New Beer Weekend #99

Interesting note on the lager yeast…thanks for sharing.

At Oaklyn, the original spot, it was very easy to run into the brewers and chat, the brew deck was 8 ft behind the bar.

At Barrington I’m guessing that doesn’t happen anymore. I still prefer to drink at Oaklyn it has a special close knit vibe still. If you go I suggest starting there then checking out Barrington, which is beautiful, but as a production brewery it lacks the small neat vibe Oaklyn has.

If I get the chance I’ll ask next time I’m there.

 

Russian River Blind Pig IPA, 6.25% ABV. Pours clear golden, with a 4+ finger off-white head that left lots of foamy lacing. Nose is citrus and fruit. Taste is piney with fruit, quite bitter. Decent mouthfeel with good carbonation. Overall excellent to outstanding-adjacent.

4.23/5 rDev -3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

Great review and take on OH . . . I have to say, I'm really surprised at you finding meatiness/smokiness in the Broccoli's Axe. I believe you, but I didn't experience anything like that in the two cans I had. Makes me wonder about a "bad can," although I don't really believe in such a thing in most cases. Or an interaction with something you ate or drank beforehand?

 

Russian River Pliny the Elder Imperial IPA, 8% ABV. Pours clear golden with 4+ finger off-white head that left huge foamy lacing. Nose is fruity and malty with light pine. Taste is fruity honey, lightly piney, slightly sweet and moderately bitter. Real nice mouthfeel with good carbonation, and a dry finish. Overall world-class. Should have bought more.

4.6/5 rDev -0.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.75

 

Always happy to see someone's first taste of Pliny.

 

Oskar Blues Double Dale's

Appearance: Yellow-gold, hazy with particles, good head.

Smell: Citrus, dank, earthy.

Taste: Mild sweetness, some citrus, an interesting peach/nectarine note, medium-low bitterness.

Overall: A decent DIPA, the peach note to it was kind of interesting, but there's something earthy about it that steers it away from being a big winner in my book. Worth a try.

 

Glad to be joining the party today, even if I'm a little later than normal. Up in NH at the lake, got some errands done, and now it's time to enjoy some beer.

First up is this bottle of Tart the Cherry, a "40 month wine barrel aged sour ale fermented with Balaton cherries and conditioned on pink lemon zest and pink peppercorns" I received this courtesy of the extremely generous @Ozzylizard in our most recent BIF.

4.09/5 rDev 0% (first review)
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Courtesy of @Ozzylizard. The color of this beer is a bit of a chameleon, changing from pink rose to copper and everything in between depending on the light. Minimal fizzy head. Aroma is aggressively tart, and strongly implies that this one will be a pucker. Nice cherry notes mixed in.

On tongue, the sour notes don't overpower. There's a really nice musty funk, the wine barrels are present, and the cherries again play a nice supporting role. The lemon zest shows up on the finish, and really complements the flavor profile. Pleasantly tart, lively and invigorating. Really enjoying this. Very good beer.

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@JackHorzempa you set the bar high every week, but I particular enjoyed today's writeup.
@beergoot that beer sounds great!

 

Knot…knot knot

 

Until a few months ago, I thought Finback was outpacing OH, but now I'm not so sure . . . OH seems to have gotten back on track in a big way. Want to see your reaction to the Vegan Cheddar (ugh, that name).

 

Poured into a 13 oz Teku glass not sure when it was canned but it coming from @jzeilinger I trust within the month. Pours an attractive hazy yellow with a 2 finger sticky white head that leaves thick streaks of lace with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma is tangerine, pineapple, papaya, passionfruit, and apricot. 4.25

Taste follows tangerine, pineapple, passionfruit, papaya, and apricot really well balanced. 4.25

Mouthfeel is above average, not sticky or dry, soft gentle almost creamy carbonation, and at 8% big flavor, but easy going down. 4.25

 

Hi NBWers. I've not been here in a while but glad to be here today. I was at a different packie stalking down some import beers, happy with what I found there but also stumbled on this offering from Relic out of Plainville. I've had many great IPAs from them, and also a few very good lagers, a brown ale I recall, awesome stouts. Those old school sort of breweries who threw out multiple different styles and kinda crushed em all.

Relic - Tropical Blonde 5%



4.18/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Have never had Lotus hops before. The pour produces a really well conditioned beer, lots of lacing, lovely fluffy head, about par for the course for Relic. The nose is initially muted but it sort of opens up rather quickly, and then there's a good deal of sweet fruity character, almost Belgian really. Taste follows. There's a great, golden ale, blonde ale base here and then it opens up with what I can only assume is the hop character. So there's a simple malt base, it's a very full, rounded beer, you'd almost guess it was around 6% or so.

The hop profile is a boatload of stone fruit, also some white wine tannin qualities, but that follows for the sort of blueberry character. It's not fruity in a bad way, more in how Riesling is fruity but also very dry. I suppose it is Tropical albeit I'd usually run away from that epithet when I buy traditional beer styles. That said, It's actually a lovely beer. The packie had these 4 packs for 6 bucks, I grabbed a couple on a whim. Glad I did.

 

Greetings, fellow NBWers, and thanks to @Roguer for getting us going.

Been a weird, weird week. Although I'm no longer (knock on wood) suffering from the sewer issues of a couple weeks ago, there's still been plenty of chaos. Last Monday morning, my Dad had to take my Mom to the local hospital ER in my hometown (I live approximately 2 1/2 hours away from them) due to abdominal pains. Although the issue was diagnosed as one involving the gallbladder fairly quickly, the low-staffing and stil high numbers of COVID patients (the two counties that make up my folks' metropolitan area has consistently been among the highest in Washington for COVID infections) meant that it took days for my Mom to get the procedure that would stabilize her enough to where she could at least go home for a bit so that she could recover enough to where she could safely get her gallbladder removed. She only now just got home. On Wednesday the stars aligned enough to where she could've had the procedure, but a nurse hadn't gotten the memo, apparently, and had fed my mom a tiny bit of food, so it had to be postponed another day (in fact it turned out to be a good 36 hours). At one point, she had to be moved to another floor because, due to staffing shortages, an entire floor of the hospital was being closed down to consolidate patients so that staff would have a shorter distance to go to take care of them. Anyway, she's now home and keen to get her first good sleep that didn't involve anasthesia since she began experiencing her abdominal pain.

To get back to beer, today, I went with Lumberbeard's Flavor Nuggets v.7, brewed with Idaho Gem, El Dorado & Nelson Sauvin hops.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/58538/603702/?ba=woemad#lists
Flavor Nuggets is a series of hazy IPAs brewed with different hop combinations. This one was pleasantly juicy but not terribly compelling. I'd drink it again but wouldn't describe it as a must-try.

I'm thinking about walking over to Iron Goat and trying my friend Lilly's Lezbeer, a beer brewed for Pride Month (the Spokane Pride Parade is actually happening right now). I believe it's a lambic of a sort I cannot currently recall.

I did just discover I still have no less than three NBS BIF beers from @Rub_This_BBQ to draw on as well, in addition to the Westy 12 he sent me (that's being saved as an occasion beer). I also picked up a true Belgian quad from a brewery I've never heard of before last week. One or more of these could go down as well before NBW is over. Cheers!

 

Happy New Beer Weekend! It is a pleasure to be back drinking a new beer with all of you fine people. Up for today is a beer I'd been wanting to try but, as it was can conditioned (discussion about that above), it took longer than they thought it would to release the cans. They've brewed hefeweizen before but this is their first canned offering and it was carb'd naturally. To my knowledge, and I'm 99.99% sure, this is their first can conditioned beer. Let's see how it goes...

Tonewood - Soft Focus (5.4% Hefeweizen)



Sharing this cause it’s awesome of them, all their labels now share all the info…



Pours an opaque darker shade of pale, almost a light gold. Going off look I would never guess this to be a hefeweizen. The head is nice, very billowy; lasts for a while and settles to a nice thick cap, initial head leaves some minor lacing.

There is just the slightest hint of sulfur in this one, which I know can occur in this style sometimes, after that there is some nice typical hefe flavors; in this one I would describe it as clove like bubble gum, quite nice. There is also a refreshing something on the finish, which I cannot put my finger on but assuming its from the hops.

The taste mirrors the bubble gum and clove from the nose back up by that same refreshing hop. This comes with some dry wheat bread.

The mouthfeel is light and smooth, it definitely has a very pleasant and nice carbonation to it. Has a pretty drying, and minorly hoppy, finish to it as well. Easy to drink and refreshing.

OK…this is a very beer to drink but if you want a tried and true here this is not it. Is that a bad thing? No, if I want that I know exactly what to buy. This beer was brewed 10 miles away, with local NJ grown wheat malt, and it is actually very refreshing and easy to drink, it will be a nice summer beer to have around and I hope they continue to brew it occasionally. I do hope the sulfur subsides a little, its noticeable but not enough to ruin the beer for me; still easy to enjoy.

@Roguer there was definitely something pleasant about the carb on this beer, see above, it was lively yet also very soft and smooth. If this was side by side with a non conditioned hefeweizen I would bet it would be very noticeable. I could do a side by side with neshaminy creek's if they still brew it as I do not think it is can conditioned, I'll try and do some recon then see if I can find some.

I'll be back with a hop fix offering later tonight and will try to catch up on some of the posts I missed, see you all again later.

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Cooked over a fire today on our little camping stove at our kids request cause they wanted to help...guess how much help I got...Well they were delicious and there is definitely something wood fire does to food that our grill does not.

 

And don’t forget the gazintas: three gazinta six two times!

Cheers