New Beer Weekend #86

I know some people who have had their fair share of Gueuze who say that the 2018 version is the best Gueuze they’ve ever had. When I’ve asked about the 2019 they each say it’s ok, but nothing at all like the ‘18. It seems this is the opinion across the board.

 

Octopi Double Maple Imperial Morning (Milk) Stout, 11% ABV. Pours jet black with a nice 3-finger light-brown head that left no lacing. Nose is maple syrup and coffee. Taste follows, quite sweet but not cloying, slight bitterness. Decent smooth mouthfeel, if a bit under-carbonated. Overall outstanding, best and most mapley maple beer I've had.

4.51/5 rDev +9.5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5

Nice melty spring day. By Thursday the snow will be gone AGAIN.

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Sippers and commentators. One of my favorite annual Stout events in the Garden State is Brix City Brewing's Silk City release, which was yesterday. The annual release includes the BA base Stout and three variants which differ from year to year. Btw, "Silk City" refers to Paterson, New Jersey, America's first planned "industrial city," which was known for its silk mills. Of this year's variants, the one that gave me the most pause was Maple Creemee, which is aged in bourbon barrels with maple and vanilla. According to the website, it's named for a Vermont dessert which I can neither confirm nor deny. I find maple to be really hit or miss - sometimes unpleasantly sweet. So I decided to drink this one first. No worries necessary. The maple is subtle and really balances the heavy, oaky, bitter char of the Stout. This is just great!

Poured into a stout glass at 58°. It pours nearly ink black with a half finger of creamy, medium mocha-colored head and a thick coating of lacing. There's lots of maple on the nose along with vanilla, earthy char, and the faint smell of bourbon. There is a strong, oaky, burnt, bitter, char and bakers chocolate presence up front. The maple notes are delicate and provide a nice balance to the bitterness. The barrel influence is strong but not distracting. The flavors are very complimentary. This Stout has a moderately thick and creamy mouth feel with appropriate carbonation, and I like the fact that it's 10% ABV and not massive since it comes in a 22 oz. bottle. This is an excellent Silk City variant and I'm excited to try the others.

4.42/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

I'll be back shortly with some local hops. Cheers, NBW!

 

Daily Serving - Level Playing field with guava , passionfruit and hibiscus Berliner Weiss fruited sour by Trillium

4.33/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25




Can poured into a teku

Brewers notes

**Berliner Weisse with Guava, Passion Fruit & Hibiscus - 4.5% abv** Released on International Women’s Day, Daily Serving: Level Playing Field 2022 presents an eye-catching crimson pink. Holding the glass to light unveils ruby highlights and a glowing, heavy haze. The nose is nuanced, never sitting idly, but rather shifting from ripe guava and tropical passionfruit to dry cranberry and hibiscus tea. Gratifyingly full-bodied, with a sweetness that effortlessly balances the beer's tart approach, Daily Serving: Level Playing Field

Fluffy pink two finger foam crown settles to a thin island and ring after five minutes over a pink strawberry jam colored murky liquid

Fragrant waves of guava and passionfruit in the pour

Taste is guava , passionfruit

Mouthfeel is fizzy sudsing, sweet-tartness

Good beer, love this series of Berliner weisse fruited sours

 

Nice glass!

 

Hey thanks @snaotheus ! I like the way the feather provides a demarcation line as I sip beers in my teku. A beer friend ( fiend) of mine from the PNW gave me that glass. You are from that area, do you know a Mr Snot House?

 

Mother's Brewing Co.Matterfamilas Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout, 11% ABV; 4.19 overall

Pours mahogany colored with one finger of mocha colored head. Zero head retention & lacing

S: Dark fruits, carob, some boozey notes

T: Follows the nose, some cola notes, a little barrel rawness, plus woody & leafy hops. Some vanilla, cola & booze notes as this warms, a little dark cherry too & a little dark chocolate. Finishes with some raw barrel, cola, dark fruit, vanilla, & chocolate

MF: Medium body, low carbonation, warming

A solid BA Imp Stout that is well worth picking up

 

So Two Roads is pandering with this beer and so am I now. It appears TR rebranded their Easy Ale for March Madness, picking up on their Connecticut location and jumping in on the Uconn Huskies basketball band wagon. Full disclosure- I graduated from Uconn so I guess I'm pandering also. I actually went to the last regular women's home game 2-weeks ago and they had this beer available there, but I went with Two Roads Little Heaven IPA because I did not want to experiment there. My sister in-law walked into my house today with a 4-pack of Two Conn today, so what do I have to lose.

3.79/5 rDev -5.5%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75
by woodchipper from Connecticut

Poured from a 16oz can stamped BBF 12 JUL 22 to a Nonic at fridge temp.
Pours clear gold with bubbles rising through the body continuously. A medium pour yielded a really tall white head.
Nice clean aroma mildly grassy and sweet.
Taste leans to the hoppy side bringing it near IPA territory for me but it is well balanced.
Mouthfeel is light and slightly oily.
Overall- a good crushable ale. Wish I had it at the game.

 

Downtown Rulers WCIPA from Burial Brewing


Burial makes some nice beers in this style. The Mosaic and Idaho 7 hops combo render unique aromas and flavors. This collaboration with TRVE is a big success IMHO. Label is metal, I guess.

4.29/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

 

I may like Vermont more for the maple creemees than for the beer yes I actually mean that. I dream about them all year, every damn time we get ice cream. T minus 4-5 months...

 

Mr. Snot House? His reputation precedes him...

 

Howdy New Beer Weekenders! I'm finishing up the last of my microbiology homework for the week and sipping on a new Widowmaker NEIPA called Polychronic Bloom.



This beer was fermented with kveik and features Citra and Rakau hops. It pours nicely; a stately-looking hazy IPA with a nice head of white foam that settles down to a thin, quarter-finger ring after a few minutes, leaving behind some excellent tiered lace. Legs aren't as impressive here, but that's alright I suppose. Cloudy surface even after the head has sunk down.

Nose is throwing out some rustic funk with hints of plum, lemon, pineapple, and light dankness. There is a distinct "kveik" element here, for sure. For the record, I'm just not huge into this type of yeast; it usually just comes across as messy and yet somehow oddly-anonymous overall, and I don't know if the use of Rakau (a hop with the selling point of being like "the whole orchard," for the record) helps much with that. Hoping it tastes better.

Pineapple, light earthy melon, and some slight apricot pop out on the palate here, but... yeah, it just seems a little too uninteresting to me? My experience with kveik is that it just makes everything taste muddled, and I think that tends to have to do with the high ester production associated with it. It's more efficient and has much quicker turnaround, so I understand the appeal from a brewery standpoint, but it's kind of like the push for Cryo hops and other forms of hop extract (calling it like it is, sorry; as a side note, imagine if a brewery these days started advertising using a malt extract... people would burn them at the stake, but if you use hop concentrate, it's somehow totally fine and not cutting corners at all ). Speaking of hops, the hopping seems very aggressive here, and I feel it might be too acidic, as there's a hop burn I'm picking up especially as it acclimates to room temperature. Some of the flavors start to congeal and work together better at times, but it doesn't feel consistent to me. The apricot sometimes mingles with a bit of tangerine and even some mango-like flavors, but none of it really sticks with me, and that is a downside for sure. Feel is pretty soft overall and although there is a dense "pillowy" element, the acidity from the hops counters it, keeping it from being too anonymous and boring. I'm not overall impressed by this entry from these guys. My buddy who is employed there wasn't huge on it, either, so, meh.

One more! Coming up...

 

Sometimes you have to dance with the date who brought you, BAs. Before many of the current local craft breweries opened near where I live, there was Magnify. I was there at the beginning and have reviewed a lot their beers. Mag has a unique taste in its IPAs. I could probably pick 'em out blind. So no matter what new breweries open, Mag will always have a special place in my heart, taste buds, and liver. Drill Deeper is a DIPA version of Peak Oil. I'm a little surprised I haven't had it before but the pandemic plays strange tricks. This is a big, fruity, DIPA that is vintage Magnify with its attitude. Based on the previous reviews I like it better than when it was first released. Maybe I'm just a homey but I'll wear that badge proudly.

Reviewed 5 days after canning. Poured into a tulip glass. It pours a dense, opaque, dirty tangerine color with a large, foamy, bright white head and very thick lacing. A nice, fruity aroma of lemon, grapefruit, pineapple, tangerine, and onion. Magnify nailed this batch. It offers a great balance of sweet and tart citrus and bitter, biting hops. Citra and Mosaic is a tried and true hop combo and it works great here while the Apollo hop oil provides lots of resinous pine and bitterness. The mouthfeel is vintage Magnify - thick and creamy with appropriate carbonation and a punchy 9% ABV. Overall, Drill Deeper is a great DIPA version of Peak Oil. I would drink this any day.

4.35/5 rDev +5.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

Good evening NBS'rs
One hour less of sleep is no bueno for me but Im enjoying the rest of this day after a good workout on the elliptical and some sets of pushups and situps.
Seem to be staying at 175 - a little more to go but down from 190 so Im good. I started in Feb with a 25 pushup a day to "Beat Cancer" as a motivation to get back to hitting the weights and now Im 50 a set so Im on my way. Anyhow all this and my motivation was provided today by the stellar BA @Roguer
Decided it was time for a CT run and I came back with 4 new beers.
First off is one from Abomination Brewing, 2 beers being reviewed by him earlier in the thread and so as a fan of the sometimes decisive hop Mosaic...
TDH Mosaic Wandering into the Fog DIPA
Pouring a hazy yellow much like unfiltered pineapple juice with a foamy white head that recedes after a few leaving some pretty good streaks of lacing.
The aroma is bangin with overipe pineapple, passionfruit, raspberry, peach, blueberry, dank cannabis, orange, lime. Fruit salad.
Taste follows with ripe tropicals, stonefruit, berries, earthy pine on a slightly drying finish. Fairly well balanced with light malt/bitter hops. Creamy soft feel, lightly prickly carbonation, mild alcohol peeks on the finish but well hidden for 8.6% - crap this is going down easily and forgot about the abv.
Thanks for the tip @Roguer!
My first from this brewery and I would definitely put this in the top third of hazies Ive had recently.
Tasty, good brew. Cheers!
And just for the hell of it heres one of my BOTW...

 

Poured into a 16 oz Nordic pint glass canned on 3/02/22. Pours a very attractive hazy yellow orange with a 2 plus finger sticky white head that leaves loads of thick lace with excellent retention. 4.75

Aroma is rather dank, white grapes, mandarin, cantaloupe, apricot, and grapefruit rind a lot going on. 4.5

Taste follows some marijuana, white grapes, mandarin, cantaloupe, apricot, and a little grapefruit really well balanced. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, not sticky or dry, soft gentle creamy carbonation, and at 8.5% huge flavor, but very approachable. 4.75

Overall this another excellent NEDIPA with Nelson hops, well done Spyglass Brewing. A treat for sure. 4.5