New Beer Weekend #267

Back to back here with another that @Alefflicted gave me.

Kolsch - Lupulin Brewing - Big Lake, MN - 4.8%

This beer is tasty but does seem way too heavy with the hops for the style.

Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/40035/760506/
3.54/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5
From a 16oz can. Canned on 05/30/2025

The beer is mostly clear looking in my glass and golden in color. Nice steady stream of carbonation bubbles rise in the glass. There's a 2 finger white and fluffy looking head to the beer. The decent head retention ends with a bit of lacing on the glass.
Very light aroma to this beer, and it seems lighter than I would expect from the style. There's just faint hints of cereal that hit my nose.
Well, the hops seem to dominate the beer flavor. There's a lot of bitterness in here from the hops. I am getting some hints of the grain and cereal malt flavor. Slight honey like sweetness also shows up in the flavor. I said the hops are dominant and I am getting some pine notes and some citrus. Some pepper hints also show up in the flavor profile.
The body does seem pretty full for the style, and it does feel good. The feeling of the hops do linger in my throat.
This isn't a bad beer, but, I do think it is a bit heavy on the hops and light on the malts.


I'd say that there will be more new ones today. Cheers.

 

3 in a row?

Honey-Weizen - Jeremiah Johnson Brewing - Whitefish, MT - Hefeweizen - 5.4%

There's a lot of flavor in this beer. Clingy bubblegum flavor and feeling. I am glad my friend told me to get it, because I am enjoying it.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29660/301558/
3.86/5 rDev +10%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
From a 12oz can, canned on 06/18/2025

This beer has a bit of haze to it, as I would expect from the style. The color is a nice golden shade. The head is quite frothy looking and 3 finger in size. The head retention is decent, and the lacing is just sticky looking on the glass.
Wow, the aroma is strong and pleasing. I just get a ton of the wheat aromas hitting my nose. There's a lot of banana, and cloves touching my nose. There's a sweetness to the aroma.
Taste - I am getting the wheat flavors in this beer. There's a ton of cloves in the flavor and a touch of banana. There's a bit of bubblegum in the flavor. There's also a touch of bitterness on the finish.
The body has that clingy feeling to it, but it is the bubblegum element that clings in my throat.
Well, I must say that I am happy I bought this one on vacation. I am enjoying it.

There will be another beer today. Cheers!

 

Well, I will gladly continue here and another that my friend @Alefflicted gave to me.

Old Doods - Odell Brewing - Fort Collins, CO - Irish Dry Stout - 5%

Yes, this beer has a dry feeling to it. There's a lot of flavor here with nuts, chocolate, and coffee flavors. Delicious.

Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/267/729930/
3.98/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4
From a 12oz can. Canned on 05/28/2025

This beer pours pitch black into my glass. The head is slight - 1 finger - and brown colored. Frothy looking and it has decent retention. Some sticky looking lacing on the glass.
There's a touch of malt in the nose. Slightly nutty and roasted smelling. Dark chocolate notes also touch my nose. It has a "dry" smell to it that I can't explain beyond that.
The flavor has a lot going on here. There's a nuttiness that comes into play right away. The malts then go to a dark chocolate flavor. Both elements listed are roasted tasting. Notes of coffee also show up in the flavor profile. There's a bitter flavor that is on the back that does linger in my throat.
"Dry" is a good word for the feeling. The beer does coat my throat with the feeling. The beer has a nice feeling and fullness to it, even though it is only 5%.
Wow, I am quite impressed with this beer. It has a lot going on in it, even though it is only 5%.


I hope it isn't 5 in a row here at the virtual bar.

 

Goldfinger pre prohibition lager

Brewers notes : This Pre-Prohibition Lager was brewed using all American ingredients. Sticking to brewer’s recipes prior to Prohibition, we used only American ingredients: 6-row and 2-row barley from Indiana, hops from Michigan, and American corn grits. We performed a traditional “cereal mash” to gelatinize the sugars in the grits to make them fermentable. Dangerously quaffable, a smooth body with a touch of earthiness in the hop character. Beer two of two we are debuting at our Second Lagerversary starting tomorrow is a collaboration between us and our friends @LiveOakBrewing .

This is a special beer that uses all American ingredients. For the majority of our beers we use imported ingredients to match the authenticity of our European traditional styles. However, this lager called for recreating the type of beers that were brewed in America before Prohibition.

The brew began with performing a traditional “cereal mash.” This is the process of cooking an adjunct (in this case corn grits), to promote a process called gelatinization. This makes the sugars in the corn grits available for the enzymes to break down in our main barley mash, which will eventually be consumed by our yeast. Once the cereal mash was complete, we mixed in Indiana grown 6-row and 2-row malted barley (@sugarcreekmaltco ). For hops, we used Michigan grown Fuggle (@45thparallelhops ) to provide a touch of woody and earthy tones. Thanks to the use of corn grist and cold horizontal lagering, the body is light and crisp, making this beer dangerously drinkable at 5.8%abv.


Chilled pint can poured into a Monhegan brewing glass

Glassy gossamer white foam quickly fades

Clear golden liquid with bouncy bubbles bubbling up

Smells of grains, biscuity

Smooth, clean , crisp , tangy , gentle hop bite on the finish on the back of the tongue

Good beer on a warm day watching college football by the pool

 

Thank you for kicking off the three day weekend @Beersnake , and I hope to have a chance to try Brasserie Mille-Îles and other Quebec breweries in a future visit, which will be my first as a craft beer drinker.

Also, congratulations to your retirement @LeRose and new home/car purchases. Nice to have Medicare as a fallback to your insurance run out. I'll have seven years to navigate after 2026, and fear the worst. Your honey beer sounds great as well, one of my favorite beer additions.

Also will have to check the tapes to determine whether @Victory_Sabre1973 's four peat is the NBW/NBS record holder for consecutive reviews!

The first of three brewed in Chicago to celebrate labor in Chicago and beyond this weekend. Will start with the Marzen by Off Color, likely my second and final at least planned new to me Oktoberfest beer this season.

Off Color Waddle

3.9/5 rDev +1.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75



8/30/25 - (Home) (Chicago, Illinois) Can Notes: Purchased a single 16 oz can at Beer on the Wall at store temperature on 8/23/25 for $3.41 including tax. Canned 7/825. 6.5% ABV Oktoberfest Lager, German Style. Malts: Pils, Dark Munich, CaraMunich, Dextrine. Hops: Nugget, Herbrucker. Secret Techniques: Step infusion and Polka Lagering. Brewed and canned by Off Color Brewing, Chicago, Illinois.

Appearance: Poured 2/3 of the can into a tall large mug, yielding a dark caramel base, generous egg white bubbly head that lingers for several minutes before leaving just a light bubbly ring around most of the rim and razor thin cover over about a third of the base. Carbonation slow but steady. 4.0

Aroma: Caramel malt, fresh bread,. Medium to full strength and enjoyment. 4.0

Taste: Consistent with the nose with caramel malt and fresh bread front and center, with hints of nuance with honey, citrus and cinnamon. Nice blend. 4.0

Mouthfeel: Drinks at the higher than expected 6.5% ABV for the style. Carbonation faint and gentle, sweet, no bitterness or dryness detected. Drinks somewhat easy, caramel malt the star from Go! 3.5

Overall: This is a good Marzen, perhaps a little sweeter than my preference, but within style guidelines. Would order again if in the somewhat rare mood to grab a Marzen in the future. 3.75

 

Infusion Pumpkin Vanilla Blonde Ale, 4.8% ABV. Pours golden with a two-finger snow-white head that left no lacing. Aroma is sweet vanilla and pumpkin spices. Taste is mostly vanilla and cinnamon, some nutmeg, slightly sweet, equally bitter. Decent mouthfeel, overall very good.

4.04/5 rDev +2.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

 

Happy long weekend! Today's first choice is from Cellarest Beer Project in West Asheville called Finesse Pilsette. It weighs in at 3.2%. It is made with Cumberland pilsner from Riverbend & Great Chit malt. Hopped delicately with Styrian Golding, Citra, Mosaic & Galaxy. Fermented inside our acacia wood foudre.

Onto the review:
4.18/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Picked up a 16 oz can from the taproom cooler 8-4-25 for $5.25. No canning date but it appears it was packaged in late July; consumed for review 8-30-25. Cold stored since purchase.

Beer poured clear gold with a nice fizzy white head.

Nose is giving me a nice touch of floral and citrus hops.

Taste is a very light pale malt that brings some saltine cracker flavor. Hopping brings a very light touch of orange and passion fruit. Back-end spicing gives me a nice touch of pine and pepper bitterness: 6/10 on my scale.

Mouthfeel is light and very refreshing, yet soft and smooth.

Overall, this is a lovely refreshing and flavorful brew that hits the spot after working in the yard earlier.
Cheers!
Tom

 

This news (to me) is very interesting, as it has a pseudo-parallel to our household around here. Hope you enjoy the retirement and can find ways to spend you time without a forced agenda and? commute.

I was happy to see this beer here on NBS. It is one I really want to try, but given your review, I feel I can bide my time until I really seek it out. Which I probably would do anyhow. Also, it'll obviously not be the same (i.e. as good) as it once was, back in the day, by the time I try it

 

It’s funny the those beers are like that and the beers we took for granted would have the opposite effect on most of us now…at least for me I know they would.

 

Howdy, NBWers!

Thanks to @Beersnake for kicking off the 3-day festivities. I wasn't planning on joining with a new one this weekend, but I found a 6-pack of new-to-me hop juice brewed by one of our many breweries in town while shopping this morning:

True Anomaly's Ben's House • American IPA • 6.9% ABV • 5/16/25 canned date

Columbus, Cascade and Centennial hops in this one, which to my palate is indeed very West Coast IPA-ish with bitter citrus notes dominating, grapefruit peel, lemon and orange peel, and only enough sweetness to balance out the finish, so there's no unpleasant hop buildup. It's both unremarkable and good at the same time — if it were a pinch sweeter, I'd probably rate it near 4.15-4.25, but the truth is a true hophead might love it exactly where it is.

As I get deeper into the glass, the citrus peel flavors are slowly turning into the actual fruity sweet flesh ... or at least as sweet as a good ruby red grapefruit gets.

Official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/55586/446120/?ba=Premo88#review
3.91 (+1% rDev)

Question for @JackHorzempa, @champ103 or any of you other good BAs willing to take a crack: Can you tell the difference between hop bitterness and yeast bitterness?

Here's hoping you have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

Cheers!

 

I understand hop bitterness. Don’t understand yeast bitterness.

Cheers!

 

You've never eaten raw yeast? It's fairly earthy and bitter. I know yeast is mostly converted in the brewing process, but more than once I've heard it said that some yeast can avoid the conversion, die and remain in the beer.

If bitterness in beer only comes from hops, man ... there's some breweries wasting loads of money on hops. I always assumed some of those medicinally bitter flavors came from something other than hops.

 

Glad you're handling it well. I'm facing a similar situation, though I know it's coming, just not when. My job is 'going away' in the next six months or so, after 42 years there. I had hoped it would happen in 2027 when I was planning to retire, so this will only move it up a bit. I won't have the severance you did, but we'll be OK anyway.

 

No, I have never eaten raw yeast. There is plenty of it in the bottom of my fermenters but that gets poured down the drain during the cleaning up process.

I do bottle condition my homebrewed beers but I decant the beers and once again that spent yeast goes down the drain.

Cheers!

 

The spent yeast gets its bitterness from the hops in the beer! If you were to sample your spent yeast, it would be "contaminated" with the hop compounds, and consequently bitter. Some spent beer yeast is harvested from breweries and "debittered" for sale as brewers' yeast. Fresh yeast (cake or liquid) might not taste good but its NOT BITTER. I detect no bitterness in the yeasty bread we eat every day.

 

Thank you @Beersnake Tim, Happy Birthday (I think), I am laboring this weekend to bring health, & wellbeing to my pharmacy patients. Get your flu shot: your public service announcement.
I BIF the best I had Friday, impulsively, recklessly, some say hideously
and so my supply is nil.
THIS is the last of a four of TH The Giant.
Whomever gets a box from me next week
Enjoy the Genesee Cream Ale


Hazy yellow glow,
peach and grape drift through the air,
pillows hide the strength.

 

Fall is in the air, and I’m embracing my final weekend before returning to year 14 of teaching…can’t believe it has been that long, one day I will retire too @LeRose, not yet though, I still got a while.

Uncle is in from Charleston at my dad’s, oldest has his first soccer tourney of the season this weekend, smoke-out at my brothers tomorrow with a bunch of meats, it is raining amazing beers; I’m buying them all and not keeping up well, beautiful sunny days with super cool nights, just so much good to embrace; trying to do my best to be present on this final weekend of summer.

Today is a single brought back from CT brewed by NEBCO, their festbier, I know they’re known for their hoppy stuff but they’ve been around the block so I trusted them to brew up a well made beer, lets see how it is…

New England Brew Co. - Schnitzengiggles Festbier



Pours almost crystal clear, good looking white head, cohesive, thick and above average retention, lacing is minimal; it tries to cling but its cohesive nature wins out.

Aroma is spot on; doughy bread with a pleasant toasted character, herbal leaning hops with just a hint of spicy character; its highly aromatic and fresh smelling.

Taste leans right into the doughy bread character; pleasant hoppy and toasty; again herbal hops but with slight dry grassy and spicy finish.

Body is medium but this thing goes down really easy; its pleasantly creamy and smooth, its got malt depth and heft yet goes down like a 4-5% beer, you’re lightly reminded of that by a slight warm tingling in the back of the throat that says slow down but the drinkability wins out, beware; bitterness is low but you do notice it a little.

This is probably one of the better, or best, American made pale festbiers I’ve ever had; I almost solely buy Weihenstephan because nothing really touches it for my palate…this beer gets damn near close, I think it is a tad heavier but difference is almost negligible. All you CT people should give this one a try, according to the can, this is the first year it has been canned. I have one more CT festbier for the coming weeks to open too for this thread, looking forward to it.

@woodchipper @sulldaddy @Roguer

—————————

Busy day tomorrow so this may be a one and done review weekend for me, as has been the case of late. I'm more and more OK with that, still go a few new ones in fridge for next week and beyond...keep up the good work friends.

 

. . . And Covid. Is regular (over?) consumption of beer an underlying cause that allows card carrying BA members to qualify for the shot? I'm (much) over 65 so I don't think I need an Rx or a very friendly Pharmacist. And the MAHA leaders are getting into the annual development process for the inoculations (moves against MRNA vaccines, and more).

 

Good evening denizens of NBW!
First up today is a beer @Ozzylizard sent me in a surprise strike.
A pleasant coffee stout which I enjoyed quite a bit.

The pour is coffee brown that ends up almost stout black in the glass. Impressive head, not much lacing.
The taste is a little bitter at the start but smooths out quickly. Coffee and dark chocolate feature prominently, fresh baked bread, and I had to re read the can to make sure it wasn’t a milk stout because lactose seems to be there.
The feel is very smooth, almost milk stout feel which is a curious thing as it isn’t.
OA, for the ABV, it is very good.
Thank you Bob!

 

Got a small pork butt going on the pellet smoker for tomorrow. Kept it simple - no injections, just Holy Gospel rub from Meat Church. Should be done around 10 tonight, stuff it in the cooler for a couple hours, pull it and reheat tomorrow. I've discovered that Ace Hardware has a pretty amazing collection of quality rubs and sauces - found some good stuff there.

So...Sidereal Farm...wish we were up there since it was Jamaican days - Jamacian themed foods since Thursday. Jerked chicken, some hot pepper shrimp and Jamaican curried goat on the menu...

The beer:



Satans's Call - a Czech dark lager at 5m5% ABV. Local and traditional Bohemian malts were used.

It's a great looking beer. They say it pours ominously black, but there's a lot of deep red tinting when the light catches it right. Very clear. Rocky khaki head that falls to a gorgeous cap with tenacious cling.

The aroma is of roast malts, fresh coffee, and a milk chocolate. Straightforward and enticing. It's not overly strong on the nose, but it sets the stage.

Much bigger flavor than the smell suggested. Roast malt and coffee are about equal in intensity. There's more than enough char to notice but not enough to give the licking an ashtray grossness. There's more of a semi-sweet chocolate in the taste. There's just a bit of green coffee taste that comes and goes. A fair level of bitterness comes in mid-taste but doesn't build - resets things nicely. There's a very faint anise note emerging in the aftertaste and just a bit of an astringent tingle.

The feel - I'm gonna say it's decadent then get weird. It drinks light, but it is luxuriously creamy. While it's lush going down, it sorta lands dry, but then it creates a little salivation at the same time.

Dig this beer! It's delicious, looks great in the glass, and has a fantastic feel. Easy 4.2 here. Sidereal really has some stuff figured out!