New Beer Weekend #102

Thanks for the bright and early start @Shanex

I’m envious of your travels, our summer just began last week. No travels yet but plenty of summer fun.

I love seeing pictures, could I challenge you to share three of your favorites?

I have a few beers I’m very excited to write about and share later today and this weekend..

 

Merci @Shanex for opening the weekend taps

I enjoyed this beer last night , Friday night is the weekend isn’t it?

Dream Fluctuation brewed by Equilibrium as a collaboration with Other Half. That’s what first attracted me to this beer. Two of my favorite New York brewers getting together? Sounds like a great idea to me



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


Canned on 6.2, opened on 7.1

Purchased at empire liquors , another fine selection courtesy of @nathanb4, does a fine job of curating his beer listings


Brewers notes: using equilibrium‘s fluctuation grain bill, oats, and lactose in line with other half‘s dream treatment we give this HDHC version of dreamway fluctuation a whirlpool of citra incognito, Citra Lupomax, and Galaxy within dry hop with Citra, Cita lupomax and Galaxy we can’t wait to pour this for you at Green city this year

HDHC Dreamway fluctuation glows while releasing Aromas and flavors of deep saturated passionfruit, pineapple syrup, overripe stone fruit, and creamy lime pudding intense fruit flavors are Explosive tropical fruit custard finished with our equilibrium juice melon finish.

Alrighty then!!!

Pours a Murky orange liquid crowned by a massive three finger off white foam crown. The aggressive pour is my own fault but I do feel that a Spiegelau ipa glass does create a frothier head. This settles to a plump island and eventually islands and rings with spotty lacings

Aroma is orange and grapefruit citrus

Taste is a Smooth tropical fruits with grapefruit , hint of lime

Hoppy with no bite, smooth and almost creamy with a semi dry finish

A very good beer by two great brewers

 

Thanks for sharing again! I don’t frequent the WBAYDN threads often. I love the architecture in the building, so neat.

 

Poured into a 16 oz Snulip glass not sure when it was canned. Pours a hazy orange yellow with a finger sticky white head that leaves thin lines of lace, with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma is pineapple, kiwi, tangerine, honeydew, coconut, and apricot. 4.5

Taste follows pineapple, kiwi, tangerine, honeydew, coconut, and apricot really well balanced. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above medium, soft gentle creamy carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 8.4% it goes down very easy. 4.5

Overall it is just good for this brewery, not earth shattering, but that is what happens when you are most likely the best going. Highly recommend and cheers all. Thanks @Shanex for getting the thread going early. 4.5

 

Greetings, fellow beer lovers. Is this a 3 day NBW thread due to the July 4th holiday? I sure hope so, as I have several new beers I hope to enjoy over the next few days. First up is Avalonia Apricot, an "Ale aged in oak barrels with apricots" from my favorite Connecticut brewer, Fox Farm.

3.5/5 rDev -14.6%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.5

Batch 1, bottled May, 2019. Poured into a Teku. Golden in color with excellent clarity and a thin white head that quickly dissipated. The apricots are still present on the nose, as are notes of apple, lemon and subtle funk.

Taste is a bit of a watered down version of the nose. The apricots are present, and taste fine, but there's something overall that's missing for me with this beer. It might be that I'm looking for a little more funk than what this brings to the table, and maybe a bit more carbonation. I'm getting a little bit of a juice box vibe that I'm not totally digging.

Overall, maybe I'm being overly harsh. I'm actually enjoying the beer, but it's a little short of my expectations, especially for Fox Farm. Maybe 3 years of aging haven't helped it, maybe drinking it at 8:30 in the morning isn't the best idea, or maybe it's something else. I will revisit at some point to see if my impression is the same.

 

Let’s get ‘bombed’ for the 4th of July Weekend!

Today’s beer is from Sloop and from the verbiage on the can it is part of a series of beers: Simcoe & Motueka Bomb NEIPA.

Information on the can:

“6.5% ABV

The Sloop “Bomb” Series: Exploring the Hazy/Juicy & unique flavors of hop varietals and combinations.”

I have homebrewed a lot with Simcoe hops and a bit with Motueka hops but never have I combined the two. Since I am a fan of both of these hops, I am hopeful I will enjoy drinking this beer.

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glass:

Appearance:

Pours a very murky yellow (looks almost like gravy) with a white head.

Aroma:

There is a combination of fruity and citrus (lime-like) aromas.

Taste:

The flavors follow the nose: a combination of some fruitiness and citrus. As the beer opens up there a slight hint of diesel as well. A moderate bitterness.

Mouthfeel:

Medium bodied with an off-dry finish. There was little to no smoothness to this beer (which I expect in a Juicy/Hazy IPA).

Overall:

This beer is OK/good. Despite the appearance this beer was not particularly “juicy” and the lack of smoothness to the mouthfeel was not to style.

Cheers!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @RobH

 

FWIW I am of the opinion that drinking more than one of a beer provides a more complete impression. It will be interesting whether you still think that there is something 'missing' while drinking the second bottle.

I will sometimes comment when discussing a beer in the NBW something like: "This beer would have benefited from (insert verbiage here) for my personal palate." Perhaps for this beer, and your palate, this beer from Fox Farm would have benefited from a bit more funk?

Cheers!

 

I think I have 5 or 6 of these at home, so will definitely revisit. I agree that drinking more than one of a beer can sometimes give a more complete impression. There have been plenty of times where I've revisited a beer and either noticed completely different things, or simply had a very different impression. I'm sure some of that is due to bias introduced by time / place / mood etc. but I sometimes just simply notice things I didn't at first. I have one more bottle of this beer with me (little bit of vacation this week) and it's their second bottling of this beer (October of 2021). I'll likely try it this weekend or over the coming days to see if my impression is the same as the B1 I just had.

 

Time for some more Fair State beers:

Roselle

Appearance: Clear red, good-sized light pink head.

Smell: Tart, sour, light fruitiness.

Taste: Tart, fruitiness, slight floral note, breadiness. Not too heavy.

Overall: I'm not a tart/sour beer guy but I know Fair State makes good stuff. It's a nice change-of-pace beer and well-made, but not something I'm going to session. I appreciate that it's not too sour or tart or fruity.

Union Lager

Appearance: Clear yellow-gold, good head.

Smell: Honeyed bread, grassy note.

Taste: Mild honey sweetness, bready, light grassiness, nice flavor.

Overall: Fair State makes a really good variety of lagers, this one hits the spot. Nice flavor without being too heavy, not too sweet or too bitter, well balanced. Good stuff!

I've got a bunch of new beers in the fridge, so I'll probably be back with more this long weekend!

 

As I assume you know, this beer is a collaboration with Schell's to celebrate Fair State becoming a union shop (Schell's has been a union shop for 100 years or so).

Here is my review of the Schell's version last year:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-weekend-49.659577/#post-7288928

(sound's pretty close to the same beer!)

 

Hi NBWers and happy holiday weekend to the US folks. I have something fun, I went, a week or two ago, to one of those stuck in time package stores. I generally go there for old beer. Sounds like an odd statement but now and then something goes on closeout or there's just old stock that they had never put out to pasture but now is there.

Anyway, as I was exiting, having bought a bunch of Andechs doppelbocks and maybe sam smith's imperial stout ( I don't remember specifically) - I spotted a little "red bull" cooler. You know the kind. So I saw it said "2 for $1". Moment I opened, I saw some green flash IPA haha. Which made me chuckle, it was actually from 2015 or something. Anyway, I spotted these two, and grabbed em up for a buck. Even better, the ages are different, this one is bottled 23/06/18 and the other alongside is 25/06/16.

So here we have Corsendonk Pater, a dubbel. Bottled 23/06/18



It's been like 10 minutes and the head is still hanging around. It's actually bleeding light on the edges when held up to the light. Head is a lovely pale against the dark body. Head is just bobbing along, It's bottled conditioned so that explains why. Nose is plum, dates and fig. There's some rounded malt character, like roasted malt meeting pilsner. It's a lighter beer, I think around 7% so it's actually quite easy drinking, nothing going to the head, really a nice beer for a day when you're maybe heading out in the evening but want something light.

Taste is largely of malt and what I'd call Belgian estery yeast. Some hints of perhaps clove, really reminiscent of what Ommegang's house yeast tastes like. Finish is dry, it's the complete opposite of the decadent super sweet malt bomb that was Primator's Doppelbock (which I had last week). Yeah, really dry finish against a very simple malt body, just bobbing. A real practice of subtleties here. Very pleasant drinking beer.

4.05/5 rDev +1.3%
look: 5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Hope to join with a few more of the long weekend. Oh perhaps I'll cross post over to the cellar thread.

 

A busy weekend for us. Our youngest is 26 today, so we are celebrating his birthday. Our daughter and grandkids will be over for some pool time and cooking on the grill.
What we won't be doing is setting off fireworks. Our dogs are absolutely petrified of them. Plus, we are in an extreme drought and the vegetation is like tinder.

My new beer for today is Kentucky Mule from Firestone Walker, part of their "cocktail" series.
A dark red/brown color. No head, no lace.
Aroma of ginger, lime, and booze.
Taste of ginger, lime, rum, and cola. Ginger and lime dominate.
Medium-bodied.
If you enjoy ginger and lime, this beer is for you.

 

New beer #2 for me is another Fox Farm Avalonia variant, this one Blueberry.

Batch 1, bottled October, 2020. Coming out of the bottle this is a vibrant, reddish purple. Once in the glass it settles into a deeper eggplant color with a nice light purple head that recedes to a steady ring. Aroma leads with plenty of earth barnyard funk, complemented by faint blueberry notes.

The blueberry is a little more present on the tongue, with a nice amount of funk emerging mid-palate to complement things. The blueberries create a red wine-ish impression on the lips post sip. Light bodied, very minimal tartness, and very easy going down. Overall, good beer.

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Was the ginger reasonably balanced with the other flavors, or was it pretty ginger-forward? Either I'm overly sensitive to ginger (distinctly possible), or it's easy to overdue, as most ginger beers I've had in the past have been too much for me.

 

I have not used ginger in my brewing but I do cook with fresh ginger root and a little bit goes a long way since it is quite pungent. I tend to not utilize herbs/spices in brewing since it is so tricky to know how much to add (and where in the brewing process to add them).

Cheers!

 

Thank you @Shanex for kicking things off this weekend, and for sharing your vacation pictures here and in WBAYDN.

That Union Lager sounds tasty @Mdog , like the backstory with Schell’s @MNAle , hopefully they will return distributing here one day.

Still debating what to start with this weekend, and whether to head to Revolution for a new Pilsner the released this week.

@Shanex @FBarber , is this a three day weekend NBW/NBS thread concurrent with the National Holiday?

Cheers!

 

Hey what's going on!?

I am having a new dark lager from Calvert that's pretty tasty. This is there take on a T'Mave Czech Black Lager.

While I can't say I have had many of this style on a regular basis, they sure made a tasty beer:

Black Eyed Susan - Calvert Brewing Co. (Upper Marlboro, MD)



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Big bubbled, with a frothy big and rich light tan colored head that stands at least four fingers in height. Deep mahogany brown, with a hint of muddy thickness but just a hint of glowing edged orange on the sides for the body color. A nice of hint of controlled looking aggression and bold dark hinting opacity.

Real surprising aroma. Whipped up notes of dark chocolate, almost icing like thick but not as sweet. There's a diversity in flavor going on here as well, some hints of coffee, and a nice mixing molasses flavor too. Great nose and clean as well, very impressed so far.

Palate goes for a simpler deliver, but all of it satisfying. First impression is a bit of light body, but good flavors reveal themselves slowly. A mid palate that has a bit of washing slightly grain hinting chocolate malt, but then a finish that really jumps and builds. Finishes with cold rich coffee clean flavors, a real nice bitter herb and chewy hinting pine and dark gooey bread. Nice touches of more milky chocolate flavor and coffee as the beer finishes clean and even rich to some degree.

Very nice neat crafted dark lager.

Look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4 | BA final Score: 4.08

Cheers!

 

Inspired by @GlenFarclas , I decided to pull a Gueuze from my cellar at home to start the day.

Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck N.V. St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition



Bottle Notes: Purchased March 5, 2022 for $8.77 at Capones. Green Bottle at room temperature, refrigerated since purchase. No bottle date, 5% ABV, 12.7 oz. Unfiltered Belgian Ale, Gueuze Lambic. Best Served at 54 F.

Belgian Ale Brewed and Bottled by Br. Van Honsebrouck., Ingelmunster, Belgium. Imported by Win-It-Too, Middleton, Massachusetts.

Appearance: Single pour into a large tulip glass. Clear orange base, nominal carbonation, bright white head dissipates quickly, no lacing. 4.0

Aroma: Sour apple, chlorine and minerals, thought the beer may have been skunked between the undetermined age and green bottle. Not appealing but proceeding nonetheless. 1.75

Taste: Tastes fine, so proceeding with the review. Tart grape and apple leads, vinegar, mineral back. Getting the chlorine from the aroma which isn't helping matters. 2.75

Mouthfeel: Fizzy carbonation not visible adds depth to the light body. Sweet flavors balanced by the tart vinegar. Light and easy drinking, below the low ABV. 3.25

Overall: Not sure how old this is, and whether the beer was adversely impacted by the green bottle. Took a chance, ok drinkable beyond the smell. Would revisit / rescore with a draft version, though passing on future green bottle purchases. I think a good to very good beer could have been bottled but lost its way. 3.0

 

Is that like Firestone Walker's beer version of the famed freedom fries of a few years back? Don't even say or print the capital of Russia.....