New Beer Weekend #35

Fallingwater, brought me to tears, slow walk up on a foggy morning.
That masterpiece is exquisite

 

Love to see the Mickey's review. Didn't even know they made it in the 40 format. I've only seen the traditional "Mickey's Big Mouth" format. Also loved to see that the 3 rating was way over rDev!

 

Hey kids. Greetings, salutations, congrats, etc. Lots of interesting things in our thread this weekend. Burned some brush yesterday, spent a lot of time cutting up some paralam beams that weighed about 1900 pound apiece before sitting to get waterlogged for years. In the WTF were we thinking...free wood...who just gives away wood.

So we go super local today with Harper Lane Brewery Milk Stout...


Small tenant brewer a few miles from me, on tap at a few local restaurants and freshly bottled at a couple of package stores. Ten bucks, so why not?

Well, it looks like it should. Pretty much black, khaki head that morphs into...well...nothing.

The nose is dominated by coffee. Dominated. Faint chocolate, very minimal sweetness, little malt on the smell even after warming a bit.

Ok...this is a cup of barely bubbly black coffee with a little bit of lactose on the back end. No chocolate to speak of and it has quite a bit of char/acrid taste. The sweetness is more like a sensation than an actual taste.

Feels is a bit thin for the style, carbonation is fairly low but I'm ok with that aspect. Kind of on the bitter side for the style and the burnt notes become unpleasant. Pretty dry...milk stout???

Well, I wanted this to be a home run (literally), but it is off the mark for the style, in my opinion. It is in the neighborhood of stout-land, but it lacks the mouthfeel and sweetness and is far too coffee forward with the burnt thing going on too much for my tastes. Tops for me on this one is 3.5 and I am thinking that is generous where it seems to miss on the style characteristics.

 

Sounds like film noir, with Nick Kiribati, or Nick Danger at The Old Same Place....

 

Georgetown Brewing Meowsa, courtesy of @BBThunderbolt in the NBS BIF v13:



A: Hazy golden orange with a quickly fading white head
A: All manner of fresh tropical fruit + orange, with a whiff of sweet malt
T: All the tropics are in here - guava, passion fruit, pineapple, melon, orange, balanced perfectly with a crisp hoppy bitterness, touch of fruity sweetness and malt
M: Moderate carb, medium+ body, super-smooth texture, long tapering juicy finish with a pleasantly bitter finale
O: This is really good - great flavors, nice balance, hard to put this one down long enough to make some notes. In fact it was gone in like 4 minutes, and of course, that’s both a good thing and bad. Love it.

 

LOL!!!! I didn't even notice. It is a quite attractive brew. If the head had a wee bit better retention I woulda bumped it another .25 in appearance. It uses corn syrup, but doesn't have that nasty corn taste so many mini-mart malt liquors have. It doesn't stand next to craft versions, but, I've certainly had worse.....

Ticking ain't for snobs.

 

Where the hell were you with this when I was contemplating my BA name change?!?!?

Nick Kiribati, International Man of Ticking Mystery:

 

Ok last new beer of the weekend and further research for the NBS bif.

the funny thing is I really try to review / taste beer as blind as possible and just style.

when I picked up a this I did not even read the can the mentioned Pb, so I was little taking back at 1st



16oz can date 12/30/2020 batch 197, poured in a goblet
L: tan 2+ finger head leads to nice sticky lacing, in the glass deep black but when poured looked like clean motor oil
S: I get a roast and nut like flavor almost like fresh roasted peanut butter
T: follows the smell and notes of nuts with some light coffee and malt sweetness on the finish
F: a touch thin body if it was 10ABV but as a 5.5 abv smooth and mid carb
O: Overall tasty and enjoyable and great beer for the abv range, the PB/nut for a non adj stout was surprising to me


Edit, I like to to my reviews blind, and I just read the can and it states notes of PB so with that I bumped it up tad

 

Georgetown is a fave around these parts.

 

Yum!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46317/539883/



16 oz. can.
Released two days ago.

Moderate to vigorous pour yields a 1.5 inch tan (with hints of red) head over a dark brown body (with hints of red.) Nose of dark malt, dark fruit, bitter chocolate, and port. Taste of bitter chocolate, milk chocolate, cocoa powder, slight port, and finishing with chocolate and red grape. Woah! Tasty stuff right here, and so unique! Damn, I need to get more of this before it's gone! Oh yeah, feel is more than adequate and overall, I'm pretty sure I've never had a port barrel aged milk stout so I can honestly say it's the best in its class!!

Cheers to Mr. Kimmich for this gem!!!

 

I can see why, great job on this one!

 

One of their core beers is Bhodizafa IPA, and it's not uncommon to see cans in stores within 36-48 hours of canning. I once grabbed a sixer at TJs that was canned THAT DAY! So, they canned it in the morning, the distributor picked it up, drove it 2 hours north, unloaded it, entered into their system, put the order together, put it on a truck, got it to the store, who then received it, stocked it, where I bought it at about 5pm. FFS.

 

Wait until the new one discovers fashion. Your dayjob will be folding laundry, and you'll need to squeeze your paying gig into the off-hours.

 

Hi NBWers! One of the reasons I rarely participated in NBS previously was that I always worked Sunday nights. Now that things are trending back towards normal hereabouts, I'm back to working weekends. This is a beer I had last night, so I for one am pleased that we have the whole weekend to talk about new and tasty beers even if it's a break with tradition. Having just made an appointment for my first vaccination shot I finally do feel like 2020 might be coming to an end soon, regardless of what the calendar claims.



North Park Beer Co. - 2020 Is Over! - pastry stout - 13.5% abv

A - Black with just the tiniest bit of mocha head around the edges. Small specks of coconut? float across the oily surface of the beer.

S - Toasted coconut up front, cocoa powder, vanilla frosting, brownie batter, reminds me of opening a box of milk chocolate covered macadamia nuts for breakfast in Hawaii.

T - Smooth milk chocolate up front, fades into a darker more cocoa powdery flavor. The macadamia nuts make an appearance, but briefly. The toasted coconut and vanilla sweeten things up around the edges.

M - Very low carb, but manages to coat the mouth without being heavy and syrupy.

O - Very well done pastry stout. Most of my experience with North Park's beers has been with their ipas, which are some of the best being produced in CA right now. I wish the palate wasn't quite so dominated by the chocolate, but the other adjuncts are present, if not so obviously as on the nose. Big thanks to @Xul for sending this my way.

 

And, my NW Forum homie @mudbug gave it a higher score than I did!

 

So you review AND buy beer blind.

I want to party with you. IJS. Mad props for that.

 

For good reason!

Exactly!

 

Central Waters Straight Outta Amherst Imperial IPA



Most folks frequent Central Waters for their Barrel Aged brews and I cannot lie I do the same. I am also an IPA fan. In the past my favorite IPA from them has been Illumination which has a seasonal release. Went there yesterday and wanted to start with something other that so as to not kill my taste buds right away. To me this is right up there with the best IPAs I have ever had. Even better than Illumination. Hope it becomes a regular !

Look 4.5
Smell 4.5
Taste 4.75
Feel 4.75
Overall 4.75

Just a great beer !!