New Beer Weekend #42

Joining @ovaltine
Safety porpoise
Slightly thin body with just below average carbonation
...aroma is mixed citrus fruit and peel,some hay,earthy, and floral honey.
Taste is almost identical to aroma,mildly sweet with citrus peel and fruit dominating. Some floral honey,mild bitterness that increases in the finish and aftertaste.
..overall this was an excellent beer that seemed like it was well made. I would get this again and I'm not an ipa guyfree online image hosting

 

A wonderful after dinner lambic!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/25923/170141/



375 ml. bottle.
Best before: 19/02/2030.

Vigorous pour yields a fleeting one inch off white head over a pinkish rose colored body with minimal lacing. Nose of blackberries, slight funk, and even slighter citrus. Taste is full on blackberries with a medium sourness from middle to end. Fantastic experience! Highly recommend to all you classic sour beer drinkers out there.
Cheers to Pierre Tilquin, Master Blender!

 

All right, back again. I had another very productive day at work, so, some beer is in order. This will be a double header thanks to the generosity of @jkblr . Both are the same name, but different attributes.

First Up:

Teddy Bear Kisses - RIS - Upland Brewing - 10% ABV

Pretty standard, RIS, but, since I love the style, I dig it.

4.02/5 rDev +8.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured from a 12 oz can dated 10-09-20

Thick looking pitch black pour. There's almost no head, and what's there, the retention is poor, and there's no lacing on the glass.
The nose has a nice nose of caramel, toffee, and chocolate.
Taste - very nice rich flavor. Tons of caramel, toffee, and chocolate. I also get hints of coffee and dark fruits - raisin/plum.
The body is pretty good here. There's just a faint boozy feel to it.
Not bad at all.

And, next up, and right now:

Teddy Bear Kisses BA RIS, with cacao. 11% ABV.

I hope I got the right beer here. I looked at the UT picture, and it looked right. This is even better, and I'll be sipping this for a while.

4.27/5 rDev +3.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Can dated 10-12-20

This beer pours pitch black. It looks thick while pouring. There's a beautiful 1 finger tan colored head. The head retention is ok, but pretty good for the abv. There's some nice lacing on the glass.
The nose has tons of bourbon notes on it. I also get some chocolate in the aroma.
Taste - Lots of bourbon up front. This mellows out to a smooth chocolate on the back. I also get hints of raisin and plum in this beer.
The body is pretty thick. I get a creamy feel as well here.
Damn solid BA RIS. I like it.


After this, I can't see myself having any more new ones tonight. I guess I'll have to wait for the next NBW to go new beer crazy. Cheers all!

 

Good evening NBW
This is my closer for the weekend

Heavy Seas 25

An American strong ale aged in both bourbon and rye barrels

16oz can poured into a nonic pint glass at just above fridge temp 15.5% ABV. The beer pours medium brown in color with light khaki head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of tiny bubbles. The aroma is mild with toffee, caramel and vanilla with a hint of whiskey barrel. The taste is semisweet caramel with big alcohol heat, moderate bitterness and flavors of oak barrel, vanilla, charcoal and rye whiskey. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with just less than medium carbonation and a somewhat dry finish. The high ABV is only notable in a belly warming heat and not in the aroma or flavor. Overall, very good. Not the most nuanced barrel aged strong ale I've had, but certainly pleasant and enjoyable.

This is a great way to wind up a weekend. Cheers all!

 

@Beersnake1 , that deer slayer that is taking one for the team..


Ok 2nd new beer staying with Th but this time hazy and with a pic

King Julius
4.17/5 rDev -12.2%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

16oz can date 4/28/21

L: thick fluffy white head well lasting strong lacing, haze, yellow deep orange

S: mango and tropical fruits, bubble gum

T: right over the line of tropical fruit vs that over ripe note. Light bitterness

M smooth creamy

O does not drink like 8 abv and feel Julius as more straight orange with out the over ripe notes

 

After last night’s sugar rush I’m pouring a well balanced lager, Suarez Ms. Frank.
4.31/5 rDev +3.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

16 oz can poured into a pint glass

A- A fairly clear amber/golden copper with a two finger white head.

S- Sweet bread, herbal, earthy, some roasted malts, hints of lemon.

T- Slightly toasted sweet bread, biscuits, earthy, herbal, hints of lemon.

M- Smooth, light to medium body.

O- A well balanced and easy to drink Helles.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the detailed review. I've been pondering getting this for a while.

Gulden Fraug - Hoppin Frog



4.06/5 rDev +12.2%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Poured a best by Feb 23, 2024 12 ounce can into a DFH tulip. Body was more orange than the expected golden with a thin quickly fading off white head. Look at those damn tiny bubbles. With God as my witness I thoroughly cleaned the inside with hot water; back to pre rinsing. Smell is rich with Belgian yeast notes, allspice and various miscellaneous fruits. Taste is pleasantly sweet reflecting the smell but also a white wine taste. Mouthfeel is appropriate for the style. A good example of the Belgian Pale Strong Ale.

 

Poured into a 16 oz Snulip glass canned on 4/18/21. Pours a very attractive hazy yellow with a 2 finger sticky white head that leaves loads of thick and thin lace with excellent retention.4.75

Aroma ripe melon, pineapple, tangerine, pear, apricot, and grapefruit rind. 4.25

Taste follows cantaloupe, pineapple, tangerine, pear, apricot, and white grapefruit. 4.25

Mouthfeel is above average, soft gentle carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 8% ABV it goes down really really easy. 4.5

Overall this is a really tasty NEDIPA. I will be keeping my out for more from them. 4.25

 

Howdy NBW! Just got off work an hour ago and now ready to settle down for the night with two new, unusual lagers. First up is Mikkeller San Diego's Super Helles, a "German style Helles lager dry-hopped with Galaxy and lagered in Superstition mead barrels." My eyebrow certainly raised when I saw this in the store, as I shrugged my shoulders and stuck one in my basket. Who knows? Could be great. Could be pointless. Could be offensive and make me upset it was ever conceived! We'll never find out unless we try, though!



The Mikkeller SD stuff I've had over the past few months has actually been fairly good (and downright affordable compared with how Mikkeller stuff used to be, anyway), so I guess it's fair to say I assumed that this would probably be at least passable and solid. The pour is a deep gold color with solid clarity that speaks to a decent lagering process, and the head is suitably-frothy and well-built, reaching a few quickly-building fingers only moments after I poured it into my glass. Legs are fantastic, and lace is awesome as well; tiered and really intense. This almost looks like a West Coast IPA, honestly.

Smell is soft, somewhat simple, and rather anonymous. Light notes of peach/apricot, hints of melon, and grassiness meld with a slight whiff of sulfur and cereal grains. Hm. I don't know what to think. I have no idea what, if anything, the lagering in mead barrels did for this one, but I'm gonna say not a whole heck of a lot if the nose is to be believed. I also don't get much Galaxy hoppiness, but I assume this was mostly kept to a low dry-hop rate as they still wanted it to taste like a Helles, primarily. Amusingly enough, some quick research indicates that this not only utilizes Galaxy, but also a hop called Summer, which offers up... you guessed it: peach, apricot, and melon notes! So it actually feels more like that varietal did work here. I assume MKSD's marketing team said "hey, you should make sure you mention the Galaxy dry-hop on the label, no one cares about Summer," but maybe I'm just being cynical. Or realistic.

Flavor profile is on the bitter end for a Helles, but the soft malt flavors are nice. Light creamy wheat/barley flavors with cereal graininess, a hint of tannins, and good notes of grass, hay, and apricot in the finish. A little drier than I'd usually want in this style, but the 4.8% ABV is appreciated and makes this nice and drinkable. Looking a bit closer at the label, I'm seeing now that they used rice in this which is... a weird decision. I bet it's not really a lot, but a German Helles with rice seems like an idea that's somehow even more strange (I guess in the sense that it's not even a sexy marketing term like "barrels" or "dry-hopped"?). Anyway, this isn't bad but like... I don't know if I get it. Seems like one of those ideas where the brewer(s) involved came up with a base beer style and threw darts at a dartboard until they came up with "wacky" ways to innovate it, no matter how pointless it would be. And, I guess maybe I'm just a rube, because I bought this almost specifically cuz I wanted to see how it went. It's totally serviceable, and I'd definitely drink it again, but then again, I should pretty much want to drink any decently-well-made Helles again... and again... and again. So, the premium price you pay for this isn't really worth it when you can likely get a four pack of a better version of this style (and one that adheres to Reinheitsgebot, if that's your thing; but that's another discussion for another thread entirely, and not really even one that I find necessary to have due to redundancy with past threads of the same ilk) for less than the price of a couple pounders of this.

Back soon with another weird idea. I think this next one will be significantly weirder in execution, though.

 

Old Nation 70+ West Coast IPA, 3.78 overall

Pours an effervescent & bright gold with 2 fingers of pearl colored head. Above average head retention & lacing

S: Green melon & citrus

T: Green melon, grapefruit, a little pineapple, dryness & breadyness up front. Grassyness, dryness, grapefruit & a little lemon, plus bready sweetness as this warms. Finishes with sweet breadyness, a little pineapple, grapefruit & dryness

MF: Medium body, fairly firm carbonation. pretty good balance

Drinks easy enough, nose is lacking & just doesn't really stand out in a crowded field. Not sure I would buy this again unless I could get much fresher the month it was packaged is not readable on all cans

 

Greetings, NBW. After a lazy day yesterday, got a lot of gardening done. It has become sort of a mother's day tradition to prep everything for planting.

Today's shared with the missus beer is:



This is Allagash Heart of Hearts. It is a foeder aged sour aged for four months on fresh-picked raspberries. The picture does this beer no justice. Held up to the light it is crystal clear red that explodes with vivid color - kind of a prismatic effect. No head, but a ring of minute bubbles and some small islands persist.

The smell is oaky raspberry, very bright, and very fresh. Clean, just a touch of jammy sweetness, a hint of lemon, and an even fainter hint of funk.

The taste is bright raspberry supported by oak. The sour is noticeable but quite fruity on nature, and quite short of being a tooth peeler. Clean. Intense flavor that washes the palate quickly. Huge peak of flavor and its gone, but while it is big flavor it is not over the top. There is that little mild funk, some earthiness, rounded out by the oak. Light floral notes with more sips, and that little bit of lemon.

Light, clean, dry but not astringent. Deceptively fizzy, but pleasantly so.

Overall, this is a lovely beer. If you don't like raspberry it certainly won't be your jam. It isn't complicated, it's just plain good.I'm liking it to the tune of 4.2 or so where I think the review will land. At $16 a bottle, it won't be in any regular rotation but it was an extremely nice treat.

 

Poured into a 16 oz tulip glass canned on 4/26/21. Pours a slick black with a 2 finger light brown head that leaves little lace with pretty good retention. 4

Aroma peanut butter, cocoa nibs, and vanilla bean simple, but really pleasant. 4.25

Taste follows peanut butter, chocolate, toffee, and hints of vanilla, better than the nose. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, plenty of carbonation, a tad dry maybe, and at 7% ABV it drinks slightly bigger but really easy going down. 4.25

Overall this really a tasty stout, not complex but very nice and easy drinking. Thin Man Brewing with another really nice brew. 4.25

 

These guys sum up the reason for my response pretty well, especially @Roguer's description. It reads like parody, but seems to be in earnest. Like it's trying soooooo hard to be tough/rugged/...embody a very specific aesthetic, whether there's any authenticity to that or not. It just feels like a whole set of buzzwords and images and over-advertised. Compounding things, for me, is the fact that the parent company(s) is//are who they is/are, and it really just feels like a perfect mirror universe version of the 'crafty' incursion of a couple of years ago. It probably doesn't help that, at least speaking specifically for myself, I very much do not embody the specific cultural niche they are trying to appeal to, despite having ACTUALLY grown up in the woods with a freezer full of venison. It's like when a professional athlete or other celebrity needs to virtue signal how 'tough' they are by 'retreating' to a cabin in the woods and 'secluding themselves in the middle of nowhere'... but then it turns out to be a 5000 square foot McMansion that happens to have deer antler chandeliers and a half acre of trees around it and a perfectly manicured driveway. Like: "drink skull beer that's for manly men and their chest hair only but don't forget to tweet about it at this hashtag! LikeAndSubscribe"
I don't know. It just feels incredibly forced and overmarketed.
As a more local example that embodies pretty much the opposite end of the cultural spectrum (despite drawing from a lot of the same imagery, oddly enough), and to show it's in good faith and not just a cultural thing, but breweries like Great Notion (Grape Lotion as it's lovingly referred to in the NW forums) give me the same kind of trying soooooooo hard to come across as _______ and put so much effort into appearance and appealing to an identity as a core focus of the marketing strategy.

It just feels forced and focus-tested and I have to roll my eyes.

 

Saving this cortex wrecker for the final NBW selection



4.38/5 rDev +4.8%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Poured a 12 ounce bottle of undetermined date (WTF Weyerbacher?) into a Lost Abbey long stemmed tulip. Thick off white head over a clear brownish ruby color. Smell was muted at cellar temperature but eventually warmed up and reflected malty dark fruit notes and brown sugar. Taste reflected the smell but more immediate and intense. Mouthfeel was deceivingly light for an ale of this heft.

For some reason (again WTF Weyerbacher with no data on the bottle) I was expecting this to be an American style barleywine, not having access to BA at the bottle shop (or being too lazy to look it up), so only bought a single. It's still not nearly as complex as JW Lee's Harvest Ale or Thomas Hardy, but perhaps aging can help that. Maybe not but this is too good not to experiment with.

In the barleywine group tasting thread there were a few mentions of this but not nearly as many as it merits. For the final time, with feeling, WTF Weyerbacher?

 

Ghosts of Sego (named after a ghost town near the brewery in Utah) is a coffee Maibock aged in bourbon barrels for "the better part of a year." Wait, why are you looking at me like that? You've never had a BBA coffee Maibock?! What are you, new? Kidding aside, I'm excited for this one. I haven't had a new Uinta beer in quite a while, and though they've not always been amazing, some of their concepts have come across better than expected. Aging something for this long usually means there's some amount of confidence that it will be good enough to release, so that definitely allayed my concerns with what this even is. Having just come off a "wacky new world Helles," I'm interested to see if this is a dud or if it succeeds at... whatever it's attempting.

The pour is pretty solid, for sure, so we're off to a pretty good start! I'd say it's about 60-65% clear, so it's a bit less transparent than the Mikkeller beer I just drank, but the color is also quite a bit darker; a copper-leaning brew sits in my glass, adorned with a couple fingers of rocky white head that leaves behind drippy lace as it fades to a quarter-finger of consistent suds. The surface is completely covered, and the head never quite totally recedes. Not bad at all, Uinta.

Bourbon in the nose with tons of honey and sweet-leaning ethanol-forward aromatics. This clocks in at 8.2% ABV, so it's definitely not a wimpy beer. Pretty sure maibocks usually top off around 7 or 7.5%-ish, and I appreciate the character the strength brings here, but the barrel is definitely pretty forward. That said, I am getting some of the coffee, but it's seemingly a lighter roast with some toffee notes and an almost "creamy" element. Hints of nuttiness and apricot/stone fruit coming out as it opens up a bit. Only thing I can remember having that is somewhat similar to this would be Allagash's James Bean (which is, if I remember right, now called Barrel & Bean and is, itself, a coffee version of Curieux) many years back. I actually have a bottle of that from 2016, but I am not insane enough to crack it and compare the two. Anyway, getting some vanilla and cream soda-like aromatics now... let's take a sip and see.

Hmm... intriguing. Actually, pretty tasty! It's clean and super well-defined like any good maibock should be, so I can actually see the base beer shining through in a way. No esters or unusual stuff going on. Forward grainy, honeyed toast flavors with some peach marmalade, orange rind, and whiskey elements throughout the palate. Almost like an Old Fashioned cocktail-inspired beer, which is cool. Most of those aren't very good, so it's almost ironic this reminds me more of an actual OF than many that have tried specifically to do so (including the aforementioned Allagash, whose version was disappointing). The coffee is pretty hard to pick out here, though, I must say. Was a bit more prominent in the nose, though maybe it's coming across more as a fruity flavor than with any kind of apparent roastiness. Smooth and complex profile with some stuff to actually chew on and consider as I drink. This is good. I enjoy it, and I would drink it again. Pick it up if you see it!

Quick edit: I don't know if I am invested enough to follow the whole Deerslayer Beer thing back to its origins in this thread, but I did go to their site and yes, it is supremely cringe-worthy and is almost like an unintentional(?) parody of manly-man craft beer culture that avoids being "on-the-nose" about that type of thing in such a weirdly-gingerly way ("well we want to say it's only for the boys who go huntin' and fishin' but we don't wanna be exclusive about it...") but what stuck out most to me and my graphic design brain most is how they are legit just using the same exact font Ballast Point uses




Dumb. Just so, so dumb.

 

OK, I might get in trouble for this, but I think I can walk that line.

I am going to make one of my tenuous connections to inspire my next beer choice: that tenuous connection being my SIL. Her name is Claire. She has two children with another on the way. One of the beers that @FBarber sent me was called Clare's Thirsty Ale. That sounds like a perfect excuse to open it on mothers day, and then just make sure to save some for my SO when she gets off work in the morning. Foolproof plan, I tells ya.



Well, hot damn. Even if there do end up being flaws in my plan, the fact that I was able to restrain myself from drinking this whole can has to count for something. Because this is damn delicious.

I knew as soon as I started pouring it that I was probably going to enjoy it. Purely dark, even at the edges barely any light is able to get through. Lovely big head of soft dark brown foam. Leaves freckles along the glass as I drink it down.

There's a juicy sweetness to the edges of the aroma that catches my attention first, even if it isn't actually the first impression when approaching intentionally. Silky espresso and some milk chocolate and vanilla are actually the first impressions, with sure enough, some light raspberry layered into the proceedings.

Berries become much more prevalent on the tongue. They kind of form one wall of the tunnel, with all the dark malt stuff forming the other, running alongside each other to reach the finish. The malt wall has that same soft espresso, with a much darker chocolate vein. On the other side of the tunnel, the berries start more nondescript berry/fruit juice sweet, but build to an undeniably raspberry jammy character. This ultimately culminates in the tart side of raspberries, marrying nicely with some alcohol astringency and oak from the barrel, which had previously formed the ceiling of the tunnel with some vanilla and spice and oak.

Velvety body with inobtrusive carbonation, and that finish that has elements of tart raspberry before giving way to more traditional coffee/dark chocolate bitterness and the alcohol. This isn't hot by any means, but it's not shy about it's ABV either.


Ultimately this is a fantastic flavoured stout that I am enjoying immensely. Thanks Frank, and cheers all you mothers!

 

Greetings, fellow NBWers,

Been a maddening week, weather-wise. On days I worked, the weather got nicer and nicer, til on Thursday it was over 80° and sunny. Then my days off came along and it dropped down back into the low 60s and 50s, and into the 30s at night. But, I'm sure it'll be almost uncomfortably warm at work tomorrow...

Anyway, I had, thanks to @JayORear, a new beer that was of a sub-style that was also new to me. A White IPA, to be exact:

Not sure if it's something I'd want to session throughout the day, but I really enjoyed this beer, more so than anyone else who has rated it so far, as a matter of fact. I found it quite refreshing.