New Beer Weekend #54

@Roy_Hobbs , take a look at the oxbow list and send me a DM and perhaps we can play let’s make a deal !!!!

 

I cant control wild deer. I live in a very rural area. Critters come around and eat what they want.....unless my outdoor cat eats them first.

 

Greetings fellow NBSers! A cloudy, muggy day here in the Fourth Corner, quite different from our recent weather. Starting my beer day with one from @samkuhgee and the recent Can Cans BIF, Roaring Table Whirlycaster, a "sour IPA withBlackberries, Peaches, Milk Sugar, Vanilla, and Hibiscus". Whew! It was a bit different: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/50290/485777/

 

Afternoon NBS. Chilling outside with a piece of wood and six strings.
Todays new beer:
Other Half, More Citra Than All Citra.
Pours a hazy beautiful sunny orange with a decent but short lasting head that leaves quite a bit of sticky lacing.
A thin white cap lasts throughout.
Aroma is sweet tangerine, orange, lemon-lime candy and dank fruity guava, mango and cannabis with just a tiny hint of cat pee/diesel.
Taste follows with sweet citrus, mango, and a nice bit of pithy bitterness.
Feel is incredibly soft for a 10.5% beer with no feel of alcohol. Low carbonation, sweet lightly oily and then light drying finish.
OH tends to start tasting the same to me on some of their brews. I took a chance on this and another and glad I did. This is a very well done DIPA that drinks at 8% or less. Really nice brew. This ones worth the $ of you see it.
Cheers!

 

Coop Ale Works Peach Pageant Berliner Weisse with Peaches, 4.1% ABV, 3.47 overall

Pours a hazed gold with 4 fingers of cream colored head ( guess needed a gentler pour ). Zero head retention & lacing

S: General tartness, some peaches once warm, plus orange blossom

T: Follows the nose, lemons, salt, dryness & little bit of peach up front. A lot of sweet tart action as this warms, mostly lemon with a little acidity. Finishes with lemon sweet tart & a little dryness & salt

MF: Fairly firm carbonation, light body

Pretty run of the mill for the style, easy to drink, easier to forget

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Samplers and commentators. We're getting some much-needed rain today so I'm reviewing from my favorite stool in MacMalt's Elbow Room. One of my favorite "local" (about an hour away) DIPAs is Rushing Duck's War Elephant. RD is one of my favorite breweries to visit and I try to buy cans of War Elephant whenever they are released. While it's really not a classic West Coast IPA, it features strong, resinous pine needles, grapefruit, tangerine, and other citrus fruits. It's 80 IBU. It's one of my "comfort beers." Rushing Duck has made several variants, including an excellent collaboration Barrier called "War Daddy" and a super-hoppy anniversary version that our friend @cavedave described as like chewing a mouthful of hops.

RD just released a new variant, "Southern Hemisphere," brewed with Enigma, Motueka, and Nelson Sauvin. Nothing could keep me away from this one. It's a stellar offering!

It pours a dense, murky, dirty tangerine color with more than a half finger of fluffy, milk-white head and thick, creamy lacing. The nose is more tropical than the standard War Elephant. In addition to lemon and grapefruit I smell lime, pineapple, melon, and a whiff of white wine. The smell is fragrant and appealing. The flavor is superb. The initial taste is highly tropical: sweet melon, mango, and raspberry from the Motueka and Enigma hops, along with the heavy malt presence. At mid-sip I'm tasting the white wine grape characteristic of Nelson Sauvin hops, which nicely balances the tropical notes. At the back end there is the clean bitterness of the base War Elephant. The mouth feel is similar to the base beer; it's viscous and creamy with moderate carbonation and the 8.6% ABV gives it great substance. Overall, Southern Hemisphere is a fabulous take on one of my favorite DIPAs. I think what really makes it special is the Nelson hops which add complexity and lots of flavor to an already great recipe.

4.43/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Rushing Duck is far from perfect and some of its beers are mediocre at best. But when they're on, wow! (what they do better than anyone in this area is blending barrel-aged stouts and quads). I can't wait for the anniversary celebration later this month. Cheers, NBW!

 

Great review! Tonewood is an up and coming brewery. There aren't too many breweries anywhere that wouldn't be proud to brew Swoosh.

 

Congrats. Quite an achievement!

 

What a great name for a brewery! They should brew beers named Oddjob and ***** Galore (maybe they do; I haven't checked). I'm a big James Bond fan. Cheers, Frank!

 

Dennis, did you review it from a can or at the brewery?

 

Ross, I was holding my breath on this one. Magnify brews a lot of kettle sours and sometimes the shelf life is limited. I liked it when it was fresh. I gave my daughter a can two weeks ago and I'm interested on her take. I'm glad I didn't embarrass myself.

 

Another from @samkuhgee 's Can Cans BIF box Kawaii 'double' IPA (c'mon now, 7.7% ain't double shit guys. This is just a regular murkbomb) from Phase Three brewing. some citrus and grape from the Citra and Nelson hops, no grain.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/55985/552545/

 

Another Magnify beer courtesy of @MacMalt. Rob, you did a good job with this one. The name was quite appropriate for my pour as well, as I got a little overzealous.

3.91/5 rDev -1%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Clear coming out of the glass, then settles into a semi-translucent dark yellow. Loads of head with good retention and lacing. Aroma is mostly floral hops. Nice, but just a bit underwhelming relative to what I was expecting. Taste is interesting. While I can't pick up any tastes traditionally associated with the very broad "farmhouse" style, it's contributing to a different taste and feel vs. a typical DIPA. Notably, it's smoothing it out for me a bit, and in a good way. I'm not a big IPA drinker, with one of the reasons being they make me thirsty, and I don't typically prefer to drink things that make me thirsty vs. satiating my thirst. Anyway, I like that the "farmhouse" element of this seems to make this smoother going down, yet without creating a thin feel to the beer. Good beer.

 

This one was released in late May so it's probably lost a little of the farmhouse funk. Unfortunately, New Jersey isn't really Saison territory. Twin Elephant will brew the style but they haven't lately. Ask @DrStiffington about this beer. He's a fan of Magnify's original excursions into Belgian-style beers.

 

Bravo Brewing Co. of scenic Pascoag R.I. is my favorite local brewery, they make great Lagers and Ales with attention given to European styles. I was not afraid to review thier ESB as my first example of the style. I am really enjoying drinking this. Where has this style been all my life!?.
Cheers.


4.27/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

An easy pour from a 32-oz. crowler yielded a finger of soapy beige foam with short retention and small spots of lacing. A wide ring persists. Clear amber-new penny copper color, beautiful.

Bold and balanced smell of floral/herbal hops and bready and toasted malt. A hint of caramel malt and a general fruity sweetness appear with, dark bread dough and fresh baked dark bread.

The taste is just on the sweet side, almost neutral. Bold toasted malt flavor is edged out by apple, baked pitted fruits and the caramel. The hops are bold, bitterness is on the high side (West Coast IPA level) yet consistent throughout the drink.
The finish is long, fruit flavor drops off first as it dries to semi-dry. Caramel and that floral/herbal hop flavor linger on.

Medium body with soft carbonation, easily released at first yet plenty held in reserve. Balanced yet boldly flavored. Again I say beautiful looks. This is my first ESB, it matches style guidelines. Hoppy-er and dryer than American Amber Ales. A bit hoppy-er than AltBier but a close match. This is the big and dark end of the Pale Ale category. Brewery fresh.

 

So this is from my dwindling supply of California canned goodness sent to me in the last (In both ways, sad to say) Can Cans BIF.

Old Viscosity from Port Brewing. Thank you @SP23 !
Poured more cola brown than black, which for something named for old motor oil, struck me as odd. The head struggled to cover the surface until tipping the glass straight and pouring down the center. This resulted in a 1/2" appealing brown head. The smell is either very mild or my nose is not working properly. (Always possible!)
The taste - Okay, I generally don't enjoy hoppy stouts so when I first took a gulp and tasted Yeti I was concerned.
However! Once things settled down and I was ready to shift my thinking to "Black IPA" and make the best of it, beer warmed a bit and ended up being quite enjoyable.
The hops are still very present, but unlike Yeti, they don't overpower the malty sweetness but rather serve as a stop for being too sweet.
Maybe it was the vanilla, coffee and chocolate, (Which may or may not have been present - I was focused on the balance of the hops and malts, not the additives) that saved this beer from an over-hopped demise but I did end up quite enjoying it.

Good beer! (To quote my favorite Llama)

 

A late new beer for me this weekend. Ended up at Great Heights Brewing, and had their Enchantment Under the C Hops Imperial IPA. 9% ABV.



Pours a dark copper/orange color. A one finger white head forms with good retention and lace left behind.
A big nose with perfume like hops billowing out. Floral, citrus/grapefruit and pine resin. Old school DIPA aroma here.
Taste follows the nose, with that huge citrus/grapefruit and pine resin flavor. Floral with a substantial caramel sweetness in the middle. Lingering bitterness is strong and everlasting, though never seems to get in the way of my enjoyment.
A full body with good carbonation. It becomes a bit resinous and chewy, but never overly syrupy. A sipper for sure, but one that is really enjoyable. I can easily come back to this when in the mood for a big IPA.

This is a really well made Imperial/Double/Whatever IPA. All the hope character is there, and it has a strong bitterness presence, but it never gets too overbearing or unbalanced for my tastes. Anybody that is a fan of say Avery's old school Maharaja IPA or anything else along those like will love this. It also has enough character and balance to please me, which is saying something, as I can be a bit put off by too much bitterness. Again, well done.

Overall score is 4.06, A- for me.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/50326/495538/?ba=champ103#review

Side note, just started Damon Galgut's new novel The Promise. He seems to be the heir apparent to J.M. Coetzee for South African literature, and I'm loving it so far.