New Beer Sunday (week 510)

Good evening NBS! Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I visited some family and had some nice meals along the way. Dug up some stuff from the cellar as usual for a nice relaxing weekend.

Here's today's new beer!

Very good BSPA. Taste of big orange, pear, apple, white grape, apricot, light banana, clove, pepper, honey, bread and some herbal/grassy hop earthiness. Nice crisp and spicy finish. Well balanced malt and yeast flavors, not too heavy. Moderately carbonated and a fairly clean finish. A light astringent flavor note was present after the finish, but otherwise very drinkable for 8%. Alcohol warming was minimal. Very tasty and smooth. 3.78


Last single from my Elav Italian variety pack. A dry stout. This was pretty good. Aromas were a bit too fruity from the yeast, showing some raisin/plum notes alongside the roasted character. Taste was good with dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, toast, dark bread, light smoke/char, and some herbal hop earthiness. Restrained yeast presence in the flavors. Good amount of roast and earthy hop bitterness on the finish. Good balance of roasted malt sweet/bitter flavors with no astringency. Smooth and crisp finish; with some light-moderate creaminess. Light-moderate dryness on the finish. Enjoyable for the style, but could use some work. 3.58


2013 Vintage bottled this year. Despite the poor head retention, there is some light spotty lacing clinging around that is nice, with some moderate streaming carbonation. Nice nose with big caramel, toast, toffee, brown sugar, raisin, prune, fig, date, licorice, light chocolate, vanilla, bourbon, oak, and light butterscotch/coconut/leather. Some noticeable alcohol; but subsides substantially as it hits room temps. Very fresh smelling on the oak tannins! Taste of big caramel, toffee, toast, brown sugar, raisin, plum, fig, date, licorice, light chocolate, vanilla, bourbon, oak, light butterscotch/coconut/leather, and toast/oaky earthiness. Some light tannic oak bitterness on the finish. Awesome barrel balance with dark malts and fruity yeast ester flavors. Extremely smooth and creamy mouthfeel for 10%. No hot booziness in the taste at all, and very smooth sipping for the 10%. Extremely impressive stuff! 4.23


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Up next is yet more evidence of why Bend is the best beer city in America. This brew would probably be a star in a lot of places, yet likely wouldn't make the Top 25 in it's hometown: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31004/103606/

 

4.19/5 rDev +6.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Picked up this beer our summer trip to Maine

A- Body is a translucent, hazy beautiful golden hue. Pours with a 2-3 finger foamy white head. Lots of lacing is left behind in the glass.

S- Nose is soft, lots of honey, floral hops, wheat, very mild pine,and a hint of peppery spice.

T- Soft honey with accents of floral hops, a moderate amount of peppery spice, mild pine, and a soft bready backbone. Finish is soft, with the floral accents of the hallertau coming through and a soft honey and wheat background. Left to linger is mild hints of pepper, bread, honey, and floral hops. There is a faint alcohol warmth that lingers.

M- Medium carbonation and a light to medium weight body. Relatively smooth and slightly dry.

O- Overall this is a great light, elegant brew from allagash. I really like the fluxus series and I am glad I found this beer. It is slightly saison-like with the yeasty and peppercorn characteristics but the honey adds a nice mead-like consistency to it.

 

Tried New Glarus Coffee stout. Decent coffee flavor, bit of a thin, watery mouthfeel compared to other coffee stouts.

 

Love the detail you put into these posts! Thanks so much.

 

Dude first the blonde ale and now pumpkin??? what is wrong with you dude???

argghh...

Farmhouse Pumpkin - Hardywood Park Craft Brewery


Hardywood Park Craft Brewery - Farmhouse Pumpkin Ale 2014 by imbibehour, on Flickr

Review here or read below! http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26753/75171/?ba=smakawhat

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Poured from the bottle into a large globe/tulip type glass, very much like the one pictured on the label.

Deep orange and opaque, more towards a slight chestnut brown with no visible carbonation. Head is really creamy, growing two fingers with a vanilla creamed white hue to it, and thick top. Settles normally and fall to a simple cream collar, and a few large bubbles.

Aroma is like a basic pumpkin beer. Clove and nutmeg spices, a little bit of vegetative sweetness. There is virtually no saison character to this from what I can even detect on the nose. Comes of like a straight forward decent pumpkin ale.

Palate improves and brings quite a bit more unexpected saison character. Peppery notes in the mid palate, lots of really tight carbonation on this with some malt and pumpkin like spices too. Finishes tinny and a bit hot, with a metallic drawl a bit and with a good huge amount of clove heat like dryness. More saison character kicking in with further sips but comes off more like a peppered brew, than hints of dry funk and earth. Surprisingly much of the pumpkin flavor seems to really take a backseat to this farmhouse heat as time goes on.

It starts off like an ordinary pumpkin beer, something I usually don't care for, but then turns into something else entirely. I guess that just makes me want to sit somewhere on the fence about it overall.

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Really odd beer as it seems like a typical pumkin beer... fargles.... then comes off as a big saison a little out of kilter (more fargles) but then ditches the pumpkin character (very awesome).. thus leaving me somewhere on the fence and in the middle the way I feel about it.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

 

I really did not get as much coffee as I thought, I was expecting more coffee on the flavor, it wasn't there. It tasted a lot like Velvet Merlin, roasted malts, chocolate, a smooth oatmeal flavor, I really enjoyed the beer it was good but I was having trouble noticing the difference between this beer and regular Velvet Merlin. I had Velvet Merlin on Thanksgiving and I will revisit to take notice of differences between this beer and regular Velvet Merlin, cheers!
A bit about myself, I am huge stout fan, imperials, oatmeals, barrel aged stouts, irish stouts, and I do enjoy Velvet Merlin, one of my favorite oatmeal stouts, and I think Velvet Mocha Merlin is a great, wished it came in a six pack, cheers!

 

P

Proper job indeed!!! Fine work old man. Cheers & Congrats.

 

Alright! I know I'm a bit late to the game tonight but I had to wait till The Walking Dead started before popping tonights New Beer. As a fitting tribute to the mid season finale, I chose Clown Shoes Undead Party Crasher.

I find that I can not appreciate the smokey flavors of some stouts like others would. Which leaves me to believe that a true smoked stout would be a drain pour for me. My full review is available on the page but overall I gave it a 3.8. Better than average but the smoke coupled with a mouthfeel that can't make up it's mind prevent it from being an exceptional stout.

 

love that beer, its so good i don't even know you and i'm happy for you that you tried it. cheers

 

if its not too late for coffee its not to late for NBS, right? cheers all. happy sunday.

 

Car got fixed over Thanksgiving and I also ended up with some extra money thanks to both a trip to my bank back home (and some random generosity from the parents)... which, of course, means that I can now afford to buy beer! And... I did. When I stopped by Kroger yesterday, I picked up the New Belgium Folly variety pack, since I hadn't seen it in stores before around here and had heard Fat Tire was good from several of my friends who also like beer (and it was! I had one last night.)

Now I'm trying my second beer from the pack, which is...



...New Belgium Abbey, which is both my second beer from New Belgium and the first dubbel I've ever tried.

(After several sips...) And so far am really liking it. Has the same "seemingly-endless stream of bubbles" effect as the Leffe Blonde I tried earlier, and a really nice "you have to look close to tell it's transparent" dark red-brownish color to it. And of course, the important part, it also tastes good. At first it seemed to be mostly a "toasted" sort of flavor (seems to be common in darker beers, going by what little I've experienced so far), but the more I drink of this, the more unexpected flavors keep jumping out at me. There's definitely a banana type taste in there (which I noticed in the Leffe Blonde too.)

(Around 1/3 of the way through the glass...) I finally understand what reviews on this site mean when they describe a beer as having "bubblegum notes." Sometimes I'll lick my lips and taste something very similar to bubblegum. And not the generic "pink flavored" stuff either, but the much tastier tropical fruit type gum. Sometimes the "toasted" bready flavor drifts closer to "very slightly burnt but still tasty," too.

(A little over 1/2 of the way gone...) This is also making my burps taste like banana bread. Or sometimes the slightly-overdone dark and crispy corners of a loaf of banana bread, when the "super toasty" taste and the "banana" one decide to come in at the same time. It's really interesting how it's shifted from "mostly toasty flavor" at first to "toasty with lots of banana and occasional tropical fruit bubblegum" midway through to finally "stronger toasty flavor + banana + occasionally a little of the bubblegum" toward the end. It's like I just drank two or three different beers. Over the course of one glass my opinion has changed from "positive, but not overwhelmingly so" to "this may just be the best beer I've ever had."

(Somewhere in the range of 3/4 or a little more...) This beer has saturated my mouth and I now taste bananas whenever I breathe.

(Empty glass...) I'm also definitely feeling a bit... I guess "warm and fuzzy" is the best way to put it... now that the whole glass is gone. It seriously seems like this beer has saturated my senses at this point, it's not just the banana taste coming back into my mouth now--my nose is now smelling a bit of banana and tropical fruit gum whenever I breathe, but it's taken on a bit of a cotton-candy like sweetness too (you know how cotton candy smells sweet in a different way than other things, rather than just tasting sweet? it's like that, but with banana-y/fruit sorts of scents mixed in rather than "just sweet.") Oh, looks like this is 7% abv--no wonder it's having so much more of an effect than a regular ol' beer! I guess that's why they call it a "double"--it's a bit like drinking two beers. XD

Basically... this is really good, and I'm starting to wish I had more than just one more bottle of it left! I'm thinking I will definitely try more Belgian-style beers (and dubbels in particular) in the future when money allows for it, as well as more from New Belgium (heck, I've already got three more from them waiting in the fridge, so I don't even need to put forth any effort for that! XD)

 

Trying this beer from New Jersey's best brewery for the first time today


Here is the review I posted earlier.

"4.75/5 rDev +11.5%

Poured into my DFH glass
A: The beer is jet black in color with a finger high head. Great lacing.
S: Plenty of resiny hops in the nose followed with chocolate and toasty malts
T: The taste has plenty of roasty toasty malts and resiny piney citrusy hops. There is a moderate amount of bitterness. This is like a hoppy Porter. (and I mean that in a very good way.)
M: It is medium-bodied with a nice bite.
O: This beer is way too drinkable for a 10% beer. It is the perfect beer for a morning tailgate on a crisp fall day. It tastes like a hoppy porter and that is a very good think. This beer is simply excellent. I hope that it becomes readily available.

Another great beer from New Jersey's best brewery"

 

Hey NBSers,

Windy, rainy, and snowy this week in the High Desert. I stood out in the cold and damp on Friday to celebrate the anniversary of a local beer/coffee/bike/ski shop (what do you mean, they don't have those everywhere?). Live music (see below for band) and a Midnight Sun Berserker made it worthwhile. Between that and a few bottles of BCBS grabbed without fanfare at a local bottleshop, I'm on a stout bender. Let's continue the run with New Icelandic Beer Sunday.

Lava Smoked Stout by Ölvisholt Brugghús of Ölvisholt, Iceland



I'm not generally one to seek out smoked beers, but I've been circling this one since I saw them unpack it a few weeks ago. Intrigued by its Icelandicism, deterred by the price ($11 for 500ml), I finally caved. Lava pours with a beautiful mocha-colored head which didn't stick around for as long as I wanted it to, but while it was around it left little lacing and revealed few residual sugars resided in the beer. The aroma is milder than I anticipated; the smoke is present but not overpowering the roast and slight licorice elements. The taste is coffee stoutiness, again the smoke is there but not everywhere, and it's dry. Mouthfeel is appropriate for 9.4%, alcohol is very well hidden. This is probably my favorite smoked beer because it has a smoke element instead of all smoke all the time, and I could even see myself reaching for it again to share with someone, were it not for the price. I just don't like smoke in my beer enough to pay a premium for it, and there's way too much good beer to be had for less. 4/5

As for the music selection, this is the band I saw on Friday (clip is from a different performance):

 

Well Hello Again NBS!!!
<<<NEWS FLASH>>>
Sunny southern California is no more!!!
It's official, we're getting rain. And it's beautiful. Just the weather for a sweet, roasty porter or stout.
Well....S'More Money S'more Problems by Pipeworks didn't quite live up to my hopes.


3.39/5 rDev -16.9%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.25

I was really looking forward to this one. Reading up on it on BA, as well as the label, had me chomping at the bit.

The pour was fine, rich dark coffee in color, almost no head.

Smell was the first hint that it lacked complexity. It led with a generic, flat vanilla presence that seemed faded. There was also a basic lightly roasted malt note in the background.

Taste was disappointing. Light sweetness present but overtaken by this old, faded vanilla blanket that coated the tongue. It really took over.

Mouthfeel was full enough for my palate, but even this was dominated by the "tongue coating" of the off vanilla.

Overall, I wanted this one really bad. Not sure if it was just a bottle that had sat in somebody's trunk for a few weeks, or just a random "off" bottle. I'm not sure if I should try to trade again or not.

 

Well said, my friend! Say, have you had any good, new IPAs from Wisconsin!?