Final stop before the 17 mile ride home was Wandering Leaf. Ossuary Helles: Appearance: Clear yellow, minimal head. Smell: light bready aroma. Taste: Mild sweetness, light breadiness, light body, light grassiness in the finish. Tastes good even though I say everything is “light”. Overall: First visit to Wandering Leaf, quite busy for a Saturday afternoon. Decided to try the Ossuary since it had won gold at the Minnesota Brewer’s Cup. It was tasty, hits all the right notes for a helles. I’ll have to visit again to try some of their other beers.
Arioli from Godspeed Brewery From a 355ml can packaged on April 14 2026. Poured into a pilsner glass. A one finger fine white head on a very slightly hazy gold.The head diminished to ta thin layer that stuck around. Lots of fine lacing. Aromatic hops in the nose. The taste is of subdued malts overlaid by the hops which overtakes it. A flavourful by mildly bitter finish. A very smooth texture. A medium/light body and moderate carbonation. Overall a solid Italian Pilsner. Well worth a try. 3.88/5 rDev 0% look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75
Wandering Into The Fog - Freedom 4.26/5 rDev -0.7% look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25 Look: yellowish gold with an orange hue, dense hazy, soapy bubbly head didn't last long, left spots of lacing Smell: woody, resin, grassy, grapefruit, mango Taste: mango, grapefruit, peach, papaya, spicy, pine, apricot, berries, citrus rind Feel: thick body, low carbo Overall: 8.6% abv. This is what you get with this hop combo - Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe and Krush. So many citrusy, tropical flavors kept coming thru. Hell, I may have missed a few. The citrus rind and intense spice come on strong and linger. Very enjoyable brew. Even more so when paired with Davidian by Machine Head. Let Freedom ring with a shotgun blast! Cheers!
Time to rise and shine with this new beer. Hale Lake - Klockow Brewing - Grand Rapids, MN - Helles - 5.2% This came in on Thursday at work and I was very excited to try it. It is delicious and a great beer for summer. Review: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/51689/576555/ 3.96/5 rDev +2.6% look: 4.25 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4 From a 16oz can. No date on the can. This beer is nice and clear looking and golden in color. There's a bit of a carbonation stream in this beer. The head that forms is 2 finger in size. The bubbles are so tiny and fluffy looking. The head retention is decent and there's a bit of lacing left on the glass as the head dissipates. The aroma is dominated by the malts. I get a light and pleasing buttery biscuit aroma. The flavor is also grain dominated. The beer starts off with a buttery biscuit. The flavor then turns more toward a milled grain flavor. The finish is a honey like touch to it and a slight floral flavor. Light and crisp body. The feeling has a slight bubbly character to it. This beer feels clean and coats my throat with grain goodness. Very well made and very tasty beer overall. Delicious.
Welcome everyone to New Beer Sunday, where the odometer reads #1111. Clearing my March new to me stock, and also my non Chicago stock with this selection I meant to try earlier, the likely younger than @beergoot 's Three Floyd Kolsch selection based on his review comments. Always a sucker for a new to me Maine Beer selection, though Allagash and Oxbow are the two Chicago distributed Maine Breweries I prefer at least a little more. Maine Beer Company Spring (Kolsch) (Bottled 3/20/26 @ 11:10:18 AM) 3.83/5 rDev -7% look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75 Full review linked above. Not sure if today is a fair test as I'm not having the best taste or aroma experience due to whatever cold I have, but bumped the respective scores up slightly, and enjoy the bread, pepper and lemongrass I'm getting, and the standard Kolsch experience. Noted they also release a Spring IPA, so will be looking for that next Spring. Looking forward to following the thread the rest of today.
We found out on Tuesday that Allagash has come into our market, and I am very happy and excited. We took all the lines that our local distributor had. I bought a 6 pack of this. Surf House - Allagash Brewing - Portland, ME - American Lager - 5.5% Well, I was excited, now I'm disappointed. This beer has almost no flavor. What little I pull out isn't bad, it's just way too light for what it should be. If I want no flavor, I'll get a macro brew. Review: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4/695050/ 3.38/5 rDev -10.6% look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.25 From a 12oz can. Canned on 05/07/2026 This is a pale golden looking beer that looks pretty clear. There's a 3 finger white head to this beer that is pretty fluffy looking. The head retention is decent. There's a bit of lacing on the glass. I do get some lemon notes in this light aroma beer. I do not get much else. The flavor, well, there's really not much there to be honest. I do get some citrus notes with some grain. All are faint and really hard to pull out of this beer. There's a faint bitterness on the finish. The body does feel clean. The body is pretty light. I had high hopes for this beer, but they have been dashed. I will finish the rest of the 6 pack off, but won't get more of this beer. I may try for one final new beer this weekend. I am pushing toward 2500, and am almost there. Cheers all.
Cheers NBW and @vurt !! Being a light beer consumer from time to time I've been wondering if Outlaw Light is any good. A chance sighting at a different grocery store than my normal prompted a purchase, and here we are. Its flavor took a bit of getting used to, but oh my the lasting foam and feel were pretty outstanding for a beer of this ilk. Going to have another or two today! 3.17/5 rDev +5.7% look: 4.25 | smell: 2.75 | taste: 3 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.25 Outlaw Light is an interesting take on a light Kolsch. For example, it pours with substantial foam that subsides yet leaves plentiful amounts of lacing. An amazing achievement for a light beer. Furthermore, it has near perfect carbonation with a better than average feel which combine for strong drinkability. Frequent sips reveal its light AAL nature with a strong flavor of semi-sweet grains and a somewhat dry nondescript hop bite. As I began drinking Outlaw Light, I thought it did not taste very good. But as I continued on through the glass it grew on me, especially its feel and fine carbo. Now a day after having had it for the first time, I'm looking forward to having it again. This is worth a try if you enjoy light beer from time to time, and notably this was cheaper than Keystone Light when I purchased it.
Good afternoon NBW This never hit Kentuckiana, but I picked up a bottle in Ft Wayne or Indy. Glad I did. Chimay 175 750mL corked and caged bottle poured into a Chimay chalice at cellar temp 6.5% ABV. The cork comes out with a big pop and the bubbles stream continuously from the bottom of the glass. The beer itself is pale gold in color with off white head that lasts. Sticky lacing throughout. The aroma is mild with sweet pale malt, light fruit and light phenols. The taste is semisweet pale malt and banana flipping to clove and light white pepper bitterness. The feel is divine in the way that only bottle conditioning can provide. Heavy carbonation while not harsh with medium plus body and a mostly dry finish. Overall, excellent Belgian blonde. I didn't bother to Google the date significance of 1850 to Chimay, but it's funny that the "collector" chalice I'm drinking it from is a 150 year version with 1862 - 2012 embossed on the back. Maybe the monks are better at marketing than math... I'll still buy their beers and it's one of very few places in the world that require a passport that I would consider visiting. Cheers all!
