New Beer Weekend #111

There’s a vetting process? How in the fliggity flock did I get through that all those years ago?

 

We are back at the hotel and I am high and we are watching the night at the Roxbury. Classic awkward SNL movie from the 90s. Going to watch some other movies later on. 7/10 for me now.


Tobacco wood brewing false motivation ipa crowler from Friday night. Hotel glassware. Filled 9/2. Great hazy ipa. Great head retention and soapy lacing. Aromas and flavors of big tangerine, grapefruit, peach, pineapple, passionfruit, papaya, mango, honeydew melon, guava, blueberry, citrus peel, wood, pepper, pine, wheat, dough, herbal, floral, grass, yeast earth. Moderate pine/rind bitter finish. Medium carb/body. Balanced creamy/bready malt and sticky hops. Some resins and lingering drying, no hop astringency. Mild warmth of 7.3% and hop burn after the finish. Great Citra, mosaic, and azacca profile. Very juicy/dank/earthy hops with a nicely soft malt backbone. Well made for the style, no complaints. 4



Cheers

 

Stone 26th Anny IPA, 9.7% ABV; 4.08 overall

Pours a very effervescent gold with 3 fingers+ of fluffy cream colored head. Lovely head retention & lacing

S: Cakey, a little pine once warm

T: Cakey, piney, a little grapefruit up front. More dryness & pine as this warms up, some pineapple notes . Finishes a little dry with pineapple & cakeyness & a little bit of woody hops as well

MF: Fairly chewy, low carbonation; nice balance

Easy to drink, good no nonsense Imperial IPA, nose could be more

 

Um, yeah, your TPS reports are overdue…

 

We moved to a new place this past spring, and the neighbourhood fauna are... somewhat deranged. The squirrels in particular, though the crows have been a little sketchy as well.
We have a lot of plantings covering our back deck, and one of the squirrels in particular won't stop digging up... well, everything. I think it is just trying to guess whether a squirrel would hide nuts in our pots, and then forgets he already checked and there was nothing. Or maybe he's just a jerk. He DID behead my wife's sunflowers just as they were coming in... didn't eat the flowers/seeds or anything, just cut the heads off and left them laying at the base of the stalk. Maybe there's a squirrel gang or something and he was warning us it was his turf.

That's wild (no pun intended). Hopefully the closure of the park leads to fewer invaders, but I worry it'll do the opposite... they won't have the park to sustain them, so they'll be that much more curious about the surrounding areas!
Also, the hot dog tree sounds... strange to say the least. The first thing that came to my mind was Tom Green:

I've been so busy I didn't even register that FH had started already! I've got some work to do!!

 

Fremont - Trail Magic, an AAL at 4.2% abv.

16oz can served in a footed pilsner glass. Packaged 08/11/22. Bought it at the brewery earlier today.

Pours clear light gold with a short-lived foamy head that settles into a coarse skin. Smell is light, slightly grassy, slightly grainy, just a ghost of musty/yeasty funk.

Taste is a bit more toward the yeasty funk, light grain tea, light honeysuckle, and very light grassiness.

Mouthfeel is very light, clean, effervescent. This is a nice upgrade to most beers of the style, but still clearly within the same style. I could drink a lot of it.

 

Good luck with the squirrels, digging up the pots is one of the most annoying things they do I feel like. Squirrels, annoying Americans and Canadians from coast to coast.

If I missed it I’ll feel horrible but how is the pregnancy coming along? You guys are getting close right? I fully could be forgetting you sharing, if you did, my bad memory disclaimer.

 

Not getting to Rainier or Baker for us was hard but damn we didn’t have enough time. If I had to pick one place to fly to again it would be Washington, so hopefully we get back one day.

 

What a great thoughtful review. I think I'll avoid this one.
Sorry about your trees. Living around here trees are very important to me. We have big hickories, ash, and white oaks in the yard. But, years ago (1994) in an ice storm we lost a nice spruce. We replaced it with a recommended Cryptomeria- a Japanese conifer. It is now 60 feet tall and is a beautiful addition to our home.

 

Wow, back to school?!? I just finished my 4th week. (I they I NEED some Dinner!)

 

Good morning BAs! Today’s new to me beer is from Anchorage Brewing Company, “Into Nothingness”, an imperial stout aged in Missouri oak foeders. Finished on bananas, Madagascar vanilla beans, and raw coconut:






Poured at 57°. Black with ruby edges; fizzy fleeting reddish brown head; poor cap retention; no ring and small island of micro dots; spots of lace and flecks of coconut on swirl; no legs. Bananas and chocolate nose. Very sweet bananas and chocolate. No coconut. No barrel flavors. Gooey syrupy feel; full adjuncty body; warmth in mouth from 15% abv; moderate minus carbonation. Overall almost too sweet to drink; I couldn’t find any coconut or barrel, likely smothered by the bananas covered in chocolate syrup; a miss from ABC…pity given the ridiculously high price point.

3.5 | 3.75 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 3.5
Score: 3.61 rDev - 18%

I’ve liked most of the IPAs I’ve had from this brewery, so I may stick with those in the future. A Tavour purchase. Cheers y’all and enjoy the Labor Day holiday!

 

I will need some by the end of first period…we always start day or second day after Labor Day. A true end to summer, I envy you having a routine already, always takes me a week or two to be “back” in go mode.

 

Thanks! No worries, you've missed nothing on that front. She's ready to pop though... due at the beginning of October. And she's very much ready, ha. She's a NICU nurse, so she was stressing all up until the final big developmental milestones around 32 weeks and now she's like, 'ok, any time you want to show up is fine!' I have to regularly remind her (the baby) that while that may be technically true, she really should stay where she's at until the end... it's not any better out here, I promise!

 

Wow, I guess I missed this announcement. Congrats, K!

 

Heady days. My children (40 and 37) came by yesterday for one of our grandson's birthday. The boys are 15 and 13- Sylvan and Owen. Sylvan (15) appears to have gotten the McGinty "tall jean". He's 73 inches and growing like a weed. Blink your eyes and 10 years is gone! Good luck to you and have a great time.....

 

Well hello NBW.
Been ripping up our "laundry room." Really it is so much more than just a laundry room due to its awkward corner fireplace. Anyway, my buddy offered to help, and I could NOT refuse. He is incredibly handy and the most positive can-do kind of person. Plus he's my best friend since childhood and even though we only live 12 mils apart, we won't see each other for months at a time. So we are spending some serious quality time together. Oh, and it's been between a 102 and a 105 each day, so there's that.

Here's my 2 cents on a solid IPA.
10:45 to Denver by Eppig Brewing down San Diego way.

From a 16 oz can.
Well she is pretty. Very slightly amber missed gold in color. Fluffy white head ascends to nearly 2 inches and slowly retreats to a solid 3/4 cap. Great retention with layered, almost chunky lacing.
Nose has a smooth wash of citrus, orange rind and muted lemon, along with that traditional piney note.
Taste takes things up a notch. The citrus notes are full and round. But here the pine goes a little more toward dank. Lovely. The bitterness is like a gentle walk down a path away from the sweet bready notes. It really takes its time bringing you to the finish.
Mouthfeel is medium, carbonation is lively enough throughout the journey, and finishes between slick and creamy.
Overall, a beautiful beer.
3.92/5 rDev -0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

 

Some of y'all may be familiar with the whole saga around Elysian Brewing. They were one of the big conspicuous buyouts several years ago when the macro companies went on a spree of buying out local microbreweries. They were especially notable because a: they were a big member of the local brewing scene, and specifically b: their founder, Dick Cantwell was VERY vocally opposed to the whole big macrobrewing scene and their brewing and business practices. Unfortunately, his two business partners saw the green and outvoted him 2-1 to sell, and, well, the rest is history. Some of the brewers from Elysian went on to other things, most notably Steve Luke, who went on to found Cloudburst, to much initial fanfare. Their hype has died down significantly, but they are still brewing really good beers, and I'd argue the reason for the lessened hype is more directly tied to the nature of attention spans and marketing in the modern age moreso than any shortcoming in the product itself.


(beer break, since I ended up writing a lot more than I'd initially intended)

Of course, as a part of the sale there were all sorts of NDAs, and non-compete for recipes, etc (at least according to my friend who used to work at Cloudburst), so he was never able to truly just port over/clone any of the successful recipes from the Elysian days. They've skirted this on occasion (the one that always jumps to mind is Tigers and Lazerbeams, a vague recreation of Dayglow, and a play on the label thereof), and my offering from last night is another in that vein. Anyway, one of Elysian's most popular brews from when he (Luke) was the head(?) brewer there was called Space Dust. It's still pretty popular... I'd bet most of y'all based in the US have seen it, irregardless of what state you're in. Well, Cloudburst decided to 'pay homage' to that classic, with a beer titled Cosmic Lust.



It's a lovely pour overall. Hazy golden pale orange colour to the body, with a nice finger or two of soft fluffy head that slowly settles in and laces the glass nicely.

Nose is immediately bold and bright out of the can. Lots of citrus, some dry spice. It's not surprising to me to look and see amarillo and chinook in the hop profile.

Flavour follows the same template, but explores the space a little bit more fully. It's richer than the nose, more lush. A bit of nectar, that citrusy melange, some faint pulpy sweet fruits, the raspy bitterness of amarillo... it's really good. The flavours remind me of those often found in APAs, but pumped up to IPA/DIPA levels. I haven't had Space Dust in a long time, but I like this quite a bit more than I remember liking Space Dust, and that's more than just my implicit bias against corporate beer speaking! The finish lingers with a classic spicy bitterness.
I haven't been drinking a tonne of IPAs lately, but this might just change my mind and send me back in that direction (well, that and the burgeoning FH season. Tis truly the most wonderful time of the year!).


(I especially appreciate the hop nug giving the middle finger. I legit didn't notice that at first, until I'd unfurled the label and taken the picture. It really seems to sum up the relationship well.)

(definite family resemblance, duh).


Anyway, cheers, and happy Labour Day!!