in nearly every category.

 

From NBW BIF #12.5 from the fabulous @WunderLlama .



Seven Bells And All's Well - Vitamin Sea - 4.9% abv

Described as a "session coffee stout with cacao nibs, vanilla bean, and rotating coffee. Contains lactose." This can is a few months old due to the absolute deluge of beer I received from NBW BIF #12 and #12.5, so it's certainly possible it's a bit faded flavor-wise.

look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

A - dark chocolate with a creamy tan head that slowly dissipates leaving a thick ring of lacing

S - milk chocolate, hints of roasty coffee, vanilla frosting

T - dark roast coffee, roasted malt, tobacco, dark chocolate, a bit of vanilla sweetness on the finish

M - fairly thin as expected, but on the creamy side

O - While it doesn't taste watered down or bland, for the amount of adjuncts used it just doesn't have the richness of a heftier higher abv stout. Seems a bit of a waste to me, but they hit the target of an easy drinking stout for sure. The roasted malt flavors come off as rather heavy handed, so a bit more sweetness to cut that would be welcome, although that would be easy to overdo.

 

Good Morning Beer Advocates and welcome to New Beer Sunday #834! Had an excellent beer day yesterday with my Heretic and Dovetail offerings, hoping for a repeat. Have a my last new to me Dovetail beer for later today, but will start with a morning appropriate milk stout, though this time a collaboration between a Chicago and Suburban brewers.

Hop Butcher For The World & DryHop Brewers Milkstachio



Can Notes: 16 oz canned 12/1/20 @ 14:17:14, brewed and canned by Hop Butcher at the Miskatonic Brewery in Darien. Milk stout brewed with cocao nibs and natural pistachio flavor. Tasting Notes: Pistachio, Vanilla and Chocolate. 6.0% ABV

Appearance: Poured most of the 16 oz can into a shaker pint glass, limited light tan brown of head consisting of fine bubbles fades quickly leaving a ring around the top of the pour.. Base a very dark brown with hues of red and black. 3.5

Aroma: Roast malt and chocolate at a mild strength. Smells OK. 3.25

Taste: Taste much bolder than aroma, with a chocolate fudge lead and a slightly chalky roast malt behind. Light lactose and minty notes as well, but the pistachio, the reason I picked this up, is not there. This is a decent tasting milk stout tastes good, disappointed for the absence of pistachio. Scoring taste as is, but will adjust the overall score. 3.75

Mouthfeel: Thin body, faint carbonation, slightly chalky, dry, sweet overall but hops do a good job balancing. Easy drinking. 3.25

Overall: This is a good milk stout, flavorful and true to style. Disappointed by the absence of pistachio, would have scored this a 3.75 if pistachio wasn't noted, perhaps much higher if present. It's like buying an Almond Joy and finding Mounds inside the wrapping. Deducting 0.5 from the overall score as a result. 3.0

For kicks, after completing my review, I scanned through others here and many also did not note pistachio, others claimed a faint or general nuttiness. Looking forward to my Dunkel later this afternoon. See you then.

 

milk stout is still one of my favorite styles although I have a severe issue with lactose and this recent thing of everybody putting lactose in everything was great. I drank so much Lancaster Milk stout at the beginning of quarantine. For whatever reason though I tried a recent one Upper Pass Milk Stout and I was ill for 3 days. Now I completely avoid them all. I guess it all caught up with me.

 

Sorry to hear about your lactose illness. Breweries should disclose their ingredients, especially additives with potential allergic reactions like lactose and peanuts/nuts. Hop Butcher discloses many ingredients, but never lactose. They use it in many of their NEIPAs, and likely other styles.

I don't pick up milk stouts or Hop Butcher beers very often. I only picked up Milkstachio because I love pistachios and was curious, but it was not meant to be.

 

I bought it knowing it says Milk Stout on it knowing what it can do to my insides but I assume the amount of lactose they used specifically did me in. I have drank an ungodly amount of Left Hand in recent years and maybe it all just caught up to me. If I drink cows milk my body throws a fit

 

Good day BAs! Off to a chocolatey start for NBW, NBS edition. I grabbed a few varieties of Big Bad Baptist awhile ago and am working my way through them. I really like the the addition of the over-cap band that tells you the vintage - 2019, 2020, etc. Saves my eyes looking for microscopic dates and my brain trying to decode brewers' cyphers. Anyway, today's New Breakfast Beer and NBS entry is:




Big Bad Baptist Vanilla Brandy Barrel-Aged Stout (2019) from Epic. Purchased on 27/1/21 for $ 17.00 (Including tax) for a 22 oz bottle ($ 0.773/oz) from Franklin Beer, Franklin, PA. On the room temperature shelf at store and stored at home at 42 degrees. Reviewed 21/2/21. (Note: I use DD/MM/YY protocol.)
Stamped on label “REL #2 12.7% ALC/VOL SLC# 6466”. There is a sticker band over the neck and cap which says “2019”. Served at 47.3 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. Final temperature 54.6 degrees.
Appearance – 3.5. Basically, looks like every other Imperial stout.
First pour – Brown (SRM 20), clear.
Body – Black (SRM 40), opaque. When rear-lite, still opaque with some ruby at the edge.
Head – Average (Maximum three cm, aggressive center pour), fallow, high density topped with some rocks, average retention, diminishing to a 0.2 – 0.3 cm crown fed by effervescence in a few places, and a complete cap.
Lacing – Fair. A short band of near-microscopic bubbles forms on the glass.
Aroma – 4 – Begins with chocolate, weak brandy, and weaker vanilla. No coffee, no hops, no yeast. As it warms, the aroma weakens to only the chocolatey parts. (Nudge, nudge, know what I mean?)
Flavor – 3.75 – Begins with moderate chocolate and a light brandy oral burn. Is that a hint of cherry? No hops, no yeast, no coffee, no vanilla. No alcohol (12.7 % ABV, as marked on the container) flavor or aroma. A slow gastric warming occurs in the background after the initial brandy has burned out.
Palate – 4 – Medium, approaching creamy, soft carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4 I’m beginning to like brandy barrel-aged brews better than bourbon, maybe because the brandy is generally noticeably present and, so far, hasn’t been harsh and choking.
Rating 3.87, rDev – 8.3%.

 

A nice lazy Sunday. We will Zoom with my wife's family this afternoon and I will be making a shepherd's pie for dinner. I'll probably watch some golf
My new beer for today is Punk Rawk Show from Ex Novo Brewing Company, a "hazy double India pale ale brewed with Citra, Motueka, and Mosaic." It is 8.5% ABV.
The beer is a hazy orange color with a one-finger white head. Some lace.
Fruity aroma, both citrus and tropical.
Taste of orange, pineapple, lemon.. Lemon rind late.
Sweet mouthfeel.
Enjoyable beer.

 

Good afternoon NBS/NBW and thanks @2beerdogs for hosting this week. Pretty uneventful week here in WMass, todays offering is from our good friends at Wunderkammer Bier. Folk costume (3) is rye, lemon, cardamom aged in oak fouders. the thin line this offering walks is something to experience, crisp, tart, with spicy elements, all set in a visually beautiful beer.
Cheers all
Folk Costume 3

Wild Ale | 5.5% ABV

Wunderkammer Bier
Greensboro Bend, Vermont

4.02/5 rDev -4.3% | Average: 4.2
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from the 375 ml bottle into the test glass. 2019 release.
A - Exceptional clarity, Golden colored back drop acts as the screen of a movie being played out starring steady carbonation. A quick to exit white cap, si replaced with a solid white ring.
S - Lemon, touch of musty barn full of fresh grain, black peper, cardamom as advertised. the mixed culture adds to the citrus thread.
T - Not as vibrant as the aromatics, nice rye element brings the peppery aspect, balanced well with cardamom, and steady lemon, not overpowering in any one aspect. There is a nice minerality as well
M - Bright on the palate, tart start with nice acidity, balanced against a chalky feel, finish is dry and slightly tart.
O - A very good and unique offering, the spice from rye, lemons and cardamom are inspired. The fouder touch softens the edges and adds some depth . Really lovely texture.

 

Technically I’ve had this beer before, but not the 2020 version. Given that this beer can really change from year to year, I’ll consider this a new beer for me.

2020 vintage. Poured out of a 16.9 oz. bottle into a Transient teku. Around 6 months old at time of review.

Looks like a 14.5% beast of a breakfast beer. Pitch black, dark mocha head that dissipated quickly, alcohol legs for days. Just coats the glass. 4

Aroma is full of bourbon breakfast goodness. Bright, slightly acrid coffee, sweet maple, vanilla bean, roasted malt, milk and dark chocolate, drying charred oak, and plenty of bourbon. 4.5

The coffee (which is slightly acrid - not a bad thing), maple, and vanilla are all there, but the vanilla and maple don’t push the beer to the “pastry” level of stout due to the balance the awesome coffee, base, and barrel provide. The barrel accentuates the vanilla bean presence, but adds a big dose of bourbon, charred oak, and drying oak tannin and the base beer adds a big roasted malt and dark chocolate component. Lighter notes of fudge, molasses, and a nondescript fruitiness are in there too. 4.5

High medium body. Very slick, oily, and sticky. Slight creaminess. Could use a little more robustness, but you can tell the barrel thinned this out quite a bit. Quite warming as it goes down. 4

Transient straight up knows their way around a barrel aged stout. I’ve had Kentuckley quite a few times in the past, but this vintage stands out for me. Just seems like the best combo of adjuncts and barrel this beer has had up to this point. Everything is in balance. 4.5

Overall: 4.42

 

Every time I got access to that bier in Germany, I would buy a rack ( 20x .5L ) Lovely stuff

 

Zeelander is an IPA from Topping Goliath crafted with Southern Hemisphere hops.
The pale yellow can pour holds a slight haze. There is a white foam cap atop.
The aroma is floral with ( orange blossom) and of grapefruit zest.
The flavor follows the nose and includes grape/vinous aspects. This is fresh-flavored with moderate hop bitterness.
Flavors persist in a somewhat dry finish.
This is great.