New Beer Sunday (week 526)

Blue Point - Toasted Lager

 

With all the talk on the forums this week about brown ales I decided to pull this one out today. This is very close to a wow beer as I love browns that tend to be a little heavier and close to the stout side. This one fits the bill perfectly for my tastes. Very heavy on the caramel and chocolate. A real winner in my book.

 

What about it? Here on NBS, we take a minute to chat about about our lives, and another minute to chat about the beer we're sharing. Imagine we're sitting on the patio this fine spring day. What did ya do this week? Anything cool or fun? What about that brew? Love it, hate it? Why? Let us know.

 

hey what's going on?!

Well having a pretty good weekend, I think we got a start to Spring (although it snowed that day), and the sun is out making the blooms, but also giving the deer a reason to eat all the stuff I planted in my yard

We're gonna start off easy at first for our new NBS, checking the supply these days looks like a little low on new beer. Uggh.. blew the budget again as I had to throw $230 clams into my bicycle to get it ready for the season, hey it's how I get to work, and I need to ride again...

Tomato planters started, herbs coming up, let's get this thing started...

what is new for our hero today?!

Prairie Limo Tint - Prairie Artisan Ales


Prairie Artisan Ales - Limo Tint by imbibehour, on Flickr

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Poured from the bottle into a nonic pint glass. Did you get a milk stout? Yeah you did… dude… but it's Prairie… so they get a pass.

Dark walnut brown body maybe some red mahogany like highlights, quite solid and opaque, not much to say there truly and a simple one finger tan to mocha colored head off the pour. Quite tiny, some staying power for the collar, but also gets a little watery as it settles and sticks around.

Aroma is kind interesting for a milk stout. Comes off like a classic porter with toasty and roasty grains, a bit of coffee, but even more peanut butter action. Not particularly chocolate smelling but no complaints. A minor hint of lactose sourness just barely.

Palate takes an interesting turn. Crackling roasted grains and a chewy dark bread sense. Mild qualities of coffee and char on the finish, with just a hint of lactose and a twinge of sourness. Comes off more like a porter with the aftertaste giving just a bit of milky sweetness, some of that peanut butter action gets in a bit too in the middle of the palate making for some nice nutty character as well. Chocolate angle seems hard to find or discover.

It really doesn't come off like a milk stout so much which probably explains my enjoyment of it is probably far higher than expected. Decent brew, but the chocolate angle is a little indistinct and buried too, but there's plenty of goodness here.

look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4 | BA Generated score: 3.97

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Cheers!

 

Good morning all fellow NBS followers. The great thing this Sunday is the sun is shinning here in central NH. But it is only 18 degrees and the wind is gusting to about 20 mph. I still look out on a couple feet of snow in the yard that is hard enough to walk on anywhere I want to go. Maybe we'll see the ground by May, but that maybe wishful thinking on my part.

My new beer this week is from Kelsen Brewing in Derry, NH another local brewery. They released there RIS Vinatta on Friday at a brewery release party. It was a good time with nice people and good food and a great new RIS.
This was poured from a corked and caged 500ml bottle dated 2015
This beer pours a midnight black color with a creamy dark tan head.
The complex malts used in this brew come through to the nose. There is nothing added to this RIS to hide the wonderful aroma of the malts.
The taste is smooth with a little burn in the back from the alcohol as this does come in a 12% ABV.
The mouth feel is creamy but not overly thick.
This is a great drinking RIS right now and IMO it will only get better with age. I'm hoping I can actually leave a few bottles in the cellar to find out.

Well it's time for me to move on to other things on this NBS and put on my Chefs hats and start my Cuban Black Bean Soup for dinner which will be served with a side of cheddar jalapeno biscuits. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.

 

Greetings everyone and great thanks to Cavedave,
This morning, my big Walker Hound (Otis) was completely crazy and looking for something to get into. I think he has Spring fever. We call him Otey Baroo, and he sings proudly in deep hound legacy. He watches airplanes and notices anything that is different from the day before. He is like an anal retentive dog. Damned if I don't love the beast! I think he's smarter than I am.
Today's beer is St. Feuillien Grand Cru Blanche de degustation. I love this brewery. This is a Belgian beauty; rich, spicy, full of life, strong and delicate at once. An incredible bead keeps this one going, effusive and aromatic, like great Champagne. This is simply one of the best beers that I've had in a while. Hard to believe that it weighs in at 9.5%. I'd like another, but I just might start speaking in tongues! Highly recommended.


Here are a couple of groups from Chapel Hill/Carrboro that have endured.

 

That sounds both very tasty and oddly Latin American (or at least Floridian) for someone in NH. Sure they won't take away your New England card for such a deviation? The beer sounds pretty awesome as well.

 

I don't see the beer

 

At this point in the winter here I'd gladly give up my New England card. Buit I do have cheddar cheese in the biscuits, I think that ties it to New England.

 

Looked like a lot of fun was had last week! Plenty of new faces, some old faced camaraderie and lots of delicious looking brews. I wanted to join in the fun on location, but was basically falling asleep behind the wheel by the time my Sunday came to a close, and am not so much a fan of the drinking and the driving to pop in from one of the many beautiful vistas available. Besides I was already struggling to keep myself on the windy roads and take pictures and wrangle the puppy all without introducing anything else...
What location you might ask (I realize no one did...)? I decided on a whim to take Porter on her very first out of state trip and drive the 16+ hours to southern Utah for the weekend. Turns out that area is ridiculously beautiful. Who knew? Well, lots of people, but that's besides the point. All in all, one of my better harebrained ideas...


I woke up early Friday and drove most of the way, spending the night on some BLM land in the hills above Saratoga Springs overlooking Lake Utah. Beautiful sunrise was a harbinger of the weekend to come as I drove to Moab and the parks thereabouts. Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point made up my Saturday.


Sunday brought me to Capitol Reef, then over gorgeous Highway 12, through Escalante/Grand Staircase, and eventually to the big guns of Bryce Canyon and Zion. Ye gods was it all breathtaking. Photos obviously don't do it justice.

I hemmed and hawed over which offering to bring forth this morning before retiring as I'm in the middle of four in a row, and eventually decided that it HAD to be the quintessential representative of the trip: Moab Brewery's Desert Select Tripel. I'll get it out of the way first: I don't dislike tripels, but they're not my first choice of style. I know we've got some luminaries here who adore them (if memory serves...), and I can enjoy them, but they're just not my absolute favourite. This tripel has met with fairly rave reviews overall, and I enjoyed it, but I found it a bit boozy for my tastes. It brought an interesting personalization of the style with the german hops and the pilsen malt supporting just enough spice and counterbalance to the traditional fruits. The aroma is more pear and apple than I expected, but the taste gets back closer to what I was anticipating with bananas and a bit of peach that almost have a bit of vanilla to them. Almost reminds me of the bananas foster we used to do at the restaurant I worked at in Texas that came on a little bit of yellow cake. The hops add a spicy and mild yet deceptively bitter edge. Really, my biggest beef is that it comes across even boozier than the 8.5% or so that it is. I suppose this might settle if it sat a bit, and the more I drink of it, the more I find myself appreciating the flavours that are there and not worrying about the ETOH (classic warning sign... ), but it was enough to distract me, especially early on. I also grabbed their Export Stout and cracked that for St. Patty's day (what a disaster that whole evening was....) and enjoyed it much more. Admittedly, I'm more inclined towards stouts ANYWAY, but it was also a tasty and compelling representation of the style. I grabbed some other stuff (Utah and Wyoming mostly) that I might introduce next week, but this felt like the 'right' choice for this week.
Alright, Enough of my weekly novella, glad to see people are well stocked for the days festivities, and I look forward to seeing what else we've got on offer.

A little sampling of the musical selection from the trip: a trip down memory lane as all I had was an old CD case full of discs from middle/high school. I haven't used CDs in probably a decade regularly, so with all those long hours on the road it was... interesting... to explore some of my tastes from ten-fifteen years ago. Some were good(ish) like what I offer here! Some were... not. Some were, frankly, terrible, and were embarrassing to admit to myself even if no one now will know what they were. We've all got those phases/albums/movies/whatever canvas one chose to express oneself...



Cheers!

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/13447/164164/?ba=Bitterbill

C&Ps out of the way.

G'day NBS crew!!

What a week in Casper! Faux Spring some 60s and even 70s to the area and is spoiling us big time but ya can't fool me.

More of the white stuff WILL fall, and possibly quite a bit of it, before May comes to the rescue.

The Abbey Ale in that Growler is delicious, easy to drink, and WY local, always a plus in my book. The Wyoming brewing scene continues to grow and impress with 26 breweries and counting. Actually 27 as Wyoming Territory Brewing Company hasn't been added to the database. They only brew 1 beer?!?!

Cheers!

 

WOW! Nice photos. I want that dog and that scenery too. . . oh and the beer.

 

:-)

Don't go way.... That's on tap...

 

Butta - BING!

 

New American IPA Sunday!

Greetings from The Jersey Shore. Sunny and pleasant today, I'm finally happy to report. Here's what it looked like yesterday, 7:30 AM, the first full day of Spring, looking from my driveway down the block and then towards the back 40:




Yes, snow was falling at the time. Happy Spring! Time for today's new beer:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/199/89174/?ba=NiceTaps

I missed last week's NBS shenanigans due to my annual road trip to Rochester, NY so I'll chime in with my favorite Irish musician here:


All the best, everyone. And thanks for letting me hang with you.

 

Gotta try another in the Bell's planet series:



Fairly solid brown. Looks nice, clear yet opaque due to dark brown, mahogany and orange (epending on where light is trying to push through) with decent legs from the frothy cream colored head. Taste his a pinch of bitter on the end of a mealy, malty salty journey. Not wishing to scare anyone off with salty description, but I gotta say what I sense on the back of my tongue.

And in the spirit of the beer and it's brothers and sisters......



Now one just for Jupiter:

 

Hey guys, for those of you following my Cicerone saga, my test is this Wednesday at Cloverleaf in Caldwell, NJ. IF ANYONE ELSE on here is attending, please send me a PM or at least a reply on this NBS. I'm nervous, feeling under-prepared, and downright nerve-wracked. I've been studying consistently for the past months, and recently doing a "these are two beers of similar style, which is which?" type of tasting to at least get myself used to the scrutiny I'll get on Wednesday.

For the religious type- I'd appreciate a prayer, for those others, I'll take well-wishes and "break a legs."

I will be back with my NBS review, I owe it to you guys, and myself.

 

My wife and I went to York River Landing for lunch, and I had Smuttlabs Smoked Peach on tap.
In the snifter the beer was a hazy tangerine color with a tiny to non-existant head.
Nice aroma of fruit and a little smoke.
The taste followed form: peach, some smoke, and tart.
A really nice tart mouthfeel. My salivary glands puckered.
I'm really enjoying sours, and this one worked quite well for me.

 

Cool pic of Jupiter. The best I could do was this: