New Beer Weekend #60

Samuel Adams Jack-O - I am a big fan of Pumpkin Ales but have heard bad things about this beer. But in looking at this year's I am going to assume that it's a different formula? Pours a clear amber color, head quickly dissipates. Smell is heavy on the cinnamon and nutmeg. Taste, delicious... pumpkin is not quite the main flavor here but is there and the cinnamon and nutmeg are nice and lingers on the lips; for 4.4% it packs a lot of flavor.

And props to SA for putting out an all malty mixed pack and a mixed pack that I actually wanted to buy again. Prost!

 

Popping in with a rare Sat night beer review!
This one comes from the recent porch bomb from @JayORear
Tight Quarters Hazy IPA brewed by Slice Brewing with Citra and Strata hops.
Ive really been digging Strata lately...
Pouring a fairly hazy yellow with a very short lived head. Lots of rings of lacing though. Aroma of lemon-lime, orange, passionfruit and melon with a bit of grassy floral and floral notes.
The taste is a combo of all that but also an almost sweet juicyfruit and/or bubblegum note I seem to get from Strata hops. Leans toward clean and dry finish. Tingly and tiny bubble carb with a nice mild smacking bitterness to finish. Really good brew and an easy drinker. Jay you've made me a Slice fan. Thanks. Be back tomorrow....or possibly later. Cheers.

 

The label says Shelton Brothers. With a best by July 2023, I wonder when this was actually bottled?

 

No kidding. That used to be suchh a BONUS in a trade from IL.

 

Wishing you good health news.

 

was in Munich a little over a decade ago and they were advertising jahrhundert all over the place. Great beer. I won a bet where I got to choose the place for dinner. I selected the Ayinger brewery . A little southeast of Munich and worth the trip

 

I'm in...And I have a local guide. Well, local as in, Bavarian.

 

Hello Late Night NBW...
Popped into a semi-local brewery for me. GameCraft.
Tried there Fuel Engines hazy IPA

At the brewery. A fine hazy. The barkeep mentioned Eukanot and Loral hops.
Hazy gold, fluffy white head. Solid retention with nice, layered lacing.
This smells and tastes of citrus zest, papaya, some mild herbal spice, and a subtle juiciness on the back end.
Mouthfeel is medium, good carbonation, and smoothly slick on the end.
Overall, totally solid hazy.

3.99/5 rDev +0.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

 

New Finback in my glass. This is Faded Dreams, a 7% IPA hopped with Citra, Enigma, and Mosaic. Great hop combo, and canned 8/27/21 (so, about two weeks ago)... looking forward to it!

Pour is opaque but surprisingly bright and saturated with a nice orange sheen. Stable thin head forming immediately, building up to 1.5 fingers and fading quickly to a half-finger retentive ring. Spotty but decent lace and alright legs. Hit or miss appearance but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Enigma hops rule, and they steal the show in the nose. Melon, bubble gum, white grape, herbal undertones, and crisp mango blended with a hint of guava. Mosaic bringing in some dankness with Citra rounding out the experience by providing some tangerine and bright citrusy aspects. Hell yeah, very excited to sip this!

Maybe a little overexuberant with surprising bitterness pushing away some of the flavors that I feel could be a tad more complex and well-realized. I still get tangelo, pine, and some of the white wine-like acidity that Enigma can do well (reminds me of Nelson in some ways, honestly), but the bone-dry finish is bracing and nullifies a lot of what could have otherwise made this stand out. I do usually prefer drier/punchier IPAs these days, but something about the hop expression here isn't as saturated or well-rounded as it probably could be. Wanted to love this one but I don't think it is amazing.

 

Chuckanut's Fest Bier. BA lists it as a Vienna Lager, which doesn't seem right.

32oz crowler served in a stemless angular wineglass. Bought the crowler at Ridgewood Tap and Bottle two days ago.

Pours a clear light golden with a big flash of head that collapses to a thin layer, a medium sized ring, and little lacing. Moderate to low amount of active carbonation. Smell is mild, grainy, a little toasty, a little grassy. Maybe a hint of lager yeastiness.

Taste is lager yeast, medium to light grain, a hint of honeysuckle sweetness, a hint of grass.

Mouthfeel is light and clean. Overall, it's pretty good.

To be honest, this might be the least impressive beer I've had from Chuckanut. I was reading a little bit on the styles page earlier, and it seems like Festbier is supposed to be lighter and more drinkable than Marzen. I would say this is definitely lighter and more drinkable than most of the other Oktoberfests I've tried, but I think the lager yeastiness is what damps my excitement here.

 

It seems that attendance in this thread has decreased even more compared to the lower rate I had experienced several months ago before I reduced my personal contributions. Ah well.

This is my first Southern Grist beer, a new iteration of their DDH Mixed Greens IPA, clocking in at 6.2% ABV. This one has a difficult-to-decipher canned-on date but features Idaho 7 and Citra hops. It is currently on tap at their Nashville, TN location, so it's probably pretty fresh... least that's what I figure? Ah well.



Pour is pretty nice. Deep orange color that is close to fully-opaque but has a little bit of translucence to it. Solid sheet of foam building up to a few fingers, settling at a half-finger but also leaving behind some nice lacing with good legs to boot. A solid appearance.

The nose doesn't hit me as I figured it would, but it's not bad. Slight apricot and melon with a hint of herbal tea. I'm not really getting much here but the tannic notes I know I7 can drop are present enough. I'm hoping this defines itself a bit more on the tongue. I'm surprised this is DDH because it isn't aromatic like most of the better DDH IPAs I've had.

Soft feel with flavors of tannic black tea, mango, and melon rind. I do enjoy the flavors here, though there is a fairly apparent bias towards the Idaho 7 side of things. I would like to taste more citrus pithiness here to offset the unusual stone fruit and melon notes, I think. In the past, my experience has led me to believe that Idaho 7 can feel either lost or way too prominent in a recipe, and getting it to blend well takes skill. In this one, it almost feels like a single hop iteration, rendering Citra superfluous. At the same time, the hopping rate feels a little under-par. I do believe this is relatively fresh based on my (admittedly-minimal) research, so maybe it just doesn't travel well. I enjoy the feel but something about the overall experience here is missing the mark in a way that doesn't really inspire me to continue checking out future SG offerings that may pop up in my area.

Maybe I need to take another IPA break? Who knows... hope to see more posts here soon! Apologies for not being around more, NBWers. This used to be a weekly ritual for me, but things change. I do in a sense miss the "simple times" of weekends spent glued to this thread. Cheers to you all out there!

 

Another late night entry...
Kviek IPA from Boulevard
Golden amber in hue, fluffy white head, that rises a finger or so high, and settles into a nice patchy cap.
A nice, rich malt bill presents first. Wheat, caramalt, and some light fruit notes akin to apple and berry.
Flavor has a mild earthy malt note that leans toward buckwheat, almost toward rye. The hops bring a hint of citrus and pepper, some mild pine resin, and a floral lemon blossom note.
Mouthfeel is a tad on the heavier side for a DIPA, but very pleasing. Carbonation tapers off a bit.
Overall, I am intrigued. Reminds me of some of the solid DIPA's I've had, like my hometown Knuckle Sandwich.
4/5 rDev +2.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

 

Thanks to @colby600

Tideline IPA from Fox Farm Brewery

Hazy golden color with small white cap and good lacing.

Strong aroma of mixed citrus whose combined scents overpower the hops to a degree. What hop scent I could detect is clean and sharp.

Taste is fruit driven with hops back. Brewer lists Passion Fruit, Pineapple and Mango as the hop created Tropical fruit flavors and while I can't identify these individually I can visualize them mixed together in this beer. Hop bitterness is present in abundance but doesn't step out of a secondary role.

Texture is full, smooth and velvety soft. Texture is so remarkable in this manner I don't really notice the balancing carbonation until the aftertaste.

I've had so called NEIPA styles from national or local brewers but this is the real stuff.

 

In

 

Good day BAs! Another weekend slides downhill and it's time for me to post in NBS/NBW. Today's entry is one I haven't run across previously:



IBUsive from Fat Head’s. Purchased on 9/9/21 from Franklin Beer, Franklin, PA. $ 3.00 (Including tax) per 16 oz can ($0.188/oz). In reefer at the store, stored at home at 42 degrees. Reviewed 12/9/21. Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Marked on can bottom rim “CANNED ON 06/14/21”. Served at 46.9 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. Final temperature 55.5 degrees.
Appearance – 3.5.
First pour – Pale Straw (SRM 2), clear.
Body – Pale Gold (SRM 4), clear. When rear-lite, same.
Head – Large (Maximum 6.7 cm, aggressive center pour), white, medium density, slowly diminishing to a 0.1 to 0.4 cm crown and a rocky partial cap. Irregular pieces of foam remain on the sides of the glass. Second pour produces a dense two cm head.
Lacing – No bands or torn curtains, just irregular islands of foam hanging on the walls.
Aroma – 4.5 – Fantastic! Heavy resinous hops, no malt, no yeast.
Flavor – 4.25 – Begins lightly bitter with resinous, slightly dank, hops leading the way. No malt, no yeast. Very refreshing with just a hint of pineapple. No ethanol (7.5% ABV, as marked on container) taste or aroma. Moderate gastric warming. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl.
Palate – 3.75 – Medium, watery, soft but lively carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4 Damn, this is good - gotta love Simcoe hops! I’m going back to my local distributor and buy some more!

Rating 4.17, rDev -5%

 

Sign me up too! I love Bavaria and I've been back a few times post-military!

 

Very recently a Festbier category was implemented so you can contact the mods to request a change here.

Cheers!

 

Totally legit review: "If you see this, and the feeling compels you, pick it up - but it will NOT blow your socks off."

That tells me all I need to know, which is what I seek whilst vetting a beer. I won't make a trip to the beer store to secure this specific beer, but if I'm at the beer store and trip across it, I may pick it up - especially if I can grab a single.

Liquid Poem, OTOH, may compel me to resort to pushing aside little ol' ladies to secure.