New Beer Sunday (week 450)

***New American IPA Sunday!!!

Cheers to you, Matt, and the rest of the growing NBS faithful!

It's cold. Lots of snow on the ground but it IS melting.

New beer number 1, a fresh hop IPA from Deschutes, and here is my review:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/63/73287/?ba=Bitterbill

I'm not a big fan of Amarillo hops but to those who enjoy it, I say..Cheers!

 

Thanks Matt and Happy New Beer Sunday everyone.

This week has been like summer here except for some rain. I have a terrific stout today from Dogfish Head. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew.


http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10099/59151/?ba=utopiajane

I was amazed that this beer managed a subtle and almost fruity honey character that was hard to discern at first. And also that it captured the sweetness of the vanilla bean in such a way that it translated a sweet smoothness to the drink. Vanilla is so fragrant, as is honey but in this they were both demure. In contrast the roasted flavors are big and bold and the faint sweetness is almost shyly in gratitude for the fearless and bitter roast. I loved this stout.

Cheers!

 

Good morning all my NBS friends! It is a gorgeous Autumn morning in Southern WI! Cool and crisp after a warm and rainy Saturday. I am imbibing a wonderful RIS with bold bitter chocolate, dark fruit, sweet notes of caramel, and a nice hoppy finish. I highly recommend it. I hope all of you find a day of great fun and terrific beer!

 

Greetings NBSers from a warm and sunny Yakima Washington, where I hit up the annual Fresh Hop Festival yesterday. Lots of new, and one-off, brews were tasted but no review notes taken. We're hoping to stop on the way home today and I should be back with a couple new entries later. Cheers and happy NBS all!

 

Hello, all.

Got beer review #500(!) here (lol). Wanted it to be something of note, and it just so happens that Rodenbach's Caractere Rouge hit my local bottle shop this past week.

I'm not a big sour drinker, in fact I have had fewer than ten. Moreover, my initial experiences with sours were disappointing, resulting in 2 drain-pours, (brace yourselves) Petrus Aged Pale and Aphrodite. The former tasted like apple cider vinegar and the latter was pink (pink, I tell you!). I was ready for neither experience .

But, thanks to the miracle of palate evolution , I have really enjoyed sour/tart ales in 2013, from the obscure Vlad the Inhaler "grodziskie" to Westbrook's Gose to the highly regarded Rosse e Marrone Flanders Oud Bruin.

So, today, from a high-class brewer, a high-class beer - limited edition and all that...

Caractere Rouge

Oh, can I just say, mostly all of my pictures sucked today. the four you see, that I picked, were out of like over 30. Pour pics failed entirely, and a lot of the pics look hazy/washed-out and slightly off-color. Maybe it was the weird ambient lighting, owing to hazy and grey weather - super humid, the a/c is just a glorified humidifier today.

Whatevs . The beer was fantastic.

Exactly as the label describes - sour raspberry and cranberry, cherries and oak. Elegant, tart, refreshing, and very classy.

My NFL teams are all awful this year (NYJ, NYG, and Pitt), but I'm really enjoying the NFL Redzone channel and watching all the games at once, as such. So, got that to look forward to; plus, good eats and treats, another new beer (Stone's Vertical Epic 10.10.10), and of course, NBS .



Cheers, all!

 

I think of 500 as a goal I want to achieve. Congrats Greywulfken.

 

I will honor this worthy event with my very first Rodenbach Grand Cru this evening.
My palette has finally been truly enjoying the greatness of these ales just in the last year as well.
Praise the Lowered.

 

I've always taken a liking to strong Belgian pale ales, such as tripels.
This here brew from Stone, part of their Vertical epic series, was no hard sell.

Stone 10.10.10 Vertical Epic

My review was way over the rAvg - even for people who, like me, have had it with some age on it - but I gotta tell ya, I don't know why. This was a great tripel in my tripel/Belgian strong pale ale-drinking experience. Don't know that it'd have wowed me three years ago, but it certainly impressed me today.

With lunch here...

Cheers to new beers!

 

Lone Rider Sweet Josie Brown.

 

My Milk Chocolate brings all the boys to the yard (not really) sunday

Chocolate Milk Stout by 4 Hands Brewing

Today is my kind of fall day. It's bright and sunny out, but chilly with a little breeze in the air to kick up the dead tree bits on the ground. Love it. I had to get up early this morning (7AM on a sunday!! SHOCK AND HORROR) to go man a flu vaccine info session for my public health class. I even shaved (for the first time in months) to get all spiffy looking and fancy as we were working with a parish nurse at her church. We were supposed to make a teaching project out of it, giving a presentation and answering questions, even administering a post-test... the only question I got was whether their insurance would cover it. Mostly it was elderly folks cooing over the students who came to see them (and one guy super excited about Paris). Don't get me wrong, it was cool and all, but I felt way over prepared and now I don't know how the teacher is going to evaluate our project...
Oh well.
As I said, beautiful day outside. Turns out the bar I found a couple weeks ago that had amazing options on tap, good atmosphere, good people, that I was excited to go watch all my Seahawks games at... doesn't open until 4 on sundays. And we're one of the early games today. Who does that, seriously? Oh well. I suppose I'll clean this afternoon. Might go see Gravity (in not two, not four, but THREE glorious dimensions!) later.

I had been looking forward to this local (chocolate) milk stout for a while, and it was finally released. When I splurged at the liquor store this week (my sister's coming into town soon so I wanted to stock up for her), i picked a bottle up, and finally cracked it today. Excitedly I poured it and sat down to soak it in. Quite disappointed. Thin and kind of halfhearted, my visions of it becoming a go-to are immediately dashed.

We got a blocked punt for a safety, but they got a blocked FG for a TD, so hopefully that doesn't come back to haunt us.

Cheers everyone, hope your sundays continue to be minimal stress, maximal suds, and whatever else it needs to be!!

 

Howdy all! I'm joining in a little early this week due to the play of the Bears today. After watching N'western last night and the Bears today, I'm going to go ahead and find a new source of entertainment. At least it is gorgeous here in Chicagoland after quite a group of storms yesterday, which I can appreciate as this was the first of many weeks in a row where I will be working 6 days a week.

Last week was my first week joining in on this great tradition, and I was disappointed with the brew I chose to come out with. That will not be the case today, seeing as I just completed a great trade with corysmith01 with some real treats. This was the superstar of the trade...

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/?ba=offthelevel_bytheplumb

... but I will be back later today with some New York beers, hopefully as exciting as this one!

 

NEW RAUCH DOPPELBOCK SUNDAY

Hello NBSers, I hope this unseasonably warm sunday finds you well. Today is a day to work through some pent up laziness. I've been busy of late and I need to catch up on my doing nothing. Good for the soul I think. No agenda, no chores, just fun and relaxtion with the family.

I picked a nice beer for today, but I was hoping for a bit more. Does anyone know of another smoked doppelbock I should try?

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/263/54731/?ba=DIM



Thanks Matt, for keeping the best thread on BA fun and fresh as always. I hope you all have a great day today. Cheers!

 

Well, this is actually my first post on here! Hooray! As I am trying to gain traction with my blog, most of my beers are new right now, doing lots of reviews. Today I am drinking Lakefront Brewing Company's 25 year anniversary imperial pumpkin lager.

I think it was a pretty solid beer overall, but wound up being too sweet. The body is nice and thick, but syrupy and in ways, sort of like drinking a juice concentrate before adding water. It has a great aroma though, complex with the brandy aged qulaity coming through alongside pumkin sweetness and nutmeg/cinnamon spiciness.

Check out my blog here for the full review! http://thebeercyclist.com/2013/10/25-year-anniversary-imperial-pumpkin-lager/

 

Back again for a second time. Although I've heard great things about this one, it's just an average beer in my opinion.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/651/6076/?ba=offthelevel_bytheplumb

 

Peruvian Morning on the left, Sucaba on the right. Peruvian morning was great, creamy espresso and chocolate. I wasn't a big fan of sucaba, a bit too roasty for me for a barleywine and wasn't big on the flavor.

 

Super warm day in SoCal so I am inside with my son switching the tv channel back and forth between Nascar and Football. My son loves cars, and racing.

Got this as an extra from saaanch, so big props to him. It's the ideal extra because I am not a sour guy so I wouldn't have bought this. However, I was stoked to drink it because its lights out good.

Odio Equum by Avery, bottled sept 2012

A- dark ruby red and unable to see through the center. Thin off white head and settled around the rim of the glass with mostly large bubbles.

S- big tart Cabernet aromas, with sweet cherry and stone fruit. Hint of sweet raspberries hidden in the back along with some sugary sweetness.

T- wow, mouth watering tartness. My mouth begins to salivate after the first sip. Tart cherry and sweet stone fruit. As it warms I pickup just a slight barrel/oak note.

M- effervescence and bubbly on the tongue. Medium body.

O- I was really impressed with this sour and I don't drink too many of this style. Loved the tartness with just enough sweet fruit to balance it out.

 

New Pumpkin Ale Sunday

Greetings NBSer's,

It finally feels like autumn this weekend with wet cool weather knocking down the many colorful leaves. Early evenings portend for the winter solstice just a couple of months away. I tend to need an adjustment time to get used to running errands in the evening after work and it's dark out. I'm trying hard to not have it depress me. This is one the dark side, so to speak, of having dramatic seasons.
So with those happy thoughts I submit a true autumnal beer. This from a major brewery who took the approach of making an ale with pumpkin as an ingredient, as opposed to the currently more popular method of making a beer that tastes like pumpkin amplified. I am fond of either approach and this is just a nice drinking ale that fits the tradition of this brewery. Hitting the mark on style without excess or extravagance. I approve.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/45/74/?ba=garymuchow

Best to all this week.

 

Enjoyed my fist Heady & DC Brau on this hot muggy Florida day. Dolphins still lost but at least I got to try some good beers thanks to DJRE4ORM.

 

New American Imperial Porter Sunday (week 450)

Rainy day here, got soaked tending the recycling at work this morning, glad to be working again though, and sorta happy to be back doing what I did for so long and enjoyed, even part time. Shared this treat from Fremont brewing with someone who I predict will one day help produce the wild ales, saisons, and sours we all love. Delicious Porter, full of clean, yummy chocolate, coffee, tasteful amounts of vanilla and coconut. No pic today, but trust me it was right purty.

Hope you have a Great American Beer in your glass. Cheers!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20680/100192/?ba=cavedave

 

I have one more beer review to present to you guys today. After all these IPAs, I think the last thing I should be doing today is reviewing more beers. It's not from New York, but I can't get it in Illinois, so it's all the same to me.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/694/71969/?ba=offthelevel_bytheplumb

Happy Sunday to all of you, and I hope you all have a great week.

 

New DIPA Sunday

Greetings NBS,

A generally rainy and cool Sunday here in Southern, CT but we needed the rain and the weather has been great otherwise s no complaints.

I've been sitting on this Stone 17th Anny for a bit now so I figured it was time:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/98008/?ba=CHADMC3

Stone finds new and creative ways to make traditional styles new and they do it well.

 

Love new beer Sunday, have a nice week everyone! Cheers.



http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16866/70286/?ba=MarkJBurch

 

Both of these are new and both are utterly amazing!



Totalbangover is responsible for both and, quite frankly, is The Man!!

 

I know from experience that you have had the tastiest day of all of us, and I had a Heady Topper today.

 

I know a ton of you guys are all about Nor Cal RR stuff but I'm seriously jealous of the stuff you can get in the Mid-West. You may not have the 49ers or the Giants there but you do have amazing beers!

 

New Triple Bock Sunday!

Our "sour heads" group finally got together today to brew our fourth 50 gallon batch of lambic. We're keeping three 50 gallon barrels going as a solara project. We finally got to take our first share home today! Lots of great beers shared during the brew day. I finally opened my poorly treated bottle of 1994 vintage Sam Adams Triple Bock. Despite its age and poor storage, it was a pretty decent beer, and worth the wait. I'm glad it wasn't the soy sauce vintage!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/111/?ba=CASK1

 

Newish Wheatwine

Another awesome fall day in West MI. Bouts of rain competed with sun throughout the day. I never could decide if it was warm or cool. Lot as of time with the family. Was able to sneak in a run before popping the top on a wonderful beer and firing up the grill.

In the absence of some decent results on the pitch/playing fields, I'll take this great offering from Bell's. Somewhat of a re-release, I haven't had it since the original version, well before I ever thought of doing beer reviews. I hope this is a sign that they'll do the other beers from the original series, and Wheat Love becomes at least a rotating release.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/287/27265/?ba=GRPunk

 

New Octoberfest Sunday!

Greetings from a warm and dark evening here at the Jersey Shore. I can chalk up this late entry to a busy day of running errands and working around the house. Today was the right day to catch up on some chores, warm and kinda overcast with late day peeks of sunshine.
I made time to stop off at one of my local haunts for a refresher from SA:http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/102/?ba=NiceTaps
I don't normally drink Sam Adams beers so it's no surprise that I'd never had their Octoberfest. I'm glad that I finally had a go at it, not bad. And, after all, the calendar reads October!

All the best to the NBS group. Cheers!

 

>>>>> New Pumpkin Ale Sunday <<<<<<

Checking in a little late with another of these pedestrian seasonals.

This one is the Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat. Better than some of the Shock Top line, but just OK otherwise.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/72412/?ba=RJLarse

Mild here in the Columbia Basin, clear skies and temps in the upper 60's. I might have played the last round of golf for the season this afternoon. From here until spring it will take an unusually warm day to get me out on the links again.

Besides, I need to go out and find some better beers.

Happy Trails!

 

Hey all who make this thread great, and happy NBS!

The weekend was nice down here in Louisiana, as the tropical storm didn't amount to anything, and we've enjoyed some solid weather. Going outside for a walk before dinner, it was suprisingly breezy, and for the first time, felt a bit like autumn. I do miss those crisp fall New England evenings a bit...

This said, I was lucky enough to get this amazing Cigar City Beer yesterday from a friend, and tonight was the perfect time to try:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17981/47020/?ba=Mikecap

Absolutely blew me away--and I'm not even a huge fan of the pumpkin style. Cheers and happy Sunday!

 

It's boomtastic. 3 floyds Moloko (milk stout) with some wings and football.

 

This Beauty!

 

Today's new beers:
1. Crooked Tree IPA (Dark Horse Brewing) - Very tasty, but clearly inferior to the Double Crooked Tree but it's not entirely fair to compare a single IPA to a double.
2. Chocolate Sombrero (Clown Shoes) - Not nearly as spicy as I was expecting. A nice coffee flavor and a smoother chocolate taste than I was expecting. Flavor-wise this was much more pronounced than the Pecan Pie Porter, but still not quite up to their imperial stouts.
3. Ninja vs. Unicorn Pajama Party (Pipeworks) - This was the star of the night. A black IPA always gets my attention, as does an imperial/double IPA so when you combine the two I'm certainly on board. Bottled sometime in the last two weeks this was very fresh and totally excellent. Looks and pours a bit like a stout but tastes like a wonderful hoppy masterpiece. This beer is proof again the at Pipeworks is the best thing in IL beer.

 

So you think space is all fun and games...

I decided to break with (my) tradition and have a second beer. WHAT A REBEL I AM. After the disappointment of the earlier entry, I wanted something I was almost certain to enjoy. I debated going for the Enjoy By 10.25, but I'm tempted to save that one for when my sister gets here (she lands on 10/25), just for shits and giggles.

Fairly frustrated with how the Seahawks game went (Indy played a hell of a game: not meaning to take anything away from them. Also: based on comments I've seen around the interwebs, I have to give a huge tip of my hat to their fans. Gracious in victory, polite and just all around good sports from what I saw today. I had been kind of against them [rationale: after a decade and a half of Peyton Manning, you don't get to snag Andrew Luck just because Manning got hurt for ONE YEAR. You have to earn that kind of talent, you have to suffer!], but I find myself softening. It's because I'm getting old.)
Went and saw Gravity this evening. Had extremely high hopes for it. Came away thinking it was very good, but not as ground breaking and life changing as it was being sold. But it's still with me and I find myself still thinking about it, and it's continuing to grow on me. Definitely glad I saw it in theatres (worth the 3D even!), and would certainly be open to seeing it again if someone wanted to see it but didn't want to go alone. I only go to the theatre once, maybe twice a year normally, so to consider seeing the same film twice... maybe that's a sign that I actually really liked it even more than I appreciated coming out of it. Go see it and make up your own mind. If nothing else, it's nice to see an original, fairly unique, reasonably hard sci-fi film do very well (with a strong female as the lead, nonetheless!!), and keeps that minuscule spark of hope for Hollywood being something other than Michael Bay ruining the TMNT (specifically, and as a metaphor for major movies in general right now). Hopefully this can help bring back some creativity and craftsmanship to a stale industry! *shakes fist, sprays hose at kids cutting across lawn. sits back down in rocking chair on porch and continues grumbling nonsensically about "the good old days"*



Most people here know about Myrcenary already. Those who've not had it have likely come across it somewhere on this site, or at least have some familiarity with it. I won't waste [any more of] your time (HA) covering it here. Suffice to say it is very good and I am glad to have it readily available whenever I want.

Well, now that I've completed your day by taking you through my nonsensical ramblings about popular culture, sports and bleep bloop I'm a robot, I'll leave you to reminisce about the awesome time you've had scrolling past some strangers beer fueled musings. And to think I used to be so quiet and reserved!

But seriously: cheers everyone, have a safe and happy week. To paraphrase Jesskidden: I hope your steak is rare and your beer is well done. Cheers!

 

New Beer Sunday? Welp, Ommegang Take the Black Stout, go!



Short version of my review (seen here) is that it's certainly complex and packed full of flavor, I'm just not sure how much I like those flavors. It's real grower though... then again, I didn't get into Game of Thrones for about 5 episodes either, so I guess it makes sense, heh. The sweeter tones definitely helped out a lot. This is almost too much smoke, which is not something I say very often. Good stuff.

 

De Struise Cuvee Delphine, 2009 Vintage.

Possibly the best stout I've had to-date. This is like drinking a bourbon soaked chocolate covered cherry. Amazing.

 

I was talking to a couple Fremont guys at the Yakima Fresh Hop Fest yesterday, and they asked my opinion. I had to be honest, it's only nearly perfect. I admitted that I was splitting hairs, but a touch more carbonation and body, and I thought it to be flawless. I honestly think that someone would need a superconducting super-collider to determine those flaws. Great beer.

 

Evening fellow NBSers! I'm safely home back in the Fourth Corner, after a quick visit to the "Palm Springs of Washington". (yes, it's proudly proclaimed on a billboard you roll into town) I want to give a HUGE shout out to the staff at Icicle Brewing, in Leavenworth, WA. I talked to their brewer at the fest yesterday, he gave me his business card and told me that he would buy my friends and I a round. Well, the staff was very gracious, to say the least. I declare that if you are anywhere near the Methow Valley, you should seek out the (touristy) Bavarian village of Leavenworth, and drink some Icicle beers. All bullshit aside, fucking tasty, tasty beer across a lot of styles.

OK, I didn't take notes on anything I drank on the road today, but one of my locals (thanks Copper Hog!) came through with a legitimate NBS entry:http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/84334/?ba=beertunes

Cheers everyone! Have a great beer week!