New Beer Weekend #263

Here's the view out the window of the house we are staying in:


Not a bad place to spend a couple of weeks. It's only about four feet deep to well after the dock so it's great for the grandson. He swims to the float with his life jacket. It gets pretty breezy so we are selective on when we take the kayaks out, but we are on the "slow" end of the lake and the powerboats stay well away.

We hit the Allagash corner and found nothing much new to try between Allagash, Foundation, and Definitive. The latter two seem to have settled into regular offerings. Allagash has a bunch of lagers, but they had a mild summer sour that was pretty tame but tasty enough.

On to Barreled Souls...two visits, one in the rain on Thursday and today when it was glorious outside. We tried a bunch and we bought a bunch.

Vecna - an 11% Imperial sour with passion fruit, guava, and orange. Basically a jacked up version of Pogs and Slammers. The higher ABV did actually bump up the flavors. Good tropical fruity beer.

Purple Rain - sour with blackberry, cherry, vanilla. Very nice blend of berry flavors with a little vanilla sweetness.

Black Bombs Over Barley barleywine - this one took me to the mountaintop. I'll defer commentary until I can sit and enjoy a bottle. Quite possibly the best beer I've ever tasted.

Belleflower P.R.E.A.M. - a pistachio stout from Belleflower. Unusual flavor, obvious roasted pistachios and a touch of salt. Liked it but it's tap only.

Speakeasy Mimosa - sour aged in white wine barrels with orange and orange zest. A little mundane but could see it being a good refresher.

Stranger Souls - an imperial stout with cinnamon, nutmeg, baling spices. Definitely not our favorite of the herd. Too much conflict between the flavors.

Eleven - Eggo waffles and maple syrup in a stout, an homage to Stranger Things. Good flavors but far too sweet for my tastes.

Speakeasy Mango Habanero and Mango Doulble Habanero - exactly what they say they are and delicious. The low test version is very much featuring the fruity flavors of the habanero and plenty of guava. The high test takes it a step further with the added heat - not a scorcher, but sneaky heat.

Lady Brambleberry - sour with blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry, vanilla beans, Graham cracker. A very tasty concoction- excellent fresh berry flavors tempered by the vanilla and Graham crackers.

Gosepacho - Barrel aged gose. Tequila barrels and gazpacho. Yup - tomatoes and celery and tequila. Not a disastrous combo by any means. It's pretty close to a beer bloody Mary except it's tequila.

Some or all of these beers may appear in current or future editions of NBW...

 

Hello New Beer Weekend!!!

I am out at the county fair. I had to make a supply run and stopped at a sister store and got this.

Minnesota Vixen - Broken Clock Brewing- St. Paul, MN - NEIPA- 6.7%

It is ok, though the flavor is a good bit light.

Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/49207/654581/
3.62/5 rDev -1.9%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.5
From a 16oz can brewed on 04/12/2025.

It is poured into a paper cup. It looks murky and hazy while pouring. Thick white head.
The aroma is somewhat tropical. Mango and pineapple hit my nose.
Taste is very mellow. Light tropical flavors. Mostly mango. Some pineapple bitterness on the back.
Frothy feeling beer. Decent body.
Not bad, easy to drink overall.


Not my best reviews, but covers the main points. See you all tomorrow night after the fair for one.

 

Greetings, NBWers,

It's currently about 90° up on da Prairie. I will soon be venturing down the hill, through downtown and over the river to attend Uprise Brewing's anniversary party.

Speaking of Uprise, I've had a can of something from them languishing in my fridge for a little over a month, and it's time I drank and reviewed it.


https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/63795/756733/?ba=woemad#lists
Although it's claiming to be a WCIPA, it seems to occupy a dank, sappy, southern hemisphere hopped place between a WCIPA and a hazy. Good stuff. I've got another can in the fridge.
Cheers!

 

What a post @LeRose, thanks for the vacation photo and the insane list recap of new beers, may be a NBW record for beer recaps in one post. Where's our stat expert @ChicagoJ stand on this ruling??

 

I picked up a bottled of Thomas Hardy Ale today...out of curiosity. I have certainly had it before, but that was many years ago, many different breweries ago. I know there is a long history of how and who this is made by. I'm not going to pretend I know that stuff. I can't even find the right listing for this beer here on BA, so there ha. This is just going to be some curiosity notes and impressions.

Bottle says "Barley Wine Style Ale", 11.3% ABV, Vintage 2024. A 250 ml bottle, brewed by Hepworth & Co.



Pours a copper/burnt orange color, with brilliant clarity. A small white head tries to form, but recedes after I first pour.
Aroma of toffee, plums, baked bread. A little bit of a mineral almost sulfur like aroma, but that is faint.
Taste wise is all plums and sweet dark fruit. Caramelized sugars that are on the cloying side. There is certainly a mineral/sulfur component here that I have gotten from some English beers before.
A full on viscous body with little carbonation. This is chewy and resin like. The alcohol is well hidden, but still a slow sipper.

Oh, this is interesting. I really don't know how I would rate this? Like I said, this is just some notes and impressions from a beer I haven't had in a very long time. Outside of being really sweet, I can't remember fully what my first impression of this was?

So, I'll just leave it as the curiosity that it is, and enjoy sipping on this while spinning some more Keith Jarrett...one of my favorite albums from him. The Sun Bear Concerts, full on 10 LPs of solo piano concerts he performed in Japan.

 

That is perhaps my favorite Midwest IPA, hope to pick some up next Spring after I get down to a manageable number of beers in my refrigerator.

This was the beer I had planned for today, but didn't get to bed until after 8 AM, so didn't make it, but need to soon before my Deep Woods bounty is forfeited.

That seems to be a record, but no official review of the past 1066 NBW/NBS threads to confirm. I also planned on commenting on the wide range of beers and styles. Really hope to get up to Maine to sample some of my favorite breweries we get (or at least did) distribution. Great pictures and posts throughout your trip @LeRose !

At the risk of setting a record myself, I will post my upcoming beer review in a separate post.

 

OK, turning to a home beer today for an audible, but good to clear this one (and four to go) to reset my new beer stock. This one is from Maplewood, one of our bigger breweries, but I don't think they get a wide distribution beyond Illinois and our adjacent states (@Monkeyknife is the most prolific Maplewood poster I've come across on BA, including the photo shot for this beer listing.

They've expanded their brewery and also purchased a second location to brew in-house, vs. their contract brewer Grand Central, though not sure if GC still brews anything for them.

Maplewood Green Crest

3.89/5 rDev -6.5%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4



8/2/25 - (Home) (Chicago. Illinois) Can Notes: Purchased a single 16 oz can from Beer on the Wall at store temperature on May 22, 2025 for $3.98 including tax. Canned May 7, 2025, 6.8% ABV West Coast IPA. India Pale Ale Brewed with Chinook, Amarillo and Comet. Brewed by Maplewood Brewing Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Appearance: Poured about 2/3 of the can into a shaker pint glass, yielding a caramel clear base with minimal carbonation after initial pour, egg white bubbly head that leaves after a minute without a trace beyond a bubbly cover over the base. 3.5

Aroma: Tropical fruits, tangerine, pineapple and grapefruit. Where is the pine? Strong potency, nice. 3.75

Taste: Here is the pine, very nice paired with grapefruit, backed by tangerine and melon. This is far more in line with expectations based on the listed hops compared to the aroma, and I'm grateful. 4.0

Mouthfeel: Hoppy bitter and dry, perhaps a bit too bitter and much caramel malt, typical of what you'll find with a Midwest / Chicago take on a WCIPA. Drinks perhaps stronger than the ABV, perhaps it's just the intense bitterness and dryness paired with pine grapefruit riding this train from the start to the end, and beyond... 3.75

Overall: This is growing on my as I hit the second half, after an intense introduction notably the bitter dryness. As the flavor becomes more prominent, I'm digging this attempt, perhaps ease back with the malt, but all in all a good selection and one I'd turn to if in the mood in the Maplewood Taproom. 4.0

 

Hey @Victory_Sabre1973 see you at the beer tent.
Soda pop , Dally, Two-Bit, and Pony Boy, we are all meeting up
Screw the Socs, they got an in with the 4-H judges.

 

Inspiration comes in from many far away places and people we never met. Still, we come to NBW to find new experiences and and different perspectives across this great BAscape.
Today’s assignment was to write a review like @GreenBayBA , who we all know puffs a delux fancy claw bent Calabash pipe, and summons his best Sherlock Holmes:
Humbly, my @GreenBayBA Sherlock Holmes meets the Midwest NBW review:




Man, I cracked that cold can like the soft cymbal crash at the start of a lost Enya tune, two days old from some gas station cooler humming low like neon in the desert, and I kept it cold like a secret til the moment was right, til I could pour it smooth into that trusty old Nonic glass — gold like morning through the blinds, haze just enough to make you think, yeah, maybe I dreamed this

And the head rose thick and white like a highway cloud drifting slow across the Midwest of my mind, lacing like fingerprints on the soul, with bubbles rising like thoughts you can’t quite catch — yeah, nucleation dancing up like Nordic ice metal off a page you never read

I took a breath and it hit me soft — not loud, not brash — just the resin whispering pine songs from some forgotten mountain, and the bread, oh the bread, warm and low like your mother’s kitchen back when things made sense

Then I drank, brother, I drank — and it rolled through like a freight train of balance and grace, that resin sharp and green, the malt underneath like good shoes on a long walk, nothing flashy but just right, a dry finish snapping like fingers in a smoky room — the booze barely there, just the idea of warmth, a ghost of fire on your tongue

The mouthfeel was medium, but not in a boring way, more like just enough — enough to say hey I’m here and I matter and I’m carbonated to the point of truth

And yeah, it’s a West Coast IPA, American like broken highways and barroom jukeboxes — a hoppier cousin of Sierra Nevada Pale, bolder maybe, louder in the right places, but still humble enough to sit down and talk to you about the stars

-mic drop

 

Happy Stouterday!
I finally found an imperial stout in my cellar that I hadn’t tried before - Serpent’s Stout.

The pour from the undated bomber is stout black with a 1” milk chocolate head that left islands of lacing.
The taste is an ideal take on the style - plenty of coffee, dark chocolate and dark fruits with enough roasted malt bitterness to rein in the potential sweetness.
The feel is pleasantly viscous, almost like barrel aged but it’s not.
OA, no idea when this was bottled, but even if it’s old (I bought it from a bottle shop in Colorado that has sold me old stuff in the past) it’s a really good imperial stout.
Cheers all! That’s it for me today.

 

I will never forget reading this review @TCgenny, thank you for sharing your talents this evening.

I feel like a just read a Kerouac laden string of words put together to describe a beer, it was a heck of a ride.

 

I’m a near expert on Sherlock Holmes, my favorite detective. Jeremy Brett was the best TV version by far:

 

That is a bottle share I wish I could attend!