New Beer Weekend #37

I was gonna buy this but the abv steered me away. IPAs in that range seem to have bad effects on me, it’s there any heat from the ABV.

@eppCOS that beer is making me jealous.

 

Settling in to watch the Arsenal / Liverpool game (COYG!). It's chilly here today in the Northeast, which makes it a good day to bust open a big stout. This one is Rye ex Maple Barrel Aged El Mariachi, which I received in NBS BIF 12.5 from @Roguer. The only downside of these BIFs is that the beer arrives faster than I can drink it!

3.91/5 rDev +2.4%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Pours with a slight reddish tinge then pretty close to jet black once in the glass. No head and just a tiny wafer thin ring around the edge. Aroma is sweet, with plenty of maple complemented by bourbon notes and a tiny bit of prune.

First impression on the tongue was all barrels and smokey flavors, both of which I'm partial to. That said, it's not the most complex beer I've ever tasted. The more I sip, the more I'm picking up of the peppers, but I'm not getting any vanilla. Almost expected a hair more depth to it. Not a big knock on it, as it's still very tasty. The alcohol is fairly well hidden, with the overall feel a bit thin. Good beer that I'll have to be careful not to drink too quickly.

 

Pinstripe Pils a Pilsner from Blue Point Brewing that is brewed by Anheuser-Busch in Baldwinsville NY. This is a by the book Pilsner and that’s a good thing. It pours a light gold color with a thick and lasting pure white head. Nice aroma of bready malt. The taste is the same but with a nice hop bitterness. The mouthfeel is light and the finish is lasting and slightly bitter. A very refreshing and enjoyable brew. Well done

 

Pint can, Pours a cloudy pale straw, fluffy white head.

Nose is floral hop and citrus rind. Not real complicated.

Flavor begins with citrus rind bitterness, with lesser notes of lemongrass and orange peel.

Somewhat dry on the finish, mild bitter aftertaste. Strongly carbonated, and appropriate for the style as I know it.

Overall, it’s good. I want to like it more, but I don’t get any of the “tropical mist” that it describes, or flavors that might point you in that direction...which leaves it kind of one noted. It is good, but for $16-17 a 4-pack, this just doesn’t do a lot for me.

 

Good afternoon NBW, hope everyone is doing well. Good weekend for me so far, relaxed yesterday and took my wife to get her second shot, I get my second on Wednesday! Starting with some Vanilla Abraxas.
4.59/5 rDev +2.7%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

750 ml bottle, 2020, poured into a tulip

A- Black with a two finger mocha head.

S- Chocolate, cinnamon, peppers, vanilla, some roasted malts. This isn’t a vanilla bomb, but definitely more vanilla an regular Abraxas.

T- Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, chili peppers, some roasted malts, caramel malts.

M- Smooth, full body.

O- Not very different from Abraxas but the vanilla is very noticeable in this without being a vanilla bomb. Peppers still have a great kick and the vanilla is turned up on this.

Yesterday I did have a regular Abraxas and this definitely has more vanilla without overwhelming everything else. Cheers!

 

Pacific Sunrise by VitaminSea

4.39/5 rDev +1.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Canned3.11,opened 4.3



Beer was given to me by my dentist , he knows beers

https://www.treehousebrewco.com/brendan

“ new zealand ipa”

A NEIPA single-hopped with NZ Pacific Sunrise from Hop Revolution with Crosby hops

Solid two finger white foam cap , very good lacings and good retention resides over a turbid orange liquid

Aroma is citrus orange, berry, whiff of pine, whiff of dank, whiff of earthy, whiff of floral

Taste is orange citrus, lemon, melon hint

Velvety smooth , hop taste , no bite, clea and flavorful

Good beer

 

Good afternoon, NBW. I had a Bob's Brown Ale earlier today while I was working on my garage door, but since I've had a couple dozen of those, I didn't post it in here. Second beer of the day, now that my chores are done, is definitely new to me -- been chillin' in my fridge, waiting for me to work through the bulk of my more time-sensitive IPAs.


16oz can served in a big snifter. Pack 03/04/21. Bought it at the brewery a few weeks ago.

Pours black or very dark brown with a two, maybe two and a half finger fluffy head that collapses into a half finger mountainous layer with gappy curtains sheeting the sides. Smell is coffee and dark roasted grains.

Taste is lots of coffee and lots of roasted grains. I get some toasted nuts, something kind of chocolatey and creamy out of it, too. Maybe just a little bit of chocolatey / grainy sweetness.

Mouthfeel is fairly thin. Overall, this is a very nice coffee-forward porter.

 

Ok, so I've had a few Vienna lagers in my time, including 12 rated on this site. But I am pretty sure I have always had Vienna lagers that were made by American breweries. Time for that to change.

So today, I am having Ottakringer Vienna Lager to see what I think about it, and how it lives up to the American standard

First off, I am assuming this is their Wiener Original, rebranded or at least re-labeld, perhaps for the U.S? Checking their site, it doesn't seem to have a specifically branded "Vienna Lager" - so unless I find out otherwise, I'll continue to go with that assumption, and this would be their description if said beer:

Pours a slightly dark amber to a light brown weak tea color. The head is nicely formed, and ends up keeping a cap on the beer for a while. Nose is definitely malt-forward, but not in too sweet a way. It's got a caramelized sugar note, but it comes as an accent to a medium brown bread that you can just start to smell from the toaster.

There's also some mineral and herbal notes in the nose which carry over to the taste with more emphasis. Bread, caramelized complex sugars, earthy herbal tea, and a little bit of spice mixed into the back end bitterness. On some sips, I get a little bit of a banana bread where the baker went a little too light on the banana. The beer is medium in heft, but doesn't challenge my taste buds to a duel.

So, this is actually a little less sweet than I recall from many American versions. It almost gives the impression of an ESB, though it's got a little more fruity tang in place of some of the earthy/tea/bitter notes. I quite like this version, but if I was looking for a little more sweetness in a malty beer, I'd grab almost any American version over this.

 

Bottled January 3, 2019.

Pours a bright cherry red. Almost the exact color of a cherry Tootsie Pop. Fizzy pink head while pouring but then dissipating to nothing.

Strong cherry pie filling nose with some funky follow up. Cherries are my favorite fruit and it is difficult to find anything cherry that doesn’t taste like cough syrup.

The cherry flavor from this is incredible. Bright and fresh with a hint of lemon and the ever present Allagash barnyard funk.

Maybe my favorite Allagash Coolship to date.

 

Hey everyone, NBW! I've had a couple of new beers today, but with company and I didn't want to be the asshole on his phone while everyone was telling stories. So now they have left and here's my review of my second can of this today.

4.07/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Poured from a 16oz can stamped “03/25/21 BEERD BACK WITH ANOTHER BANGER!” to a Nonic at fridge temp.
It pours out with an orange super haze body below a snow-white ½” head of multi-sized bubbles that laces a nice ¼” ring as you sip.
Aroma is sweet citrus, mango, with hoppy aromatics.
On the tongue it's also sweet with mango taking the stage but shoved aside by a musty, hoppy finish that reminds you that you’re drinking beer. The final sensation a few seconds after swallowing is bitter and dry.
This is a fairly creamy, thick beer.
Another winner from Beer’d.

 

Afternoon NBW. Getting ready for a second interview for Chef at a brewery here. Should be completed by next Thurs. Finished up the rest of my homemade pastrami with another rueben sandwich, sorry to see it go.
My friend at the store grabbed some OH for me this week. Brew a good Imperial IPA and I wont forget it. Lets see whats up with Monsoon-Citra DDH
IIPA.
Pours a very OJ looking turbid orange with a surprisingly large creamy/foamy eggshell head with excellent retention and loads of sticky lacing, eventually settling to a thin cap.
Aroma is huge orange, lemon-lime, mango, melon and a good dose of white grape/wine.
Taste follows with citrus, add grapefruit, juicyfruit; tropicals-peach, sweet malt base challenged by a piney/green bitterness.
Feel is medium/full, soft, plush oily/slick up front with a slight stickiness that gets a bit dry on the long lingering finish that shows absolutely zero hint of its 10%abv. The best of the bunch of OH beers Ive had recently and a very well executed IIPA. Good beer.

 

Congratulations, @SawDog505, on the event 12 years ago, and on the impact a first born child has. I never knew love could be so immediate and intense! I hope you and your family have a nice celebration. (Teen years loom...)

Nice open, but you forgot to remind everyone to be sure to name the beer and brewery. (I can't possibly imagine how that slipped your mind! )

 

My new beer today is the #1 rated beer in the Lager - European Pale style. I picked this up along with a porter for the last online tasting, and since today is unseasonably warm here, it seems like now's the time.

Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) Pure Brewed Organic Lager Beer
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: 25

Code on the bottom of the can: S D 22 T1.

From what I can determine, here is the decoder ring for Samuel Smith date codes:
S=Samuel Smith
D=Month (A=Jan)
xx=Day of month
T=Year (A=2001)
1=ignore?

From that, I get April 22, 2020.

So, 1 year old. IOW, pretty fresh for Total Wine!

(I'll have even more to say/rant on the topic of TW's awful treatment of beer when we get to the bock online tasting in thee weeks.)

Let's see how this beer aged.



Crystal clear golden yellow body with columns of bubbles rising to a 1 inch white, thick head. The head recedes fairly quickly leaving sticky lacing clinging to the glass.

In the aroma, I get grass, biscuit, and fruit - apple or pear.

The flavors in the taste repeat the aroma, with just a touch of bittering initially that fades a bit, but does hang on into the finish and aftertaste. The apple/pear flavors are quite pleasing and blend well with the grass and biscuit. There is a solid bready maltiness as well. The hops add just enough bitterness to keep the beer balanced, crisp, and refreshing.

The mouth feel is on-point for the style. It is thin, for sure, but it has a nice presence on the tongue. A bit creamy as well.

Overall, this beer seems to have survived its age and poor treatment in reasonably good shape. I can see why this beer is #1 in its style. It's only too bad I didn't get a fresh one to try.


L: 4.0 | S: 3.75 | T: 3.75 | F: 3.5 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.69

 

They're legitimately one of the best IPA producers in CA right now and it's kind of shocking to me that people don't put more effort into acquiring their beer. As spoiled as I am living in San Diego, I'm massively stoked any time a box of Slice lands on my porch. They manage to excel at both the creativity and technical execution facets in equal doses, which not many breweries can say.

 

Cheers to another NBW! Starting out a bit earlier than usual today - working on getting a pot of Bolognese on the stove, and what better fuel for the beginnings of a long, slow simmer than a 14% ABV BA stout?

Kicking the day off with Anchorage Brewing Company's Blessed, a blend of 1- and 3-year-old bourbon barrel-aged stouts with coconut and Madagascar vanilla beans, that @Dimidiata has been kind enough to share with me. Musical accompaniment for the beer comes from Voyager's "The Meaning of I," as quite frankly, there's never an inappropriate time to listen to Australia's finest progressive metal export.

It pours pitch black with a mere smattering of lacing that quickly disappears into the void from which it ever-so-briefly escaped. Swirling leaves a dense coating on the walls of the glass, giving a glimpse into the viscosity I'm about to experience.

The nose opens with a wave of rich, luxurious vanilla, carrying floral and fruity undertones. Where some beers with massive amounts of vanilla devolve into glorified extract, this excels as something rooted in beer with an expansive adjunct profile whose core thrust is a vibrant expression of vanilla. 80% dark chocolate quickly joins the fray, as does charred oak, as does an assertive wave of toasted coconut that teases upon a macaroon profile without quite getting there. Tobacco, hints of leather, and cocoa powder waft around in the background.

Where the nose was balanced by charred oak, the palate blows directly into unbridled decadence, yet somehow remaining on the right side of the line between luxurious and overwrought. Vanilla is again the first flavor to hit, but coconut forces itself into a larger role, along with an incredibly dense dark chocolate note that brings just a hint of balancing bitterness. The barrels throw off far more spirit character than they did on the nose, bringing subtle caramel, cherry, and wisps of alcohol heat that only serve to enhance the beer. As it moves towards the finish, a river of dark chocolate asserts its might, subsuming all that came before and moving into the finish with hues of vanilla and bourbon, leaving a lingering trail of pastry opulence in its wake.

Heavy, thick, and viscous, yet somehow still spry and dangerously drinkable. This strikes a balance in both sweetness and body that serves as a differentiating point between great and truly phenomenal BA pastry stouts.

It's always a risk to start a day with such a phenomenal beer, lest it all be downhill, but I think the rest of the afternoon has some options that will rise to the challenge.

Score: 4.75

 

I feel like Alvarado St. is mostly operating at that level except, ironically, when it comes to WCIPAs. I think their hazy game might be the best in CA. I wonder if a Slice/Alvarado collab would be in the cards...

 

Cheers to the new beer weekend!

Prairie Artisan Ales Paradise Stout

Pours black as night with about a half inch espresso colored head. Smells rich of coco, coconut, roasty malts, vanilla, just a hint of dark fruit. Taste follows the nose, boozyyyy. Feel is full-bodied, low carbonation, very warming, syrupy; you really just want to slowly sip on this one. Very well done stout!

 

For a brewery that's just celebrated their first anniversary (and opened right before the start of the pandemic), Slice is making amazing beer. They have done a couple rebrews recently (Doobie Snacks and Turbo Nectar just this last release were both rebrews), but I don't have a reference point to say if they are similar to the original releases. As with most breweries, their clear beer doesn't get nearly as much hype at the hazy stuff. Their haze tends to sell out during the pre-sales. Slice is one of the few breweries that didn't end up shipping during the pandemic, and for me it's about a four hour roundtrip to get their beers. So far it's been worth the effort, but having to commit a full day to get their beer means it's not a regular thing for me.

 

On the topic of Vienna lagers @cjgiant this is a local one I’ve wanted to try for a while and finally came across it. Not workhorse Vienna @JackHorzempa but crimson skull by bonesaw brewing in south jersey...



Nice initial head gives way to opaque white layer of froth. A nice amber color, with some orange hue, and a slight haze to it.

Aroma is like a bakery making bread. There is also some mild toastiness and maybe even a nuttiness to it.

Taste is very much like the nose, all fresh whole grain toasty bread.

Body is light but the mouthfeel is full but in no way too much. It has a very clean finish, very subtle and low bitterness. Nice pleasant smooth carbonation.

Another impressive beer from bonesaw ive loved every lager I’ve had from them. Just wish they canned more of them. My favorite part was how full the body was and at the same time so clean. A very well made beer, up later another local lager.

 

Dentist Brendan, by chance?
Cheers