New Beer Weekend #182

Wow, that is from way back! I'm glad it held up. I had a few different Hunter variants that got lost in my move from The Region and they were hit or miss. If my memory is correct the barrel aged I opened was a drain pour. I was a fan of the beer and brewery when I lived in NW Indiana. Friends back there don't speak too highly of the place now for whatever reason? Perhaps I'll have to find out for myself next time I'm visiting?

Cheers Derek and thanks for another trip down memory lane!

 

Poured into a 16 oz Nordic pint glass canned 2 or 3 weeks ago. Pours a very attractive. Milky yellow with a finger plus sticky white head that leaves thick streaks of lace with excellent retention. 4.5

Aroma is tangerine, passionfruit, guava, papaya, and apricot. 4.5

Taste follows tangerine, passionfruit, guava, papaya, and apricot. 4.75

Mouthfeel is big, soft gentle carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 8.5% massive and balanced flavor, with insane drinkability. 5

Overall this one is very impressive. This one rivals the best Modestman has ever brewed. 4.5

 

Good Sunday morning, New Beer Sippers and commentators. Yesterday, I paid a visit to The Seed in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It's generally recognized as one of top breweries in our state. I generally go there during the winter because it's typically mobbed during the nicer months and parking is limited. When we arrived it was relatively quiet but then filled up quickly.

My last beer was a BA Imperial Stout collaboration with Timber Ales in NYC called Part of the Silence. It's aged for 19 months in a 7 year Heaven Hill barrel, and conditioned on Mortal Minds espresso blend, cinnamon, Indonesian vanilla, and dried chamomile. And it's stunningly good! In fact, it is one of the best BA Stouts I've ever had!

It pours nearly ink black. The fizzy, medium-mocha-colored head disappeared almost immediately leaving the faintest remnant of lacing inside the glass. The aroma is fabulous with notes of freshly-brewed coffee, rich chocolate, caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, bready yeast, black cherry, and subtle but noticeable bourbon. Its taste follows but is even better! There's acidic coffee, cinnamon, freshly-baked brown bread, rich dark chocolate, vanilla, and earthy char. The Heaven Hill barrel influence is delicate but flavorful and magically accentuates the other flavors without dominating or distracting. Just superb! The mouth feel is as close to perfect as I've experienced: chewy, oily, with mild carbonation, and the 13% ABV is extraordinarily well-hidden. I sipped it slowly and didn't feel the elevated alcohol level. Overall, Part of the Silence is an absolute work of art - an amazing BA Imperial Stout and one of the best I've ever had. I wish it had been bottled.

4.73/5 rDev +3.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.75

I've only awarded a "5" a handful of times. I'm blown away by this Stout! Cheers, NBW!

 

Time for another round today, and this is a new beer and an experiment in ageing beer.

Mephistopheles' Stout - Avery Brewing - American Imperial Stout - 15.95% ABV (2010 release)

Yes, this beer is 14 years old, and I've never had it before today. I found this in a liquor store in the Twin Cities metro last year, and I knew it was something I should buy. I've heard a lot about it, and now I get a chance to try it.

I am blown away with the carbonation in this beer, and how long the head lasted. It is a beautiful looking beer. The beer smells very weak for what it should be. This weak nose translates into the flavor. There's some faint hints of what it was, but they are faint. I am glad I tried it, but, don't even think about having it aged 14 years. If you're sitting on an older version of it, I'd drink it now, rather than waiting on it.

Review
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30/28204/

3.75/5 rDev -11.1%
look: 5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 3.5
12 oz bottle. 2010 release consumed on 1-14-2024. Served at room temp.

Nice pop upon opening the bottle and there's a nice bit of smoke coming out. Very pitch black looking when pouring into the glass. I did an aggressive pour to see if there was any carbonation in this beer, since it's 14 years old, and I am very surprised there's a lot of it. The head produced is 2 finger and brown in color. Frothy, and smaller bubbles. Head retention is off the charts. How can the head last so long with a 15.95% ABV Beer? Some clingy and sticky lacing on the glass as it slowly dissipates. Wow!
Roasted chocolate, malty nose. Hints of vanilla and caramel. Slight hint of coffee. Nose isn't too strong, but, it's a very old beer.
Taste is where this experiment is either proven good or bad. I'm not too sure it's a success. I do get some faint notes of caramel, chocolate and vanilla. The main flavor is a boozy flavor that is somewhat bitter tasting.
This is a very thick and full feeling beer. Smooth, and a very slight burn.
Was this a beer that was outstanding in its prime? Probably, but, at 14 years, way past. I wish I would have known about this beer in its prime days.


I am going to finish this beer off, out of respect for what it was probably like in its prime. It will take a bit, but I think there will be one more today.

 

Enjoying a Lagunitas Willettized coffee stout, 12.4% - phenomenal for $9.99/ 6-pack!



-Look: Beautiful black-coffee color with a creamy tan cap.
-Smell: Swirling coffee-rye, then chocolate and toffee.
-Taste: Head-spinning mix of chocolate, rye, and coffee - wow!
-Feel: Medium and coating, creamy and smooth.
-Overall: Unbeatable world-class stout for the price - don't pass it up!

 

Hey What's going on?!

Hope everyone is doing well. It's sorta looking and feeling like Winter for once here, some light snowfall, and I certainly hope everyone else is ok, as I did hear about excessive snow in some other areas of the US.

I am enjoying my time here, and working some great cooking these days. Had some stocks made, then used those for some incredible stews and soups which have long since been devoured. I got a pasta Bolognese to fire up today and it's gonna kick some ass.

Been a bit heavy lately on the IPAs of late, getting a little tired so I am switching gears finally to some different styles.

Going to post what I had yesterday for this weekend, and showing also my newest brews this weekend.

So what's new for our hero?

Snow - Tree House Brewing Co. (from yesterday)



Poured from the can into a Spiegelau IPA glass. Canned 12/12/2023, double *********.

Murky yellow, a bit of turbidity sitting in a classic opaque appearance. Kind of looks like peach custard a bit. Top is capped nicely with very fine foamed and creamy looking bubbles. Colored off white, there's a lot of staying power and a very creamed top that looks like boiled milk almost. Very fine bubbles and ring like lacing sort everything out. Just can't dig that body color.

Delicious sensing aroma. Sweet stone fruit, and hinting citrus oils, kind of an apricot angle going on slightly as well. Faint touch of dank as well. Lots of nice hop aromas going on here to explore. Strong and bold and very complex nose.

Palate brings the goods also. Chewy body with a mid palate that brings a wealth of flavors. Chewy sensing mango, touches of orange and citrus. Exotic vanilla and milky like sweetness, even going into bubblegum. Finish really provides a nice contrast. Budding herbs and sharp pine needles on the finish, mixing with sweet mint and sage like herbs to round out the beer experience.

Great hop profile, and love the malt backbone on this as well.

look: 3.75 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5 | BA Score: 4.46

Remote - Tree House Brewing Co.



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Pretty wild looking Keller, and by far the darkest bodied colored one I have seen yet. Deep honey gold, and touching dark mixing red with a caramel brown color. Looks like caramelized honey coming out of the can when pouring. Fills the top with a khaki to light tan tinged colored head, with solid three fingers and big bubbles. Soapy fine retention, minimal cling, but good staying power. Very wild looking brew.

Excellent aroma. Dark notes of brown bread, dough, thick punchy yeast and honey sweetness as well. Mild herbal hop, and almost rye like sensing on the malt character with this spicy tone that seems present. Very interesting aroma, quite distinct, but I have to say so far this color and aroma has me happily perplexed.

Very interesting palate. Bready notes with sweet chewy quality on first sip. Very noticeable caramel notes mixing with clean and bright and rich flavor. Finishes with an herbal hop palate of grass and barely hinting some mint sweetness for counting. Creates an excellent slow build of warm bitter heat on the finish which is very impressive, cutting through the honey and caramel sweetness wonderfully.

Kind of a little flex on the style here, with the caramel sweetness angle, but the bready and hop push makes for great drinking in a lager. Nicely done.

look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25 | BA Score: 4.21

Cheers!!

 

It's been a cold week. We even got a dusting of snow the other day. Supposed to be warming up the coming week.
My new beer for today is Where Our Secrets Go, an imperial stout from Voodoo Brewing, with an ABV of 9%.
Canned 04/14/23
Pitch black color. Small tan head that recedes quickly.
Aroma of roasted malt, chocolate, and char.
Taste follows the nose. Chocolate and char.
A bit thin in the mouth. Alcohol is well-hidden.
Would drink this again.

 

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Samplers and commentators. Yesterday was Slack Tide Brewing's 8th Anniversary celebration and the first in its new, larger home. It was a mob scene and we didn't stay long. I miss the intimacy of the old brewery/tasting room but Slack Tide can brew - and sell - a lot more beer, which is why they're in business.

Slack Tide is very good at brewing New England IPAs. Temperature Break is the latest. It is brewed with a split mash of Pale Ale and 2 Row malt, flavored oats and wheat, and hopped with a blend of New Zealand hops, including Kohatu, with Chinook for bittering. I'd describe it as a heavier, winter IPA.

It pours a cloudy, honey-orange color with almost a finger of fluffy, ecru-colored head and very thick lacing inside the glass. A big, fruity nose with lots of tangerine, pineapple, ripe melon, lemon, and lime, with additional oaty sweetness. The taste pops with tropical fruit, including pineapple and tangerine, from the New Zealand hops, over a firm wheat cracker base. The flavored oats provide some additional sweetness but it's tempered by some strong piney, herbal notes from Kohatu hops. The Chinook contributes a dose of sharp, clean bitterness throughout. It is well-balanced and flavorful. This ale has a good, rich mouth feel with good carbonation, and at 6.8% ABV it's very drinkable. Overall, Temperature Break is a welcome addition to Slack Tide's stable of New England IPAs. It is a good recipe that's executed well. It's heavy enough for winter drinking but you could also pound them on the beach.

4.24/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Enjoy your holiday weekend, everyone!

 

Hey there NBW! Some of the temps you are all reporting here and in WBAYDN are crazy--it's comparatively warm here but the front is coming through and more seasonal weather is right behind it.

I've been looking forward to this one and finally got around to it. Wasn't at all like I expected. I recall a marketing campaign Laphroaig did a few years ago where they had people describe the juxtaposition of flavor and experience (it tastes like you took my month-old gym clothes and washed them with seawater in the still-warm ashes of a camp fire, then added some rotting fish, seaweed, and iodine; it's fucking fantastic). This beer makes me think of that. A prominent, unexpected, somewhat unpleasant funk, with a medicinal bitterness, yet the more I drink the more I like it.

Anyway, today's new beer is:
Jack's Abby Welcome to the Bockside
8% bock



Pours a medium amber with a three-finger tan head that lingers to a coating.

Straight off the pour there are aromas of caramel and toffee pervaded by a strong funk. This definitely picked up some hitchhikers during open fermentation. I'm a bit surprised by how strong the funk is as I've had other JA open-fermented beers with only a subtle funk you had to search for. No so here, pronounced and up front.

The funk gets a bit in the way for me on the sip, initially. There's some molasses sweetness up front that transitions into brown bread and well-toasted whole grain bread, and then that funk comes to the fore again on the finish. Throughout there is an almost medicinal bitterness. As it warms a lot more malt character comes through and the funk recedes a bit, drinking more like a doppelbock.

Medium and fine carb lead to a smooth beer with no carb bite. Medium to medium-full bodied with a moderately dry finish.

Overall, this is too easy to drink for an 8%er, but also seems a little more muddled than I'm used to from JA, whose beers usually have clean, distinct flavors to my palate. That said, I'd gladly reach for another.

 

Drekker/Xül collab Here Comes The Alien Invasion Fruited Sour, 6.4% ABV. Pours thick opaque blood-red, with a one-finger pink head that left puree residue. Aroma is strong almond cookie and marshmallow. Taste follows, plus cherry and peach/apricot, quite sweet, slightly tart. Creamy and thick mouthfeel, slightly over-carbonated. Overall most excellent.

4.32/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4.25

We're in the midst of a 'no travel advised' winter storm with a dangerous windchill of -31F, so I'm hunkered down watching the Hunger Games Mockingjay Pt 2 after just reading all of the Hunger Games books for the first time. I have my highest-rated beer cooling in the fridge, to be drunk during the Packers game. Being drunk for that game may be needed....

 

Well I woke up this morning to a frigid house and a baby who wasn't pleased by that fact. Went and checked and the boiler had turned off sometime yesterday afternoon and neither me nor my wife had noticed. Hm. Couldn't get it to restart. Inopportune timing considering temps are expected to get down into the teens this week! Thankfully, my BIL and I were able to google and fiddle our way around and eventually I was able to fix it, so the house is now comfortable once again. Just in time, too, as we started to get a few flurries! By the time I got the little one all gowned up in snow gear, though, of course it had stopped. Oh well. Eventually we'll get some real snow and I'll learn what these east coast winters are supposed to be all about.

The wife is asleep after a long stretch of night shifts, and the mini-me is climbing and dumping out blocks so she can pick them up and put them back in their tower, while the dog is curled up on the couch next to me.
So I'm going to take time for a beer!



Duncan's Abbey - Quadrupel

The pour is a rusty brown. Nice liittle light tan head that looks impressive initially but dies down pretty quick, though honestly judging by the walls of the glass that might be a substandard washing job of the glass its last time through the sink.

Nose leans a little bit more towarsd the treble notes for my preference, but is still enjoyable. Some clove like spicy phenols, a bit of almost purple grape aromatic, some dark bread, dark stone fruits... it kind of reminds me of wheatwines I've had in the past, but this is more enjoyable to me than I remember any of them being.

Flavour has a decent amount of depth and complexity, but nothing crazy. A bit of moderate sweetness that brings out honey (dark buckwheat honey, not the lighter more common stuff), raisins, fig, prunes, some tobacco and leather... The phenols and the alcohol join together in such a way as to kind of minimize the eccentricities of each other and helps them blend into the overall profile. There's some spiciness, and a bit more brown bread, and as it warms the finish even opens up with a bit of banana esters.
This is a 12% beer. It could easily pass for half to two thirds that number just by drinking. Alcohol is incredibly well integrated/hidden... even the sour alcohol note on the finish gets kind of subsumed/camouflaged by some of the esters and hops coming together.

Overall it's quite enjoyable. I typically think of a little more richness to a quad, but I entertain them infrequently enough that that could just be an artifact of my brain projecting its wishes onto a global style. It kind of reminds me of an old ale with Belgian yeasts. However one wants to describe it, though, I find myself enjoying it.


Cheers!!

 

More Tree House beer for Woodchipper. This is King Juicelius. I had a nice picture of the can wording but Imgur is being a little bitch today. So here is a description copy from the BA database-
King Juicelius is a refreshing and exciting version of Juicelius, with an extra dose of a proprietary blend of fruits added before packaging along with a little Tree House magic. It enhances all the delightful flavors of Juicelius that you already know and love. With its vibrant orange color, this beer has a distinct taste of juicy American hops and a variety of amazing fruit flavors such as mango smoothie, guava, peach, pineapple, passion fruit, and orange creamsicle.

4.06/5 rDev -5.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Poured from a 16-oz can dated 01/03/23 to a Nonic at fridge temp.
The body is a densely hazy apricot color. A 3/4 inch head of off white and rather large bubbles sits above. Lacing is moderate to low and the head quickly fades to a partial top covering of micro-bubbles and a ring of the same.
The aroma during the pour has the classic TH yeast smell that quickly transforms to papaya, peach, mango a real mixture.
The taste is of course a real juice bomb. If it wasn’t for the alcohol prominently poking through you would think this came from a Vita mix blender. I am going to mention it once more because the alcohol heat is really noticeable.
Mouthfeel follows the juice theme, but without the pulp. Carbonation seems appropriate.
A real extreme version of a fruit-added NEIPA. Maybe not for everyone, but impressively done.

 

I did not expect that conclusion while reading your review. Is it intended to be “funky” in anyway? Their website description doesn’t provide much detail. Gotta say, what a lame name haha!

 

I'm not sure. The only hint I got was that the side of the can says "open fermented." I do find it a bit confusing though as the JA brewhouse doesn't seem like a hotbed for spontaneous fermentation as all the equipment is stainless and the construction is concrete and coated steel. Only one other BA has rated the beer. @jbertsch, did you notice any of the "funk" aroma I described? I'm way out of my league with these types of aromas, but to me it was kind of a mixture of BO and neary-rotting dairy that was persistent through the entire experience.

 

I was not sure what thread i should post this in so figured the NBW was perfect for me!

4.16/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Picked up a 500 ML bottle directly from the Zillicoah taproom location 1-6-23 for $13. Presumably from 2022, reviewed 1-14-24.

Beer poured a clear reddish-brown with a soap bubble head that dissipated quickly.

Nose is citrus forward along with horseblanket and barnyard.

Taste is interesting as i am getting a light but substantial malt base that gives me a spiciness from the rye and is inoculated with a Brett forward yeast that gives me horseblanket, barnyard, and lemon. Finishes with a surprising resinous hop bite that balances this really well.

Mouthfeel is extremely light bodied and very refreshing.

Overall this is a tasty unique style of beer, and to me drinks like a Saison, glad i gave it a shot!

 

This is Lawson's Nitro Stout, a dry Irish-style stout on, well, nitro.

Did you buy this in CT, i.e. can I find it in a store here?

 

Imprint Beer Co. Lush Prickly Raz Sour Ale with Prickly Pears, 5.5% ABV; 3.92 overall


Pours an effervescent pink/orange with a sliver of beige head. No head retention or lacing

S: Raspberries, lemons

T: Very Raspberry with some lemonade notes & saltyness up front. Some dryness mixes in with the Raspberries, lemons & saltyness as this beer warms through. Finishes tart, a little dry with lemons, raspberries & salt

MF: Medium body, slight carbonation

Easy to drink, but certainly not for noobs, not sure what the Prickly Pear brings, had it once at a Mexican Joint & it did nothing for me. A case to be made for calling this Gose as well