New Beer Weekend #306

It does have a nice bitterness. It does not linger however.

 

Those cookies look pretty spectacular.

 

Rob,
We water our azaleas with Genny Cream Ale
Can you inbox me with your address
Brother got to hook you up with some good stuff
And Genny Cream Ale

 

Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout, 7% ABV. Pours black with a three-finger light-brown head that left no lacing. Aroma is coffee, light chocolate, and sweet malt. Taste is mostly coffee, roast malt, slightly sweet, equally bitter. Decent mouthfeel, overall very good to excellent adjacent.

3.98/5 rDev +1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Cleansing my palate with garlic parmesan pretzels between sips. I rate those 4.75

 

Back again. My son went to a fairly new (1-yr) local Polish deli and purchased this beer Daj Mi Buzi (Give Me a Kiss). It is brewed special for the Little Polska Deli by Snow Republic Brewing (which I never heard of) and contract brewed by Armada Brewing (which I have heard of).

Purchased warm at a local store (Little Polska Deli) 2-days ago and chilled to serve. Poured from a 16oz undated can to a cylindrical pils glass.
The body is translucent yellow/gold (SRM 3). The .5in/14mm head is white and fades to a ring quickly.
The aroma is sour, giving a hint to the age or its mis-handling, lack of refridgeration and/or oxidation.
The taste is similar but surprisingly, not as bad. It’s bitter and dry, but spoiled by the aroma as you dip your face in the glass for a sip.
The mouthfeel is light, carbonation is appropriate.
Overall, almost a drain pour, but not quite. The reasonable taste is overwhelmed by the aroma.

Its too bad, because this deli does have some great Polish food. With this beer I think they stepped out of their game.

 

Next time you’re in the farmlands of South Jersey give this one a go, well priced and a fine fine cream ale…Silver Queen from Bonesaw.

Acceptable enough for me to give this one a try should I see a single, thanks @woodchipper

 

Thanks to @Whyteboar for his welcoming call!
I have no opinion on under appreciated beer styles. I am beer expert adjacent which means that my awesome friends in BA hold the magic, and I am their flag waver and cheerleader!
Last week a sort of disgruntled BA told me I was a bag of wind.
After much self reflection
I say fuck that guy!
I am here to present my interpretation of this ipa
I’m good enough,
smart enough ,
And gol darn enough people like me

Tree House Juicy Machine Guava

Reviewed by TCgenny from New York

4.34/5 rDev +3.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
One month in the can pours richly into my Tree House snifter Tulip glass with an opaque burnt orange murk and a rich froth heady that overspent my pour. Aroma is def guava overload. Taste follows with notes of fruit sorbet, lime rind, delicious fresh fruitiness, vanilla , sugar cookies, light and bitter , light dank, light smaky num. num. I was fooled into believing I would knock a ranking due to the guava puree but dang, this is really good. Retains the lightness and dank in contrast to the dipa abv. Feel is true medium for TH, Really well done, I expected Niagara Falls high class stripper, and got the first love college girlfriend, always honored but not my true love of my life (my wife reads these reviews).
I do truly love all fruit from hops, so my overall reflects that prejudice.

 

Guava and Cream by Tree House


4.24/5 rDev -4.3%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Brewers notes: A rendition of Daze conditioned on guava puree and fresh vanilla beans. Notes of ripe guava, guava nectar, and guava creamsicle.

Canned 5.7, opened 5.31 purchased at Tree House Sandwich , “ Live well”

Chilled can poured into a Teku

Hazy orange apricot liquid with an off-white creamy one finger white foam good retention, solid lacings

Aroma is guava, sweet vanilla

Taste is guava, sweet creamy vanilla , hoppy , slight bitterness on the swallow

Mouthfeel has a moderate effervescence , semi dry finish

Good beer, go USA!

 

Montreal and Vegas are my two favorite out of town teams, so while disappointed “I couldn’t lose” in the Finals with Montreal falling, definitely pulling for Vegas. Marner had a bad wrap in Toronto in terms of postseason, and I was fearful with the signing (and late season coach change) but glad to have been wrong in both cases. I would have pulled for Montreal, for ending their drought and Quebec’s.

Saw one regular season game this year, brother invited me to Carolina which rested their starting goalie and a few key key regular starters in a late season game and still dominated every aspect. Wouldn’t have been surprised if they went 16-0 in the playoffs, hopefully they end with five. I don’t root for relocated teams, except I guess if a MLB team returned to Montreal or Oakland, or a NHL team to Quebec City. Would have been cool for Hartford to finally reach a Stanley Cup Finals.

 

You have no idea how The Hartford Whalers is still a thing in Connecticut, despite being God knows how many years they have been gone. A famous graphic designer from my small town designed the W logo and the main CT airport still sells merch with that logo.

 

NBS#2. This weekend marked the 11th anniversary of Magnify Brewing's Fairfield location. Fairfield was the only location until Mag opened in Medford, in South Jersey, last summer. Each location now has its own anniversary. Medford is much larger and the base or operations but under New Jersey's rules, beer cannot be shipped between the two locations. Fairfield had become the step child until April when Magnify's Head Brewer in Fairfield launched his own label - 2nd Favor. The Fairfield taproom is now co-branded and both "Magnify" and "2nd Favor" beers are brewed, served, canned, and distributed. It was an elegant solution that breathed new life into Fairfield. One of two 11th Anniversary IPAs is They Grow Up So Fast, which is a "collaboration" between Magnify and 2nd Favor. It is basically a mash-up of Magnify's Maine Event (Citra and Simcoe) and 2nd Favor's proprietary yeast. And it is a great DIPA!

Reviewed less than a week after can release. It is an attractive honey-orange with a half finger cap of bright white foam and lacing. The smell is big and fruity, featuring lemon, grapefruit, stone fruit, tropical fruit, and pine needles. Its taste just pops with tart lemon peel and grapefruit rind balanced by sweeter tropical fruit and apricot. There are also dank, herbal, and pine sap notes that add depth of flavor. There is sharp, clean bitterness throughout and not a hint of burn. This ale is crisp and well-carbonated, and the 8% ABV gives it good substance. Thoroughly enjoyable!

4.34/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Hope you all have a great week. Cheers, NBW!

 

Working my way through the Belgian beers at my local beer store



very nice Belgian red triple.
Dark caramel smell
Sweet taste of malt,


4.41/5 rDev +4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
Drinking out of a small snifter.ˋ
Pours a red-mahogany with a full frothy head.
Smells of dark caramel.
Nice smooth mouth feel.
Sweet taste of malt. Notes of dark caramel.some hints of cherries.

 

Welltown Brewing ( Tulsa ) Cludy Dreams Standard Hazy ( IPA ), listed here at 6.0% ABV; 3.48 overall

Mine is 6.2%

Pours a very hazed honey color with 2+ fingers of cream-colored head. Great head retention & better lacing, stays hazy as can be

S: Some orchard fruit, some tropical, nose could be more to be sure

T: Pomelo, passion fruit & green melons up front, a little dryness too. Green melon dominates along with dryness, passion fruit, pink grapefruit & dryness once this beer is warmer. Finishes with pomelo dryness & a little passion fruit

MF: Light/Medium body, soft carbonation, okay balance, wanted more from the body, became close to watery

Drinkable, but not one I'd do again

 

Thank you! I'll look for that one when I'm down the shore. I've visited Bonesaw and I think it's a great brewery!

 

Phase Three Geo wc pale ale

Gifted by the wild western sage @Danmullens1
On the ides of March
The most dangerous day of of the year
With my Buffalo Bills branded glass
In representation of our Bills Packers meetup 12/13/26 pre Super Bowl matchup

Reviewed by TCgenny from New York

4.15/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
This ipa clocks as canned 1/8/26 pours forsythia yellow with an absolute white cream head that stands sturdy. Aroma is spring garden cornucopia. My local bees are horny with this delight traveling in the deck winds. Taste is mild citrus , some melon, mellow citrus , strawberry , some very healthy fruity antioxidant tastes suggest this could be the key to longevity, and busszzier than any Mediterranean diet.
Wcipa pilsner experience is here!

Thanks Dan,
Rest assured ‘with my wife straightening trees in the front yard
I will water the new grass steadfastly!

 

#3 of the Kentucky Quartet...
Power Chord IPA, from Gravely Brewing Co., Louisville.
Taste follows can...everything is orange!
Candied orange in both aroma and flavor. Need to let it warm and open up and bit, but getting strong throwback West Coast vibes.
Can states it's a four hop IPA. I'd say Amarillo is def one of the four.
Some power chords and operatic metal vocals from the lesser-known, but killer NY band Hittman!
Cheers, BAs!





Great album, indeed, but I'd recommend checking out at least tracks 4 and 7!

 

Unfriended
5.5% smoothie sour ale made with strawberry, banana and milk sugar
Ill Will



Poured from a pint can, the body pours a muddy red. Neither head nor lacing. This one is the least thick of the Ill Will beers I have tried.

Aroma is light strawberry and banana. Taste follows nose but the strawberry flavor is more like raspberry; perhaps an effect of the ale’s sourness. The milk sugar sweetness is less than the sour flavor, but I imagine it cuts into the sour profile. The banana is present but subservient to the strawberry. As expected, no hop or malt flavor.

Mouthfeel is smooth and heavyish. No carbonation.

Less of a dessert beer than other beers I have tried from this brewery. The flavor profile here is not one that I particularly enjoy but I can definitely see what they were trying to do.

 

A New Beer from a New Brewery (to me):



Is/Was Wisp
Smoked saison (!) with Sjørdal malt killed over alder wood fires

The body is the Venn diagram overlap of peach-amber-gold, and slightly cloudy with a few floaties. The head is as thick as shaving cream, and has great retention but doesn't leave a lot of lacing. The nose is proudly smoky with lots of spicy phenolics on a bed of mildly sweet malt. There are notes of wheat bread, stone fruit, pepper, ginger, wet earth.

The flavor smacks you in the mouth with a punch of tangy smoke. The smoke fades a little in the middle, but the tangy character reverberates. This beer is bone dry. There is some peach and berry character but no sweetness. Notes of pepper, nutmeg, dry malt, minerals, hot plastic, scorched watermelon, and a ping of something metallic. When I poured the second glass, I got a touch of apple skin that wasn't there in the first pour, and also a morsel of sweetness (not much). The deep smoke pervades the beer from the first sip to the end of the long, long aftertaste. A hint of burnt caramel at the very end. The body is light-to-medium with frothy carbonation.

I started off finding Wisp more interesting than actually delicious. But by the end of the second pour I was ready for another glass. (Which was similar to my original experience with rauchbiers in general, come to think of it.) Highly recommended for anyone who isn't frightened off by smoke aromas and flavors in their beer.

 

Have a good NBS. Thanks Craig @Whyteboar for the thread kickoff this week. Most underrated styles will always be for me: English Milds (Dark and Pale). I love flavorful low alcohol english beers. Short's made a couple great ones in the past. Me and my wife want to go to England pubs for some cask ones someday.

2 Books finished this weekend:
The CIA Book Club by Charlie English: 3.5/5 Very enjoyable. The book details a covert CIA program that smuggled millions of banned books, literature, and printing presses into the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc, particularly Poland, to undermine censorship and inspire resistance during the Cold War. The covert action program (codenamed QRHELPFUL) spanned July 1956 to September 1991. Directed by the CIA and managed by operative George Minden, the operation smuggled an estimated 10 million forbidden, dissident, and Western books behind the Iron Curtain. Was not as engaging of a story as I hoped, but well researched and written.

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman: 4/5 Great nonfiction book. A 1985 book that argues television has transformed public discourse, turning politics, journalism, education, and religion into forms of entertainment, thereby eroding rational debate and critical thinking. And given the rise of social media it was an accurate historical critique. It even mentioned Voyage of the Mimi which I remember watching in Science class in 6th grade. It was a 2005 edition with a new foreword by his son.

Rest of the weekend has been me taking 4-5 grams of painkillers a day. Going to try and get my kidney stone out this week. Have to wait to see if my wife's insurance plan will approve adding me, or else I get to pay $10k for a laser lithotripsy. I was already charged $2600 for the CT scan and hospital visit last weekend. My dad stopped by on the way back from Myrtle Beach, so we went to dinner. My sister is moving out of Cleveland next month, so I need to get my kegerator in storage or something. I don't have room for it right now, but maybe if we can get a mobile home, I need to get out of this neighborhood. The neighbors are unbearable.

Free Kitten pic:


Corona Sunbrew. Canned 1/22/2026. Poor head retention and no lacing. A lot of streaming carbonation on the glass. Aromas of orange, lime, citrus zest/peel, cracker, corn, and light herbal/grassy hops. Taste follows with orange, lime, citrus zest/peel, cracker, corn, herbal, grass, and light pepper. Light herbal, grassy, citrus peel bitterness on the finish. Medium-high carbonation, light-medium body, and crisp/clean/refreshing finish. Balanced grainy malt and sticky hop mouthfeel. Zero warming 4.5%. Overall a solid beer with balanced citrus and Corona beer flavors. The strength of the flaked corn flavor was a bit off putting, but an enjoyable fruit beer. 3.5/3.5/3.5/3.5/3.5: 3.5/5


Cheers