New Beer Weekend #265

That scene was pure genius in my opinion. Guess you can estimate how old I am now!

 

Right, another new to me beer that’s been in my fridge too long. It’s hot here and I have been working out in the heat, a cold, easy quaffing beer sounded great.
Along with some homemade cottage pie -

The pour is an unfiltered honey color, it seems like you should be able to see through it but can’t. Unfiltered is my guess.
The near white head climbed almost 2 inches to prevent me from emptying the can in one pour. Islands of lacing.
The taste is about as close to the style guidelines as I think I have ever had.
Predominately malt flavors with the noble hops vying for attention. Light bitterness ensues.
The feel is just a touch more full than I would have expected, maybe the unfiltered aspect lends some body?
OA, a tasty pils that won’t rock your world but it won’t disappoint either.
Well, back to work now. Prepping the header for a lean to to shade pool equipment. Have to mount it to the side of the She-Shed/pool house.
The things I do to earn money for beer.
Cheers!

 

Sound like a plan. Then I could do a side by side review.,

 

Hopefully you will luck out and obtain beers of comparable age (and not too close to their best by dates).

There was a recent video review by Nate Lanier (Tree House Brewing) of a Costco beer, a Helles brewed by Deschutes. He initially liked the beer but as the beer warmed/opened up he was not as thrilled. He described it as having a worty taste when it warmed up a bit.

One of the people commented to this video review:

"Ahhh. Unfortunately seems Nate's cans were too old. Since its no refrigerated you really want to get this beer when its no more than a month old. It's a great great beer when its fresh."

It appears that the beer that Nate reviewed as about 5 months old and since it was purchased at Costco it was not refrigerated.

Cheers!

 

Drekker Fluff Stuff Strawberry Mallow Fruited Sour, 6% ABV. Pours dark red with a one-finger pink head that left puree residue and lacing. Aroma is strawberry and marshmallow/vanilla. Taste is strong strawberry, slight marshmallow/vanilla, equally sweet and tart. Excellent mouthfeel, overall excellent.

4.23/5 rDev -0.7%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

As far as @Beersnake s question, for the past five years about 95% of the beers I drink are new-to-me singles to review. I only tap into my cellared favorites when I run out of beers to review. I have increased my pace of new beers this year, largely due to the generosity of the BA's in the Stout/Barleywine BIF.

 

Benediktiner Festbier • Festbier / Wiesnbier • 5.8% ABV • 5/22/25 born-on date

It was either a 4-pack of this or a 6-pack of Weihenstephaner Festbier, and I went with this one because I could understand the date code.

It's hoppy! The barley malt shows up mostly in the aroma as a grain/rice/toasted rice note with occasional hints of bread/toasted bread and even less occasional hints of sweetness. In the flavor, the hops dominate ... up front, in the middle and long into the finish. They're earthy, dirty, black peppery hops that are pretty tasty, though over time they can become a bit overbearing. Just as I say that, a peachy bread malt flavor is starting to show up about midswallow, and it's extremely tasty and needed — suddenly the beer is showing a bit of balance.

Weirdly the mouthfeel kind of starts falling off a cliff about a 1/3 of the way in. It gets a bit soft, and the closest thing I can think of to describe it is like when a whisk[e]y's flavor development just stops and there's no real finish. It's weird because the massive amount of activity in the glass has hardly let up since I poured it, but there's no denying the growing softness. Not a deal-breaker, just a thing.

Official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2432/222867/?ba=Premo88#review
3.98 (+2.8%)

I may need to adjust those numbers a tick, bumping the flavor up from 3.75 to 4.0. For now I'm sticking with what I've got. There's three more cans in the fridge and plenty of time to toy with the numbers if it warrants toying. Bottom line is it's a solid festbier with the hops taking center stage.

Cheers!

 

Overall I'm drinking a bit less, but I think the number of new beers I'm trying has remained pretty much the same over the last 5-10 years. But I'm trying them out of bottles and cans a lot more often in the past 5 years.

One thing has changed drastically: I'm reviewing a LOT more beers these days than ever before. I figure if I'm drinking less, I want to get more out of the experience. Giving the beer my full attention, so that I can write a review, is a good way for me to accomplish that.

(BTW: It was great to see the Enegren beer in your post. I am a big fan of their beers. Even though we are well supplied with excellent lagers in the PNW, I would love to have Enegren beers available here.)

 

This is from local guys still hill. Went by there a couple weeks ago and everything I’ve had since is, well, outstanding.



Smells marvelous. Altogether decadence but a smidge dry. Early its plums and brown sugar and that devolves delicately into malt, oxidized hops, bourbon, wheat, sweet, clean.

The taste does follow but it’s complex. Sure it’s decadent and sweet but foremost it’s lively, stewed fruit, grassiness, malt sugar, smidge of English hop character ala fuggles and company.

Sort of holds out there, tidy and accessible but ultimately this is somehow the perfect midpoint of excess and simplicity.

Delicious!

 

What a great description!

 

Opened up a New Beer while doing a few chores around the house. Kept coming back to jot some notes in a text file because the beer was quite interesting.



Hetty Alice Linger On Dry Hopped Rice Lager

The label indicates this was hopped with Crystal, Idaho 7, Citra, and Citra Abstrax, which is an optimized hop extract, near as I can tell. Date stamp reads "07/28/25 ZIPPY!". (It turns out the date stamp is important, and we will return to it a couple times in this review.)

Look:
The body is clear corn yellow. A confident pour raises a finger of loose white foam that dissipates quickly, leaving a susdy ring and two small islands. The 2nd pour was quite hazy, like a witbier.

Smell:
Just like the date stamp says: ZIPPY! Bold scents of tangerine juice and grapefruit peel leap out of the glass, followed by a delicate noble hop floral/woody character. I don't get any rice, but I'll keep checking as the beer warms. (Follow up: There was a smidge of rice in the 2nd, cloudier pour.

Flavor:
To repeat the date stamp again: ZIPPY! Citrus up front, just like the nose, but this time in the form of semi-sweet lemonade with a twist of tangerine peel. Not much malt character to start with, maybe a pinch of grainy sweetness. A light floral/herbal note breaks through the citrus in the middle to suggest unsweetened iced tea with lemon, with maybe some Earl Grey tea sneaking into the mix. A toasted rice flavor comes through beautifully in the finish and aftertaste. Citrus never really goes away. An appealing woody note lingers in the background.

Feel:
The body is heavier than light but lighter than medium. Energetic carbonation partners with the citrus character to scrub the palate and leave it tingling. Crispy finish, very good drinkability.

Overall:
Last year Hetty Alice teamed with Highland Park Brewery (Los Angeles, CA) to create a dry-hopped rice lager which I described at the time as a "session cold IPA." Linger On is more clearly a dry-hopped rice lager, and is the better beer because of it. While I'd prefer a somewhat lighter hand with the citrus hops, I really dig the iced tea with lemon flavor and the way the toasted rice flavor emerges at the end like a ship through fog. Not a great example of a Japanese Rice Lager, but a fine example of a dry-hopped rice lager, which is a style I have developed a fondness for. Really nice beer.

 

Hladinka side pour of Lagernaut German pilsner (4.9%) at Equal Parts Brewery in Houston—paired with three of the city’s finest: birria tacos.

No official review but here’s the short version: !!!!!

The beer is delicious and perfectly served this way. It’s bitter, lemon peel and earthy, with a decent amount of malty flavor and hints of sweetness. At times the hops want to skew green into cilantro. I’ll score it later … at least a 4.2 overall and arguably much better.

Cheers!

 

Tree House Ruby Bay Dry-Hopped Pilsner

Picked this up in Charleston earlier this week. It pours a light straw yellow with a fluffy head that hangs around just enough. The aroma hits with a burst of lemon-lime. Flavor follows through—bright citrus, super clean and crisp, with little hints of grape and strawberry peeking in. There’s a light cracker note and just a touch of pepper on the finish. Easy carbonation, really refreshing, and honestly just a great all-around beer.
Cheers!

 

Awesome little getaway @Victory_Sabre1973 I hope the starlink continues to work so you can keep sharing beers with us from your little paradise.