New Beer Weekend #148

If we’re taking votes I say make it a four day

 

Thanks, Dave. We will drink great beers together again and laugh about the shitty Doppelbock

 

Good evening all!

Henrik Baltic Porter from Transient.
Poured stout black with a brown head which dissipated quickly.
The aroma was lost on me, stupid Covid.
The taste is all about the roasted malts, nearly sweet but a light smoke flavor adds to the savory side to balance the taste. I’ve had less malty stouts.
The feel is light viscosity, which is what makes me wonder if it’s actually a lager or if the “Baltic” aspect relates to something else.
OA, good beer, really good. I emailed the brewery to ask about the lager thing.
Cheers all!

 

Certainly more bad BA Doppelbocks out there than good IMHO

 

Don't dilly dally on the Pliny

 

Marshal Brewing Freight Train IPA, 8.3% ANB; 4.0 overall

Pours a chill hazed gold with a thumb of cream-colored head. Pretty good head retention & lacing

S: Cakey, piney, wanted more from the nose

T: Follows the nose, a little orange & pineapple as well up front, fairly dry. Pine dominates as this beer warms up, dryness & cakeyness too& just a little pineapple, just a kiss of booze. Finishes, cakey & dry with a little grapefruit & pineapple pretty piney

MF: Fairly chewy, delicate carbonation

Solid Old School DIPA with a West Coast slant. Typical Marshall beer, very drinkable will not blow you away, but on point style-wise

Last new beer of the weekend

 

Thanks for the follow-up!

 

I have a ton of reviews to type up now

 

Alright, look at this, two entries in one weekend! I feel so accomplished. Plus I've got a real dinner plan tonight! Hashtag killing it.
I've had this one sitting in my fridge for a little while. I'd been saving it to share with the wife, because I thought she might enjoy boysenberries, and I don't think she's ever had a *dark* sour before, but the last two times I've offered to open it she's decided it doesn't really sound appealing to her, so now I get to drink it on my own!!



Anchorage - Anadromous

I'll be honest: I was expecting to pour a reddish liquid out of the bottle. Fruited sours, especially those with berries, seem to trend towards the reddish/purplish end of the spectrum, but this is more akin to a dark porter, with that espresso-deep-brown-bordering-on-black colouration. There's an initial small velvety swirl of khaki coloured head, but by the time I've taken two sips, even the ring that seemed destined to cling to the side of the glass is but a memory.

Nose starts off with the fruit: berries, yup; plum, verging on prunes, check; and then kind of a must takes over... somewhere between the must of like grapes, and a mustiness like the the old wooden bottling room/office of the winery I once worked at. Initial impressions are that it leads in with fruit, then lingers with must/wood, but as it sits in my glass while my fingers dance across the keyboard, revisitations lean much more back into the berries.

The flavour starts off pretending it's going to jump right into the juicy berrie-JUST KIDDING HERE'S SOME TARTNESS FOR YOU. Initially it glides from the juice of the berries to the tartness of underripe berries, but that is just a slippery slope into a heart of tartness (I'm not even sorry) that is dull sour and earthy. Not vinegary, not even really acidic... I realized just now, it's not even prunes that I'm getting... it's dried plums. Specifically the dried plums from my mom's Italian plum tree. Skin on, which imparts the tartness that I get on this beer. So, to recap: some underripe berry, as well as the skin of dried plums, adding in to create an earthy sour/tart melange. There's elements of leather and tobacco as well, but they take a back seat. I could even argue for an influence from coffee, though it doesn't TASTE like coffee, if that makes sense.

Carbonation is subtly sharp, the drink is dry and smoothe, and overall I enjoy it more than I expected to. We'll see if there's any left when my wife gets home from work, and if so, if she enjoys it as well.

This is also one of those bottles that I'm going to save in the back of the pantry for when I finally get my shit together and get back to cutting glass bottles down into cups. It's a cool one. Honestly that may well be why I bought it in the first place.

Cheers!

 

Cypress consigliere lemon espresso stout.
..... wierd cola brown appearance.
...too much carbonation for the style with a slightly above average body.
....low acid coffee,espresso beans,roasted malt, toast and malt.
....taste doesn't stray too far from the aroma, the lemon shows up in a very passive way.
....overall I want to say its good but it just doesn't come together well for me.

 

The Pliny will not survive another week, I need to split it with someone and trying to coordinate. The anticipation is killing me . Cheers!

 

For my next new beer, I came back to the PNW and visited The Past.

Not too long ago, Block 15 Brewing down in Corvallis, OR celebrated their 15th anniversary. They brewed three collaboration beers for the event: The Past (amber ale), The Present (west coast IPA), and The Future (Japanese rice lager).



(Haven't posted a review yet. Still working on the numbers.)

Block 15 The Past Amber Ale
16-ounce can purchased at ABV Public House in Hillsboro, OR. Date stamp reads "04/14/23". Poured in a nonic half-pint.

Look:
The beer is a bright and perfectly clear red-amber, capped with fluffy beige foam. The head has very good retention and leaves craggy islands of foam on the glass.

Smell:
Yep, this is a NW amber ale. Starts off with dry, crisp malt and orange/pine hop flavors. Fruity esters broker a peace between the two, softening the crispness of the malt while playing nicely with the citrusy hop character.

Taste:
The flavor is an appealing, bittersweet combination of toasty malt, orange peel, and dried fruit. The flavors pivot through the middle, with the ale fruitiness dropping out to let a satisfying mix of roasted almonds, hazelnuts, and crackery malt push to the front. The lengthy finish is semi-sweet with deep resiny bitterness.

Feel:
Light-bodied with brisk carbonation. Drying and moreish.

Overall:
This beer is a time machine to an era when craft beer was called "microbrew" and it seemed like every brewpub offered a blonde, a pale, an IPA, and an amber. Block 15 The Past is a well-made NW-style hop-forward amber ale with deliciousness that goes beyond mere nostalgia.

Side note: This beer got along real nice with the pulled pork al pastor tacos and pineapple salsa I made for dinner.

 

I love that place in Little Italy. I always pick up some beers to go after my visit to Ballast Point across the street.