New Beer Weekend #90

It is a bitterly cold day in Idaho. Only going to get colder. I wanted to do something other than hibernating in the house. At least the Master is on. Trying to finish up a box and get it in the mail. I am sipping on a Drekker Super Freak. Super fruity beer with a soft mouthfeel and a slightly tannic finish. They say it is a New England IPA, but to me, it is another hazy hop bomb done well.
4.22 look: 4.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

Well, you would be best to check the Tired Hands website first:

https://www.tiredhands.com/generalstore/beers

If you click on the above you will see that they are presently sold out of Trendler Rauchbier. My guess is that they brewed this beer in a small batch since as I opined above Smoked Beers seem to be a very polarizing beer style.

If you are into Juicy/Hazy hoppy beers you have over 20 brands (including two Milkshake brands) to pick from. These sorts of beers are not exactly my 'cup of tea' but needless to say when it comes to Tired Hands customers I am very much in the minority here.

Cheers!

 

Poured into my 10 oz flute glass canned about a month ago. Pours a very attractive murky pinkish purple with a 2 finger pink head that leaves some thin streaks of lace with nice retention. 4.75

Aroma blackberry, black cherry, apricot, peach, and plum. 4.5

Taste follows blackberry, black cherry, peach, apricot, and plums they also used cinnamon, gram cracker, and whipped cream not getting any of that, but I bet it helped balance it out. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, plenty of life, not sticky or dry, and at 5% ABV it drinks bigger all around. 4.75

Overall this is one of the best sours I have had, really enjoying this one. It is exactly what my palate needed. Kettlehead brewed a treat here. 4.5

 

One of the aspects I very much appreciated in the Tired Hands Trendler Rauchbier is that it was very fresh. All too often the German brewed beers at my local beer retailers are too old.

Maybe in your neck of the woods you have better luck finding non-old German brewed beers?

Cheers!

 

Other than luckily finding beer kegs from Germany from the source on tap specially shipped to a local establishment that was as close as I could get.

would love a great fresh Rauch to try if I could. not to say that freshness is my first thing on my mind when it comes to this obscure style.

Heck... that 30 day Rauch from so and so domestic producer I haven't had before... GIVE ME!! I need this in my life.

Sounds like you had a nice one there, would love to try it someday.

 

Kros Strain MüMü Milk Stout, 6% ABV. Pours black with a great looking four-finger medium-brown head that left no lacing. Nose is milk/lactose and chocolate. Taste is milk sugar, chocolate, and a bit of roast malt, slightly sweet, faintly bitter. Thick and creamy mouthfeel with exemplary carbonation, overall outstanding to world-class-adjacent.

4.43/5 rDev +5%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

 

My favorite local place made the best rauch I've tried in a long time, I think it may still be lingering around, as we all know not the most popular style. It had a nice crispness to it that other smoked beers Ive tried have not.

Tonwood Brewing - After Glow, as a bonus it was locally grown and smoked in NJ.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46284/585767/


Thanks for the recon on that beer @Snowcrash000 hopefully it shows up around here at some point.

 

Bad Weather Brewing Calamity RIS. Courtesy of either @Chaz or @cheeseheadinMinneapolis. I forget, as we were passing beers back and forth. This beer is called Calamity, and I accidentally dropped it down a flight of stairs. The color is midnight black, with a slight brown tint in the right light. Very small light brown cap. The smell is coffee, black licorice, chocolate, and dark fruit. The taste is dark roasted coffee, nuts, black licorice, and dark fruit. Quite bitter, with a definite sweetness. The mouthfeel is oily, thick, and full-bodied, with light carbonation. Overall, this is a delicious RIS. Ideal for staying inside, wearing a turtleneck, and reading a book next to a fire, with your dog and/or cat on your lap. As the name of the brewery implies.

 

A craft beer bar near me in the recent past (2-3 years ago) would periodically put German brewed beers on tap (Ayinger, Weihenstephaner, Rothaus, etc.) but they stopped doing this. Because most of their customers are no longer interested in German brewed beers? They do still put US craft brewed German beers on tap (e.g., today they have beers from Von Trapp and Sly Fox on tap which are German styles). I have sorta given up on finding fresh beer from German breweries in my area.

In the recent past I have had more than a few Schlenkerla beers that were non-vibrant (tasted stale to me) and those beers are not inexpensive so...

Hopefully Tired Hands will brew this beer again. I speculated in post #22 that this recent batch was a small batch brew. If they received positive feedback from their customers they may want to make it again?

Cheers!

 

Well that's how it all starts for sure! I am not honestly understanding how the whole NEIPA crazy exploded either, especially since being here in it's beginnings but so here we are.

Either way, it just appealed to a bigger audience and the rest is history (one could say).

Tired Hands makes some great stuff, and they made a lime infused Schwarz (WAY back in the day) which I thought was exceptional it was called Kuro. But I sure figured that thing was never coming back to see the light of day anytime soon.

Grab those tasty beers when you can Jack, life is too short! that's for sure

 

Ethan, FWIW I have a 'working theory' that Juicy/Hazy IPAs are very appealing to younger craft beer drinkers. While I have a preference for notable bitterness that is found in the 'regular' (or popularly called West Coast) IPA style along with a sort of crispness factor it seems that 'newer' craft beer drinkers value the aspects of less bitterness, the quality that is described as "juicy", and a smooth mouthfeel. I do enjoy drinking a beer such as Tired Hands Alien Church but after drinking that one can I have no desire to drink a second; this beer (and the other Tired Hands Juicy/Hazy hoppy beers) does not have drinkability for my palate. I had a discussion with the owner of a local beer retailer a couple of years ago where I opined that the Juicy/Hazy craze was at it peak and would decline. Boy, was I wrong here!

Tired Hands does make a number of tasty lagers under the branding of Trendler (the last name of Jean's grandfather). At the Fermentaria they have Doppelbock, Schwarzbier and Dunkel. I discussed the Doppelbock not too long ago in NBW:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-weekend-86.665735/#post-7480871

I have a can of the Schwarzbier to discuss in an upcoming NBW.

During my last visit to the Fermentaria I shared with the GM some bottles of my recent batch of Czech Dark Lager. He shared some with the brewing staff and they all seemed to enjoy drinking it. Maybe there will be a Trendler Czech Dark Lager sometime?

Cheers!

 

NewHave a good Saturday. Took the ferry back to woods hole. We want to come back to the island. I went to a dispensary on the way to Boston. Got the full allotted gummies I could get lol. I drove up to Sam Adam's taproom.




The mole milk stout was awesome. Aromas and flavors of dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, roasted nuts, brown bread/crust, toast, herbal, grass, pepper, light dark fruit/ yeast earthiness. Lt med herbal/char bitterness and spicy finish. Creamy/bready medium body. Sticky/chalky drying. No acrid flavors. Perfect amount of spice and and base stout is spot on American style. 4.1


Cheers

 

Sam Adam's arborway dipa. This was awesome. Aromas and flavors of red grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, apricot, passion fruit, mango, melon, berry, citrus peel/rind, peppercorn, pine, wheat, biscuit, herbal, floral, grass. Good sized pine/rind bitter. Creamy bready med full body. Sticky resin drying. Mild astringency. Mild warmth of 9.2%. Feels like Citra and azacca hops. Very vibrant dank and juicy hops with a long resinous finish. 4.1


Cheese board and pretzels




Cheers

 

Happy to settle in today and tomorrow and review some beers after a bananas last few weeks. My first beer for today (which I'm enjoying while doing my taxes...what could go wrong?) is Homespun Moon, a English Dark Mild Ale from Tired Hands

3.96/5 rDev +6.5%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

Canned March 9, 2022. Poured into a Tired Hands Teku.

Color is a dark cola brown. Fairly effervescent on the pour. The light cream colored head lasted about a minute before receding to a thin ring.

Aroma is perhaps a little heavy on the roast, but not to its detriment. Nice toffee and caramel notes round out the profile.

On the tongue this has a nice nutty / toffee flavor. Dry, roasted finish with very little bitterness. It's very clean and easy drinking. Makes me wish I were enjoying this at the brewery or in a pub vs. in front of my computer!

Feel is light bodied with medium carbonation.

Overall, this is the type of beer that doesn't stand out, but doesn't try to either. It's a good, lower ABV beer that you can easily envision knocking back a few pints of while hanging with your friends.

 

Sam Adam's bitter cold imperial bba marzen. This was fantastic and unique. It tastes like a mead up front with big honey, caramel, brown sugar, wine yeast earthiness. Light molasses, cherry, dark fruit. Lingering red wine, oak, vanilla, cocoa. Some herbal bitterness and tannic tartness. Wondering if the bourbon barrel went a bit sour but it works extremely well either way. Increasing warmth of 12%. A very interesting experiment. 4.25


Cheers

 

Poured into a 16 oz tulip glass canned 02/02/22. Pours a very dark brown with a 2 finger sticky light brown head that leaves thin streaks of lace with nice retention. 4.5

Aroma is cocoa nibs, vanilla bean, toffee, biscuit, and a hint of coffee. 4

Taste follows cocoa, vanilla, toffee, biscuit, and just a little hint expresso. 4

Mouthfeel is bigger than average, a tad dry, plenty of carbonation, and at 9.8% it goes down rather easy. 4

Overall nothing earth shattering, a little thinner than I prefer, slightly sweet, but still a nice brew and I will have no problem finishing the 4 pack. 4

 

I had two beers on my list for this weekend. The rauchbier posted by @JackHorzempa and the ongoing discussion of smoked beers, and then the beers with pepper adjunks posted by @Roguer and @superspak ... well, it may not be a message from the astral plane, but it does mean Larry's Last will have to wait.

"HammerHeart's Last" (i.e. the last new-to-me beer I have, and possibly will ever have, from them).

Hot peppery beers have never been something that appealed to me (just the sound of it). But, given the situation with HammerHeart, I bought a 4 pack of this beer anyway.

HammerHeart Thor’s Imperial Hot Pepper Porter
ABV: 9.5%
IBU: NA

So, a smoked Imperial porter with hot peppers!

Impenetrable black, even with a back-light, topped by a dark tan/brown head that grows deceptively (as you can see from the picture). The head starts out almost coke-like, fizzy and bubbly, and indicating it will be short and short-lived. This deceived me into going to a vigorous pour. I stopped with the head well short of the top of my glass as I saw the character of the head changing, but not soon enough, as you see. (That's an Imperial Pint nonic - i.e. 20 ounces!) The resulting head is nothing like it started out to be. It continued to build until it overflowed the glass. It is thick, creamy, tall, and lasts forever. It leaves a very thick wall of "lacing" as it does recede. This does become very attractive, less wall and more lace, as I drink.

The aroma is, as I expected from HammerHeart, smoky; campfire smoke. Roasted malts. Not getting any of the promised pepper.

Ah, there's the pepper, as I take my first sip. It starts out with a hint of pepper initially, but this grows and grows through the middle and into the finish. The aftertaste is spicy hot. While the spice does become front and center, it is never completely obscures the smoky flavor and the roasted porter malts, as they are hardly shrinking violets either. All the flavors are complementary of each other. This is an very well done beer.

But make no mistake: as it is using Dragons's Breath, Brown Moruga Scorpion, and Carolina Reaper peppers it is spicy hot, with the warmth lingering in my mouth for minutes like a very spicy dish. It is, as the beer name says, an "Imperial Hot Pepper Porter". While this spiciness is handled with skill, it most definitely tips well to the hot side so I can't actually call it balanced. But, the spice is always accompanied by smoke and roast.

The mouth feel is thick for a porter (that is, on the thick side of substantial, but not viscous like some Imperial stouts). The feel would be smooth and creamy, except it has quite a edge from the hot pepper.

Overall, impressive and well-done. I have not in the past taken to the sound of pepper beers. I can, however, appreciate that this beer achieves its apparent goals. The mix of the hot peppers, the smoke, and the roasted malts is truly enjoyable.

L: 4.5 | S: 4.0 | T: 4.25 | F: 4.25 | O: 4.25 | Rating: 4.21