New Beer Weekend #243

Russian River Fonio, a new-to-me Belgian blonde. Preliminary review below. Cheers!

4.01/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4
335mL bottle (packaged 8/13/2024) into a tulip. Pours a pale golden color with a half-finger white head that settles quickly to a narrow collar around the edge of the glass.

Aroma is floral and grassy, almost pilsner-esque. Some fruity esters keep it on the Belgian side of the border. In a word, the aroma is delicate.

Taste is likewise subtle and nuanced—pale bready malt, lemon zest, just a hint of Belgian funk. Thinking maybe they used pilsner malt, will check description. Light and refreshing.

Mouthfeel is also crisp and light with lively carbonation. Highly drinkable.

Overall a nice, understated Belgian blonde, indistinguishable from plenty of other offerings from across the pond.

 

I think this batch/canning is weak and maybe slightly off. I have bought a 4 pack or 2 of this one every winter for the last 3 years or so. It seems weak in both flavor and aroma. I didn't get the hint of Belgium candy in this canning.

 

KC Bier Co. Hop Sticke Dusseldorf Style Alt beer, 7.0% ABV; 4.32 overall

My bottle is 7.0% ABV

Pours a somewhat effervescent caramel/copper color with a thumb+ of tan head. Great head retention & insane lacing, drops bright

S: Bready, toffee notes, some jammy notes once the beer warms up

T: Follows the nose. a little dry, some leafy & woody hops, some fruittyness as well up front. More woody hops mixing with some caramel, toastyness & dryness, a little bit of leafy hops & dryness once this beer warms up, along with a little bit of pears & figs. Finishes dry, fruity with woody hops

MF: Medium body, fairly firm carbonation, good balance

Nails the style for the most part, a little drier than I remember these being over in Germany

 

Only the Pros down south wait until the actual day if they have to work that day & it butts up against a weekend

 

Made me appreciate a well-made Sour a little more...

 

And the truly Irish. Welsh/English/Dutch/German here

 

I saw this at my local bottle shop, and thought it was a new to me offering...I'm always excited about a new Saison...though it turns out I have already reviewed it back in 2020, and I wasn't a particular fan of it then. So lets just see how this goes, as I really don't remember trying it back then ha.

De Ranke Saison De Dottingnies, 5.5% ABV. The bottle says unpasteurized/unfiltered.



A hazy golden/amber color. With a dense white head that forms. Retention and lacing for days...maybe this is bottled conditioned, but outside the unpasteurized/unfiltered designation, it doesn't say so.

Oh, bitter grassy hops. Some bready malts, and lingering bitterness. Effervescent carbonation and not hard to drink.

I'm almost sure I didn't have a particularly fresh bottle when I first reviewed it, as this has a much more pronounced hoppy character than I described there (this bottle says expiration date of 19/6/2026, so I would say this is fairly fresh for imports standards). Saying that, the hoppy character is all that is really of note here. I would like some more esters and yeast character. So on that level, I do still agree this is a bit of a lack luster Saison for me. Dupont has that great hoppiness as well, combined with a great yeast character, which is lacking here.

My original score is 3.07, while if I re scored this, I don't think it would be that low. but still not near the top tier for me. And also not enough difference for me to really take the time and update...but interesting to mostly re confirm an old opinion I didn't even know I had ha.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/739/58235/?ba=champ103#review

 

Two weeks in row. I’m on a roll!

This afternoon I opened a bottle of Godspeed Kaede/2. This is a three year old barleywine blended with ‘oodles’ of maple syrup. It’s bottled still and I have had the bottle for a few years in my cellar.

This will allow me to live vicariously through the barleywine BIF drinking I’ve been following intently the past several days.



Pours a deep mahogany red that is difficult to see in the above photo. Still, as noted, with what appears to be a fairly light body.

The nose is very complex. I get stewed figs and prunes, port wine, Twizzlers liquorice, and of course strong maple.

The taste encompasses all of that with a hefty sweetness. The maple is more assertive on the tongue as well.

This is a sipper. More from the sweetness than the 10% ABV.

Enjoyable, but I’ll probably need to wait a bit to open another bottle.

 

It seems to be mainly a college age thing here. I noticed much busier traffic at the liquor store last Thursday. The police reports may tell a story next week.

 

Thanks to @GreenBayBA for this weekends thread and the disclaimer about Central Waters stout thin mouthfeel: 3 rounds in the ring with @Resistance88 aint no carny Black Bear wrastle match in Madison, WI.
Pretty sure Micah donated that purse to unwed mothers of Australia. But that’s for the tell-all, check out the BA zoom 3/29. Ok, commercial done.

Fidens Jasper With Pineapple


4.38/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.5
Canned 3/6, picked up in Albany 3/7 cracked 3/16.. pours yellow golden milky murk with a sumptuous 2 finger head that is sticky lazy lattice down the glass. Aroma is danky tangerine delicious and inviting. Taste is again tangerine, sweet Citra hops explosion with grapefruit bitter, a hint of pineapple(?), definite dankyness. Feel is super creamy, sticky, smacky: dipa of the highest order. Yeah, Fidens is superlative!!!!

fanboy here!

 

Pete,
1) how dare you!
2) dm me for April

 

Firestone Walker + Revolution - Oakpocalypse Now

12oz bottle served in a tulip. 2024 vintage (if there are any other vintages). Got it from @DIM return fire in Stout/Barleywine BIF #2.

Pours dark brown, burnt caramel / light chocolate color. Maybe it's hazy...think so, with a back light to confirm. Pours with a decent sized maybe one inch head on the pour, settles into a thick, even dense skin with a thicker less even ring. Smell is oak, berries, toffee, maybe some nuts and vanilla.

Taste is similar, but throw in a ton of dates. Maybe berry fruitiness is heavier, and there's something creamy. Rye isn't exactly noticeable on its own, but barrel is pretty clear. Red wine and rye barrels...if I think specifically about those, the flavors are more obvious, and quite interesting -- not perfect, but makes me think of rye with luxardo cherries.

Mouthfeel is thick, creamy, sticky, chewy. Overall, very nice.

 

Love me some Fremont, very excited to put 1765 into this gorgeous glass. @snaotheus is awesome.



This blend of BA stout and barleywine is definitely leaning more to the barleywine side. This is fine. I'm getting smooth caramel with just a hint of char to it at the center of things, though medium roast coffee is also fairly prominent. There are so some really nice fruit notes at work here to, cherry, fig, and a little raisin. I also get a surprisingly strong cinnamon note as well, nothing in the description suggests this should be here so I'm not sure where that's coming from. The barrel notes are a perfect compliment, the vanilla barrels are noticeable. Really nice beer, thanks Ryan!

 

Nice write-up. I enjoyed this as well and agree that it's interesting. But I hope someday these two collaborate on something where awesome is the only goal and leave interesting out of the equation.

 

My bottle shop guy didn’t even notify annyone about this arrival! Enjoyed such a high-intensity hazy pale ale at reasonable ABV was a treat.

4.55/5 rDev +0.7%
look: 4.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
PKG 02/19/2025. Poured into a Samuel Adams Perfect Pint.

Beer #3000!!!

A: Murky, opaque bright gold with 2-finger frothy white head with good retention and multiple bands of lacing.

S: Aromas in the DDH version are about double, having just had garden variety reasonably fresh Pseudo Sue last weekend. Heavy mango, pineapple, melon, passion fruit, and tangerine with medium dank, herbal hop undercurrent.

T: Flavor also brings more intensity than base model with more melon, pineapple, lime, tangerine, and guava. Honeysuckle and herbal floral notes also there. Esters light and fruity. Bitterness is moderate.

M: Slightly gritty which isn’t bad but just not my favorite quality. Light-medium body and dry finish.

O: An incredible upgrade to an outstanding iconic pale ale - Toppling Goliath finds more intensity and blasts away with a Citra cannon on the DDH version. Highly recommended.

 

Wow... horrible pictures, dirty glass, so much winning.

Bookhouse Brewing Rauchbock. Never ever purchased an unlabeled can before. I, mmm, don't have much to say other than it's really good to FINALLY get around to trying another smoked beer. This is good, as their stuff always is. This one has a pleasant aroma of wood smoke over a hint of sweetness. Thinking maybe the taste is slightly sweeter than I want, but the smoky malt is quality. That's why I like this place. They keep the classics alive.

Can't figure out a rating though because the stout-IPA scale has ruined my perception.

 

Good evening NBS/W. Great day with the grandson today. Collected owl pellets from our woods. He learned to find the "whitewash" and tag the trees so we can check them regularly. He picked up a pellet and got all excited because there were teeth and they were red, which mean it's a shrew. A couple of careers ago the missus and I were biologists. She published a paper on barn owl pellets from Martha's Vinyard. Good to have an in-house expert handy. Then we built Leprechaun traps and baked cake...

Here's one from our summer shopping spree...as someone on here says - on Sundays we drink barleywine:



Barreled Souls Extended Aged Dickel's Cabin, a 16.1% abv American Barely wine aged for 20 months and 28 days in 12 yr Dickel's bourbon barrels. Not having had the original version I have no idea what I'm in for here...let's dive in!

It pours a muddy brown kinda molasses color with no appreciable head but a bead of fine bubbles and an island does form. The fine bubbles actually cling hard and cascade slowly back to the surface.

The aroma is 100% bourbon-forward - not alcohol hot, just a smooth smell of sweet bourbon. Until you stick your nose in the glass...Toffee and molasses follow, a nice level of vanilla and a hint of dark fruit that reads raisin. I'll cop out here and just say this smells absolutely delicious. I mean you can smell the bourbon from across the room, but it is still part of the whole. It's fabulous.

I could say the same with the taste. There is no doubt this beer lived in some wicked good bourbon barrels. Overall it is fairly sweet. The bourbon is the star here - everybody else is part of the supporting cast. Vanilla plays more in the taste. Toffee and molasses, brown sugar, caramel. The fruit is also more rounded heading into the fig and date realm. There's just a hint of bitterness that tames the sweetness nicely. Talking a lot about the bourbon but I wouldn't say it's one dimensional at all. The co-stars are more than adequate.

Medium body, tiny and a little prickly on the carbonation. A tad bit sticky. Actually finishes dry. It is quite pleasantly warming. Although it is very bourbon-forward and know it's high ABV, there's no sense of the alcohol being out of bounds.

This is mellow, elegant, and luxurious. It screams for a Macanudo and crackling fireplace. I'm guessing the extra months in the barrel amped up the bourbon presence yet its somehow blended into the overall flavor. I'm gonna be sippin' on this for quite a while as the missus doesn't want to split it tonight. Secretly I'm fine with that - her loss! Really diggin' everything about this. Easily a 4.5.

 

@LeRose what an awesome day! Owl pellets, learning, and leprechaun traps!

 

Thanks! I wasn't sure since the previous BA version didn't specify!