New Beer Weekend #41

Poured into a 13 oz tulip glass canned on 3/22/21. Pours a clear amber orange with a finger plus sticky white head that leaves plenty of thin lace with excellent retention. 4.25

Aroma pine, mango, biscuity grain, apricot, and grapefruit. 4

Taste follows pine, mango, biscuit, apricot, and grapefruit a little bitterness, but rather tropical also. 4

Mouthfeel is medium, plenty of life, maybe a little dry, and at 8.2% ABV it drinks rather easy. 4.25

Overall this is not East or West coast, kind of a very clear hybrid of the two. Nice stuff, thanks @jzeilinger for this can. 4

 

One more, Other Half Dollar and a Dream.
4.38/5 rDev +2.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

16 oz can, dated 4/21/21, poured into a teku

A- A hazy golden orange with a two finger white head.

S- Dank, citrus, grapefruit, some tropical fruits, touch of melons.

T- Dank, citrus, tropical fruits, some mango, slightly earthy.

M- Smooth, creamy, medium body.

O- Hop are nicely balanced and have a good bitterness, easy to drink.

Cheers!

 

They have several different flavors. Not sure if I've seen that one again or not. I agree it's surprisingly good. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

Hey, everyone. Been a long week... My daughter started day care which has made it quite the week for all of us (her and mom the most). I've definitely been drinking, but haven't had time to really sit down until tonight.

This is Angry Chair Ghost Light from @FrankenMiller Thanks, Gene!



Poured from a can. Pours a dark brown, almost black with about two fingers of light brown foamy head. Smell is chocolate with just a bit of booze. Not getting the coconut in the smell. Taste is heavy chocolate with the coconut coming in late. It shows up more as the beer warms as well. Very easy to drink. It looks thick, but while full tasting, drinks a little thinner than I'd expect. Overall a very tasty beer.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/32409/534552/

 

Nice, I logged in with enough time to squeeze in two new beers before this thread shuts down for another week! I knew it would get a bit tougher for me to do this now that I close the dispensary on Sunday nights, but such is life.

Here is a new Proclamation pale ale, Shadow King. I cannot read the canned-on date on the bottom of this beer for the life of me (half of it is printed on the curvy bit on the bottom, which is annoying), but I think it was some time early in April. Shrug. Their website says its availability is "sporadic," though I have never seen it before so I'm thinking it's an entirely new release... was added to BA on 4/16/21. Anyway, this is 6.25% ABV and brewed with Strata, Pacifica, and Nelson. Sounds good!



Pour is pretty good. It's a milky, opaque orange color with solid head formation measuring about two fingers, good retention, and sticky lace that forms in chunky patterns with surprising volume. Legs are nice too, and overall the whole thing looks a-ok in my glass. Diggin' it right off the bat.

First sniff is light juniper, melon, mandarin orange, and some of the light white wine elements of Nelson. Pacifica is known to bring out orange and floral character, so I can see its use here coming out more than the Strata, though I guess there is a bit of that dank element now that I think about it. Just feels a little less specific than usual, but then again, there is probably a reason this is not marketed as an IPA despite its IPA-like ABV... I bet this wasn't very dry-hopped, and therefore isn't really smelling as "saturated" with hoppiness as some Strata/Nelson beers have to me in the past.

Flavors are similarly neutered due to this lack of hop punch, but it's definitely pretty easy drinking and there's not much complexity honestly. Light stone fruit works well with the mandarin notes, and hints of zippy grapefruit zest and undertones of mango pop out a bit as I sip. A bit of piney bitterness lingers with each sip, and it's certainly drier than expected, but I don't think this is meant to really be a flavor tour-de-force. I guess, then, I would probably prefer it to be in the 5% range, because it feels a little, I dunno, pointless? Why would you make an "extra pale ale" that doesn't really bring the hoppiness in any real way in the year 2021? Doesn't make much sense to me, but who am I to judge. Feel is soft and lighter-bodied, making it fairly easy-drinking, but it isn't really standing out to me in any way, and feels like the kind of recipe that would either be better served going balls-to-the-wall with or just dialed back to a more sessionable form.

One more soon!

 

Greetings All from the Great Northwest where we are still dry in terms of rain.

I was Father of the Bride on Friday with taps from Big Barn Brewery so it's been a good beer weekend. And a good party on Friday night.

Today I have Heart and Science from Ninkasi. Another solid IPA from Oregon.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/14400/351370/

Life is good. Until next time here is a pic with apple blossoms in the background.

Happy Trails!

 

Last new beer of the weekend.
Barrel Aged Blot out the Sun from 3Floyds

I'd been sitting on this one for a little bit. More fragile beers kept getting the nod, and I was a little hesitant to drink this one super fresh. Reading other reviews, I think this is the perfect timing at 4 months old.


12oz bottled poured into a tulip pint glass at fridge temp 11.4% ABV per label. The beer pours dense black with nearly no light penetration and medium brown colored head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of tiny bubbles. The aroma is moderate in strength featuring bourbon, oak barrel and dark chocolate. The taste is a bittersweet hop and bourbon collision. There's big bourbon and oak, but there's also bright, piney & citrus hops with chocolate hanging in the balance. Moderate bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with just less than medium carbonation and a mostly dry finish. No alcohol presence in the aroma or flavor. Overall, excellent. This is really on the outside of a normal BBA stout and it really works.

Cheers all!

 

Here's to Lucy

 

Alright, final entry for this week. Mast Landing Rows On Rows. This is batch #1 of a potential new concept for them, I guess. ROR is a fruited IPA without lactose, which is quite a crazy concept nowadays. Kidding aside, this is a 7.4% beer brewed with strawberry and raspberry, as well as hopped with Belma (good choice!) and HBC630 (seems like another good choice based on quick research!), so... yeah, bring it on. Canned 3/25/21.



The beer pours a... tough-to-define color. It's certainly totally-opaque and milkshake-like in complexion, kinda looking like a... uh, smoothie, I guess. It's almost like a pale-salmon-pink with an orange-ish hue. Not really "conventionally-attractive," and there is definitely a good amount of sediment on the bottom of my glass, but let's just forget about all of that for the moment and turn our attention to the parts of this that are better-looking and traditionally thought of as beneficial to the judgment of appearance. Nice cap of foam that lasts for a really long time, superb lace, and very nice legs, along with awesome surface coverage... other than the unusual color and presence of numerous floaties, this is looking very dope.

Such an unusual smell. It's at once fruity but not overly-so, with definite strawberry and melon elements combined with notes of fresh trimmed grass and tangerine-like hoppiness. Almost a little bit conservative in scent profile, if I'm being frank, but I totally understand their desire to keep it reined in a bit for the first batch of something like this, and as I mentioned above, the hop choices are absolutely inspired and well-thought-out. I've always considered Belma to be one of those "hops that are not meant for the typical IPA recipe but which I nevertheless constantly see being poorly-utilized in typical IPA recipes," and I have a feeling it's gonna shine here. Strawberry candy (think Fruit by the Foot, or maybe Gushers!) comes out quite a bit as it acclimates to room temp, along with slight notes of oat-like malt and a subtle hint of underripe red raspberry. Hmmm...

Alright, good flavors here, but it's definitely a beer that needs dialing-in. Soft and juicy feel is a big plus, but the fruit seems to just congeal together into a big indefinite blob of generic "red fruit" that hits quickly in the middle of the palate, but disappears rather quickly. I do think the Belma and experimental hop varietals feel at-home here, but could maybe be pushed a bit more. It lacks "punch" and could definitely benefit from something to push it further. This feels like a cop-out, honestly, but I even think a small bit of Mosaic would accentuate some of the more anonymous red berry notes. That said, I enjoy the tangy fruit combined with some of the herbal and grassy hoppiness. Both of the hops used here are relatively high alpha, so there is a decent hit of lingering bitterness with each sip... I appreciate that, because one of the main issue with "fruited IPAs" is that they just feel like a generically-hoppy vehicle for whatever fruit is added, usually. This luckily avoids that. As I mentioned above, however, ROR just feels a little conservative and safe; it's very drinkable and interesting in its own way, and I would certainly try future iterations on the "ROR concept" if it ends up being a thing, but I hope ML continues to work on it. I definitely like the whole "zero-lactose real fruit IPA that still feels like an IPA" idea. Big ups to a cool idea and rather nice execution. Some of my biggest criticisms are really only reserved for the breweries that I appreciate the most and hold in the highest regard... this is no exception to that general maxim.

Looking forward to going back through this thread and reading others' posts. Also looking forward to future NBWs I get to close out... get yer last posts in soon so I don't hog the limelight! Until next time...

 

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the...
wait.
Scratch that.
You never mined the market to...
wait.
That's not it, either.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
If you've got some nuts on the wall, what have you got?
Walnuts.
If you've got some nuts on your chest, what have you got?
Chestnuts.
What happens when there's a can full of bollocks?
...wait that's not how it goes.
Hay, mark it zero! -Alright, it's fucking zero!
No, that's not the one neither.
Hello, hello, hello, how low...
Nope.
Well, whatever, never mind.

...And now for something completely different
Barrel-Aged Bollocks is billed as an english-style barleywine from Haymarket Beer Company, and came to me via the incredibly generous @FBarber during this most recent round of the NBS BIF (I know it's NBW now, but it's still the NBS BIF to me, dammit!). The other Haymarket stuff I've had from him so far has been light: a dortmunder and a honey ale, so tonight will be my first foray into their darker stronger stuff!



Pouring from the can, the liquid looks dark cola brown, and crisp and clear. Once it gets into the glass, holding it up to the light reveals a more reddish hue to it, but otherwise it retains its clean rusty impression. Minimal head that dissipates into some wispy bubbles here and there.

First impression on the nose is all the barrel. Sweet oak and alcohol, and it's hard to pick apart exactly what kind of BA beer it is underneath that. I got distracted making reservations for our anniversary dinner and by the time I came back to the glass it had warmed a little bit and begun to reveal some of its own character under the barrel. There's still a fair amount of booze, but it now takes on a sweeter, higher plane, and makes room for some toffee and leather and tobacco to sprout underneath.

Flavour follows in this latter direction, with elements of leather and vanilla and dark fruits (think prune), and oak, and a finish that brings the spiciness of the barrel to the tobacco-ish barleywine underneath. Honestly it drinks a little more like an old ale than it does an EBW, to me, though I realize that may not be an especially well-defined distinction.

The body and carbonation are both inoffensively middle of the road to the point that I had to actively remind myself to seek out their impressions. Finish is boozy-dry with alcohol bitterness, along with the leather/tobacco impression lingering.

I love me some barleywines, so thanks for sending this my direction, Frank!

 

Not so fast, buckaroo! We out on the best coast still have hours to go before befalling the ires of monday! LNNBW forever!

 

Finally got around to reviewing Narragansett Lager tonight. For the style, which is not a style I am usually a huge fan or/go out of my way to drink, this is among the best.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/213/7406/?ba=neenerzig#review

Eric

 

I am gonna sneak in here before the thread closes and say that the Forge RIS from FOundation really misses the mark - the beer i had is definitely not in line with other reviews and it really is kind of a mess. I have three more cans, and I like Foundation in general, so there's hope? Landed in sub-3.5 territory...