New Beer Weekend #70

Here's the 2nd of the latest two releases from Wunderkammer Biermanufaktur.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/47666/577894/



500 ml. bottle.
Brewed Feb. 2021.
Bottled July 2021.

Moderate pour yields a one inch plus white head over a slightly hazy golden body with sticky lacing.

Nose of citrus, green apple, slight berry with a bit of earthiness.

Taste mirrors nose fairly close with citrus, then green apple, and then finishing with a grapefruity, earthy dryness. Very interesting and quite tasty!

Feel is very good as expected from this master brewer.

Overall, another great job from an undisclosed location in Albany, VT.

Cheers!

 

Have a good NBS. Had an amazing weekend with the love of my life. We have the plan to move her down the weekend of December 10th. Set in stone now, and I have the plan squared out. Going to ask my Dad if he wants to help, but I won't require it. I am confident in my own projects and independence now. Just paid off my car last month and it is good to drive for another few years. We will be driving everywhere to vacation weekends super soon, and have every plan to spend the rest of our lives together without yet making it legally official, it's not really a requirement. We got an amazing NY pizza that she ordered the toppings. Next time we will get a smaller size since the structural integrity it pretty shitty unless you roll it into a burrito or something




We watched The Green Mile prior to the pizza order and it was amazing. She had never seen it before. One of the best movies ever made. It's really emotionally intense too.


Wicked Weed Freak of Nature. This was awesome. Lasting fluffy head retention and soapy lacing. Aromas and flavors of big red grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, passion fruit, mango, melon, citrus peel/rind, wood, peppercorn, pine, cracker, biscuit, light caramel/toast, and herbal/floral/grassy hop earthiness. Moderate pine, citrus peel/rind, herbal, woody, grassy, peppery bitterness on the finish. Medium-plus carbonation and medium-plus body; balanced creamy/bready malts and sticky/resinous/rindy hops in the mouthfeel. Moderate increasing drying from lingering resins after the finish, with no astringency. Very smooth, and a bit crisp on finishing. Mildly warming 8.5%. Definitely classic west coast style taste as the hops are Centennial, Chinook, Columbus in the boil.
Amarillo, Centennial, Columbus, Simcoe dry hops put in a bit of tropical notes, but it is still a big C forward profile. The body is a bit bigger than other DIPAs in this category, but I would still get it again. I would say the vibrancy and dankness of the hops is very similar to Stone Ruination but there is more balance to the malt body. Not a bad thing, just a different thing. 4.13


Cheers

 

Greetings All from the Great Northwest where we are pinning our hopes on the Washington State Cougars to save football season. Bowl eligible but one more win would help. Beat the Damn Huskies!

Today we have Deadlift Imperial IPA.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/8/326751/?ba=RJLarse#review

Tasty and malt forward, at 8.6% ABV it got me through the Seahawks game.

Until next time

 

Good evening NBW
My 200th Hoosier beer review here on BA and it's a good one.

Upland Bourbon Barrel Aged Teddy Bear Kisses with S'mores

12oz can stamped 100421114312 (about 6 weeks old) poured into a Spiegelau stout glass at 50° Fahrenheit 11% ABV per label. The beer pours dense black with nearly no light penetration and light brown head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of tiny bubbles. Slight lacing. The aroma is strong with bourbon, oak, vanilla and chocolate. The taste is semisweet bourbon soaked s'mores. There's chocolate, vanilla, graham cracker, cinnamon plus noticeable bourbon barrel. Moderate bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium plus bodied with just less than medium carbonation and a somewhat dry finish. No trace of the ABV in the taste or aroma, just a hint of heat on the finish. Overall, very good to excellent imperial stout.

I only picked up two of these new variants when I bought my 4 pack of "regular" BBA TBK last week. I'm hit or miss on the extra additives, but this combo worked. I'm out for this weekend. Cheers all!

 

Breakfast time! Or rather we had breakfast for dinner. And unlike morning breakfast, I can have a beer with dinner breakfast and it’s okay!
So, I have Breakfast Stout from Founders in the cellar and was going to get one, then I remembered KBS and thought that would be better. Then I saw CBS and thought “Better yet”.
Only then did I look into the box containing the beer from NBW BIF 14 that I got from @ovaltine - and in that box was

Kentuckley from Transient Brewery.

This is flat out amazing. Transient is really putting out good beer in general, but their stout game is awesome.
Poured deep black with a dark brown head that dissipated before I could get a picture (that glass was full).
The aroma was maple syrup and vanilla being supported by malts and barrel aged bourbon tastiness. The coffee was apparently beaten into submission.
The taste was sublime. Definitely barrel aged, definitely a stout, definitely maple syrup and vanilla and coffee were all involved in this. The coffee definitely took a back seat though.
The feel was viscous enough to carry all the flavor but not quite syrup like. Really nice.
OA, amazing beer. Thank you Michael for sending it to me!

 

Ok...just a bit far afield from yesterday's Kolsch style, this is Proclamation Mouth Bleeder. The BA says it is a NEIPA. The brewery web site says it is a fruited IPA or a sour IPA depending on the sentence. The can says it is a sour IPA brewed with blood orange and lactose. Canned at the end of October, so really fresh for me (assuming ya'll know I stockpile...). It is alleged to have "killer aromas of orange cream, tropical funk, and citrus zest. Mild acidity gives way to sweet, candied orange, grapefruit, and tropical punch balanced out by some earthy hop notes."

Pours looking like orange juice, opaque orange maybe slightly carrot-like color. Generous white foamy head that falls to an island and ring. So I guess it looks as it should.

The smell...hmmm...killer isn't the exact adjective I would use. It's all there as claimed...pleasantly so...but it isn't in your face. Not like I popped the can and you could smell it across the room.

The taste...some added intensity there. Not the least bit sour, so I don't know where that's coming from. Blood orange and grapefruit and that works as a flavor combo just fine. And the lactose does give it the tropical punch vibe overall. Not super sweet but you can tell it is there. Definite earthy counterbalance, only mildly bitter and very briefly.

Feel is creamy, a bit sticky on the lips. I don't know if it's me or what, but my impression changes after the fact. It feels luxuriant with the smooth, creamy feel. But after it strikes me as watery. I've noticed this with similarly made beers.

Overall...well, it's OK. Seems like it is an in between beer, but it hits the brewer's intent...or maybe the intent was retrofitted to the beer? Whatever, it seems more true to what they wanted to make than it does style. Feeling 3.5 - 3.7ish territory on this one. Good enough, not something to rush out and find.

 

Wikipedia mentions that Short's bought the brands and IP...
and if you go here: http://brandassets.shortsbrewing.com/ you'll see that they have some Arcadia brands (both old and new I think).

 

Poured into a 13 oz tulip glass canned 9/17/21. Pours near pitch black with a half finger mocha head that leaves a few streaks of lace, with pretty nice retention. 4.25

Aroma is cinnamon, rum, coffee, dark chocolate, and vanilla bean. 4

Taste follows cinnamon, coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, and some rum. 4

Mouthfeel is above average, soft gentle carbonation, maybe a tad dry, and at 10.3% it drinks a tad bigger, but easy enough going down. 4

Overall this is a very nice imperial stout, complex and really well made. 4

 

I spent most of my day at my friend's house for his 60th birthday surprise party. His kids contacted all his friends and asked them to visit for food, beer/wine, and football this afternoon. I used this as an excuse to visit a new-to-me (and excellent) beer store to shop for his birthday present. I got a couple hard to find nuggets for myself as well. My friend also gave me a Gouden Carolus Tripel he brought home from Spain, which I've been looking for for maybe two years. That means later this week I get to do a whiskey pairing with it...

This second entry is courtesy @jonphisher. He sent me this as a "thank you" for me mooching rides off him, making him walk in the rain, and wasting his time yammering about my kids.

500ml bottle served in a tulip.

Pours black and mostly still, No head on the pour, very little very slow very fine carbonation. Smell is chocolate, vanilla, maybe some oak.

Taste is very nice. Sweet but not quite syrupy, lots of chocolate and vanilla ice cream richness. Something gives me a very slight cinnamon sense. Sticky toffee pudding definitely comes to mind.

Mouthfeel, although seemingly still, is thick, rich, and soft like velvet. This beer is very good. Mrs. snaotheus agrees.

Thank you, Jon!

 

Those are the 6 beers that I've seen in my favorite store, although the Lagerhosen is a new name to me. Maybe it was a beer that was only on tap at the Arcadia brewery before they closed, but I'm uncertain that they ever installed the equipment needed to brew a lager. They never did when they operated in Battle Creek, and even brewed an Octoberfest Ale to try to fill that niche.

It's somewhat curious to me that Arcadia's former brewing facility in Kalamazoo is still sitting there and appears unoccupied. (I only drive over to Kzoo about once a month, but I don't see much happening.) A restaurant operation was supposed to take over the pub portion of that building, but I think the pandemic put a halt to that. The brewing portion of the building was supposed to start contract brewing, but maybe Short's is using that equipment to brew these 6 beers (again I'm unsure about the equipment to brew a lager). I think the building still has the large sign with the Arcadia name on it, so maybe Short's wants to maintain that appearance.

 

At the Thirsty Dog Sour Haus on Saturday, I had a twelve ounce snifter of Nightman. The venue is at the back of their brewery on Grant in Akron and is in an old looking, large stone and brick room. If you have read Poe’s Cask of Amontilado, this room might have been where Fortunado met his fate.

Released as part of their Sour Select Series, a dark ale conditioned in bourbon barrels with brettanomyces for five months. I had a pour from the tap, but they have had it in bottles (I’m unsure of current availability of bottles of this dark ale).

Little trace of its 5.7% to be found on the palate or nose. The nose was of a funky old ale and the bourbon barrel; not exactly enticing, but strangely compelling. Little head with no lacing, it poured dark as motor oil. Funky, stone fruit. acidic, tart, smooth… I’ll revisit this one again to build familiarity. My first brett. Try it!

 

Does Short's own any of those physical assets or just the names?

 

@WunderLlama gave me this one: Alexandr from Schilling. No matter what other people may or may not say behind his back, I think he's a stand-up guy. I wanted something clean and light to follow up that big, sweet Kane beer, and this fits the bill perfectly.

16oz can served in a footed pilsner glass. Dated 100621.

Pours crystal clear light golden with a couple finger fluffy head, which fades fast and leaves a spotty lacing on the glass and a moderately thick ring with a thin skin. Smell is grain, grass, light lager yeast.

Taste is lightly spicy, moderate grassy / leafiness, plenty of grain, and a nice, crisp bitterness on the finish.

Mouthfeel is very light, very dry, very crisp. Overall, this is very nice.

Thank you, Maynard!

 

Cheers all.
I let myself sleep in this evening once I found out our DnD session was cancelled (again), and man was it the right call. Exhausted from another long stretch at work, including the inexplicable waking up three+ hours before my alarm yesterday which really put me behind the eight ball as far as being functional all night. Paired with some abrupt bad news, the still-bursting-at-the-seams hospital, and disappointing human selfishness necessitating an extra BMT patient, and I am secretly grateful that we are skipping this session, ha! It's amazing to me how many of our big-gun medicines are derived from animals. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, but it's always fun telling the kids that we're giving them parts of rabbits, or horses, or bears, and letting them imagine that they are gaining some of their powers.
ANyway

Tonight as I catch up on the hockey game (go Kraken) I decided to dig into a style with which I am not particularly familiar, from one of the newer-ish breweries around town. Odelette is a foeder-lagered biere de garde from Fair Isle



Initial impressions suggested that it was going to start gushing, but it contented itself to reach just above the top of the bottle and needed no further.
In the glass, it pours a rich honey-golden colour with maybe an orange-ish tint. Lovely smoothe pillowy head that is somewhere around halfway-whipped egg whites... nowhere near shiny, but with some structure. Reluctant to part with its connection to the glass, it leaves some lacing during its languid retreat that never fully completes.

Nose is inviting. Initially sweet and tart.... but tart isn't really the right word. Wild, yeah, but not like... WILD, ya know? The lagering really does mellow things. I have a hard time pinning down specifics in this one, but overall it's really intriguing. Definitely some medium malts, some honey sweetness, some apricot and citrus maybe? A touch of pear, perhaps? Gets more floral as it warms. Second pour of the bottle is much yeastier, though I suppose that makes sense.

While I wouldn't describe the aroma as bold, per se, the flavour is much more restrained and subtle. Not faint, not thin, but... subtle. Even harder to nail down specific flavour components (for me) than the aroma, but carries many of the same themes: medium malts with some tangy fruits and light high sweet notes that carry honey, and I could be convinced were within the realm of floral. Those honey high notes keep poking through. Second pour gets much more blunt and yeasty, and I think I should have left more of the bottom of the bottle there.

Incredibly soft. A lot of carbonation, but silky soft. Reminds me of drinking through thick foam, except the head is pretty much gone here, that's the body. Finish has some yeast, a touch of faint citrus, but a lot of bready malts as well. Interesting.

This is an intriguing beer. I enjoy it a decent amount overall, and it leaves me more inclined to try beers of this style in the future, as well as continuing my impression that if I want solid, subtle farmhouse brews, Fair Isle is a solid choice.

Cheers!
Fuck cancer.

 

Hey don’t forget the two beers you bought me, the two beers you gave me, and the 5-6 fresh hops you sent my way oh yea and the double stack…

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

Congrats on the offer!
Cheers

 

Good question but I don't know the answer to that.

 

I’m not a big Weisse drinker but I love that series from Trillium. Cheers!