New Beer Weekend #57

Do they carry Suurnuramagi Spotted Fever?

 

I really enjoyed the texture, as written. Our local shop has picked this up and was thrilled to have it "fresh". Interestingly it was a Wine importer who made the connections to the store.
Lets see how it sells. That said I will be picking up more for certain.
Thanks for the historical context.
Cheers

 

Brewing Projekt Dome Head Raspberry/Cherry/Guava Fruited Sour, 7% ABV. Pours thick and opaque medium red, with a two-finger pink head that left puree residue. Nose is raspberry, cherry, guava, and vanilla. Taste follows, slightly sweet, moderately tart, with salt on the close. Excellent thick and creamy mouthfeel, overall outstanding.

4.31/5 rDev +2.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

Enjoying a nice lazy Sunday with a beer I was very excited to pick up yesterday, Victory Dry-Hopped Prima Pils.
4.34/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

16 oz can poured into a stange

A- A slightly hazy golden straw with a two finger white head.

S- Biscuits, citrus, honey, earthy, touch of tropical fruits.

T- Biscuits, pilsner malts, citrus, touch of honey, earthy, some pineapple/tropical fruits.

M- Smooth, crisp, light to medium body.

O- Dry hopping is done very well in this and doesn’t take away from the great pilsner base. The brightness of the hops help bring out the best in Prima Pils.

Cheers!

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Sippers and commentators. Tropical storm Henri is hammering the Mid-Atlantic region with heavy, heavy rain, which is much-needed. I only wish I had cut the lawn yesterday, although I had more important work to do, i.e., attending Rushing Duck's 9th Anniversary celebration. RD holds a special place in my heart both for the quality of its beer and the atmosphere of the brewery and town of Chester. In 2017, RD teamed up with Newburgh Brewing Co. to make a blended, BA Stout called "Greetings from Newburgh." It was mind-blowingly good. So I was very excited that one of this year's anniversary releases is another collab with Newburgh: "Now Arriving at Duckburgh." It blends Newburgh's Imperial Stout, The Newburgh Conspiracy, from 2018, 2019, 2020, and Rushing Duck's Rum Barrel Aged Ded Moroz aged for 2 1/2 years.

Poured at 65°. It's a dark walnut - nearly black - with a frothy, medium-mocha colored head that dissipated quickly leaving a thin coating of lacing. The fragrant nose includes cocoa, nuts, earthy char, freshly-brewed coffee, and just a whiff of rum. What a Stout! The fudgy chocolate is complemented by subtle but noticeable rum. Behind the sweetness is a base of earthy, nutty char. I'm also tasting notes of black cherry which are very welcome. The flavors are distinct but they blend seamlessly. It has a luxuriously thick, creamy mouthfeel. It's almost chewy. Moderately carbonated, it doesn't drink like 11.5% ABV. I'm glad it's packaged in 12 oz. cans; a pint pour might be too much. This is masterful work! I'm glad I have 7 more cans but wish I had bought more. Let's see how it ages.

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

 

Thanks for opening the thread, Doc. It's like old times. Cheers!

 

Thanks for you review! It seems as though local breweries have been making more English Bitters and ESBs lately, which is great! I really like drinking these lighter, pub beers. I'll have to look for this in the stores that carry Tonewood.

 

Let me know and I'll buy the first round!

 

I've been having a lot of new beers, with stops at Payette (Boise, ID), Templin Family (SLC, UT), Three Rivers (Farmington, NM), and El Cumbre (Albuquerque, NM) in the last two days. Now I'm home, and today's first new beer is Fremont's Truth Serum, a helles lager.

16oz can served in a Belgian chalice because that's what's available (most glasses are boxed up during a kitchen remodel). Bought it at the brewery about a week ago. Packaged 08-12-21.

Pours clear, light yellow, with a medium sized head and fades to a few millimeter thick ring with a heavy dusting across the surface. Lots of carbonation. Smell is relatively mild, mostly grainy with a little hay and a hint of lemon.

Taste leans a little more toward lemon, adds in a little honey, and has a noticeable grassy bitter finish. Very refreshing and positively inviting me to drink more.

Mouthfeel is light. Overall, very pleasing beer.

 

I decided to cleanse my palate after the big, chocolaty Stout. My in-laws from Michigan recently stayed at our shore house and my brother-in-law and fellow beer enthusiast left me a bunch of cans - mostly from Michigan. But one was Jughandle Brewing's (Tinton Falls, NJ) single-hopped Citra IPA, which he bought while he was there. I was burned out on Citra from my recent trip to North Carolina and it's hard to compete against Citraquench'l. But Jughandle did a really nice job with this IPA.

Poured from 16 oz. can into a pint glass. It pours a cloudy, bright orange/tangerine with a very large, creamy, milk-white cap and thick lacing. The nose is pretty much as expected for a single-hopped Citra ale: lemon, grapefruit, lime, and a whiff of peach. The flavor is spot-on. I'm tasting mostly lemon and lime with the grapefruit in the background. There's a hint of sweeter fruit as it warms (don't drink it too quickly). It has a plush, relatively creamy mouth feel with pleasant carbonation, and the 7.2% ABV is enough to give it substance without distracting. A second pour is not an issue. Overall, this is a very nice variant of Jughandle's single-hopped IPA series. Citra is perfect for summertime drinking.

4.04/5 rDev +2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

 

Ozark Beer Co. Uncle Trey's Premium Haze IPA; 6.0% ABV; 3.79 overall

Pours a hazy straw color with one finger of beige head. Better than average head retention & lacing

S: Citrus, alight breadyness, some passion fruit

T: Grapefruit, limes, dryness & a little pine up front. Orange, lime & dryness, plus grassyness. Finishes with grapefruit & tangerine

MF: Medium body, soft carbonation, good balance

Decent take on the style, pretty drinkable

 

Think I might be sticking with lagers today, now up Levante Calico Common.
3.91/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

16 oz can poured into a stange

A- A clear amber with a two finger white head

S- Toasted malts, earthy, hints of wet grass, touch of caramel malts.

T- Toasted malts, some caramel malts, earthy, touch of wet grass.

M- Smooth, might to medium body.

O- A nice and easy to drink lager.

Cheers!

 

Hope to see your review here, they’ve been brewing this one for quite some time. I never had it in their earlier days but it sure seems about perfect now.

 

Not a lager, but it could pass for one at 10 feet away...

I suspect I liked this more today as I just finished mowing on a warm, humid Michigan day.
The look was essentially classic beer: nearly transparent golden amber with active carbonation and a one finger white head.
The aroma was muted for me but I thought I could smell lemon grass which I wasn’t expecting.
The taste was good, a little of that aforementioned lemongrass made it dance with tartness but never commit. Nice for cutting through dust and thirst.
The feel was more viscous than expected but it worked well in this one.
OA- not sure I’d go buy a case but I really enjoyed it and wouldn’t turn one down!
Cheers All! Back soon.

 

This afternoon, I'm having my final of the four beers from the Dogfish Head sample pack. This one fits between the other two IPAs in ABV, and in fact is a bit on the light side for being classified as an AIPA @ 5.1%. This beer is a pack exclusive, according to the brewer.

Here is what the brewer says about it:

A 5.1% ABV Salted Peach IPA that was born out of a happy accident of sorts. We found ourselves with some extra peach puree after sourcing it for Festina Pêche, and Brewmaster Mark came up with this delicious recipe for our co-workers to sample, as our Tasting Room & Kitchen at our Milton brewery was closed at the time. When our Tasting Room reopened, it was put on tap as Salacious IPA in August 2020, and thus was born another tasty addition to our history of fruited IPAs!

In addition to that story, the can says, "brewed with ... tropical hops & Mayan Sun Sea Salt."

What? "Mayan Sun Sea Salt" --- talk about your marketing blather!

(PS: After I finished the review, I looked up "Mayan Sun Sea Salt" and found a couple of "artisan" spice companies also using that phrase for some of their salt offerings, which apparently means the salt comes from Central American estuaries. Yippee. The Atlantic Ocean is special there, dontchaknow.)

Hmmm... OK. So, a fruited pale ale marketed as a "Mayan Sun Sea Salt ... peach puree" IPA.

(Yeah, I'm building the skepticism before even cracking the can. Oh, well, at least my bias is acknowledged.)

Dogfish Head Beer to Drink Music To!
ABV: 5.1%
IBU: NA


Clear citrus orange slightly hazy body, but clear enough to see ample carbonation. Initially forming a tall white bubbly head with only OK retention, becoming a rocky remnant within a few minutes. Some sticky lacing left behind.

Mild citrus aroma, along with non-citrus fruits, perhaps the peach the brewer's notes promise. The aroma is pleasant, just not too strong.

The flavor is, well, interesting. Just a hint of the citrus along with the mild fruitiness noted in the aroma. To me, it is just an indistinct non-citrus fruitiness, and is not prominent or obvious enough for me to call it "peach", except perhaps subliminally. It seems like peach or pineapple or just generic tropical. Anyhow, I'm not getting any of the mentioned salt, Mayan or otherwise. There is a faint bitterness at the beginning which mostly disappears into the mild middle and finish. The finish and aftertaste are the mild fruit flavors along with a kind of very subdued bitterness that is more of an edge than an IPA-like bitterness. The finish is a touch on the sweet side, leaving a pleasant-tasting remnant on the tongue.

Moderate body.

Overall, an interesting beer that I'm glad to have tried. I would call it more of a slightly fruited pale ale, though, rather than an IPA. A good sample box exclusive. (Which is to say an interesting beer that may not stand on its own.)

L: 3.75 | S: 3.75 | T: 3.5 | F: 3.75 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.6

 

I was at Carnegie Mellon yesterday and afterwards I stopped at the Dancing Gnome Brewery. A nice place with a dedicated spot for food trucks to set up. The brisket was excellent as was Lustra, a fine pale ale.


A small tap list and only two can options: Lustra and Pounce. Today I opened the latter.

Pounce, a 6% citra and mosaic IPA by Dancing Gnome. The hop bill provides taste and aroma of tropical flavors with a pleasant hop bite and creamy mouthfeel. A delicious easy drinker.