New Beer Sunday (Week 527)

New Belgian Dark Strong Sunday
I can now see why many of our west coast folks join in late to this party. It's like a complete different time zone here. . By the time evening rolls around our brethren on the east coast and mid-west are planning for Monday. Lucky me and not yet, but I will be returning to such in good time.
Not able to get much of what I hoped for, in terms of beer, on this CA journey but was able to get a few things my home locale does not offer. I big, rich BDSA today that I enjoyed quite a bit.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18149/36728/?ba=garymuchow
Here's to a good week for all. I hope to have a couple of CA beers for the next one or two NBS.

 

While I am a Deadhead, you don't have to be one to enjoy this very nice beer.

 

I've been around for awhile, I and too swear there are beers I've reviewed but are nowhere to be seen in my list. Of course it could be the beer deluding my memory.

 

Deep Ellum: Dallas Blond


Gotta love the can.



3.42/5 rDev 0%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.5

I will admit up front I am not a huge fan of Blond ales. Actually this one has slightly more going on in flavor than most but not a whole lot. It pours a golden clear and leaves a slight bit of white soapy lacing in the glass. Smells like yeast and slight grainy sweet malt. Taste is of that typical blond ale grainy bready beer taste, but this has just a slight bit of lemon bittering, It has a very slick mouth feel, which like the can says goes down easy enough.
I am still not a blond ale fan, but this one is one of the better ones I have had. I probably wouldn't get another one of these, and I am glad it was a single. But, I don't have anything bad to say about it either. It might be a good intro to craft for a bmc drinker, but hell if I know.

 

Nicely done. Welcome aboard. And may the four winds blow you safely home.

 

Hey, beer might be "diluting" your memory too.

 

I'll say! I find it strangely compelling...
(I liked the slightly more subdued label on the BW you posted of theirs last week as well!)

 

Greetings to whatever NBSers are still awake tonight.

I didn’t get a new beer today, as I’m out of town, at my folks’ place in the Tri-Cities. Yesterday and today was spent helping my old man with some landscaping projects of his. Especially enjoyable time was spent shoveling gravel in what can only be described as a hurricane in the Dust Bowl. Nothing like 50 mph wind when the road directly behind your parents’ house is being lowered 20-30 feet and the region is going through what could be a record breaking year for low rainfall. The lawn here is crunchy and coughs up dust when you walk on it – and it’s not even April. Yet my folks still wonder why I don’t want to live here.

Fortunately, when I get home there’s all sorts of beer goodies courtesy of a cross-state porchbombing my building was lucky to survive. I got into a little of it during the week -Here’s a couple of new beers from our man in Bellingham, the one and only @beertunes

An IPA from Aslan:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31399/150261/?ba=woemad


and a Belgian Table Beer from Wander:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/34416/145027/?ba=woemad


Very enjoyable and tasty brews both, and worth having if you come across either of them Have a great week!

 

With all the chatter regard the Cottoidea paradisi, I figure I may as well weigh in with my two cents. Warning, heresy follows: I'm not a huge fan of regular Sculpin. Not that I find it to be bad mind you, I've just always been underwhelmed by it every time I've had it, be that by the bottle or on tap fresh as you want or older than enough. Just doesn't fit my preferred profile I guess. The grapefruit version, though? Knocked my socks off. I read an article on a popular* sports** website that has a subcolumn dedicated to craft beer wherein he compared it to shandys and radlers and the like (disparaging the forms I mention, but ultimately coming out complimentary of the beer... it was one of his more convoluted articles perhaps...), and I found myself prickling at the comparison. Dunno why, but I did. Anyway, loved the beer. Juicy, balanced, enticing, all the things I love from a sit back and kick back IPA.

SPEAKING OF WHICH!!
(segue game strong)

Pako's IPA does not taste similar to Grapefruit Sculpin. It does not smell similar. It looks kind of similar, but really, when you get down to it, IPAs tend to look one way, stouts another, etc (apologies to our more sophisticate folks: this is a broad generalized bastardization). What it DOES have in common, however, is that it is an enjoyable and imminently quaffable beverage. Pours a clean nondescript golden hue with a nice soapy white head. Good lacing as time progresses, as time is wont to do.
Aroma is somewhat lacking. Some citrus, some tropics, meh.
While I would describe the aroma as lacking, the taste is definitively subtle. Grapefruit and flowers and mangoes dance together over toasted biscuits, aye, but this is not an IPA to hit you in the face with hops and bitterness. Nor is it going to hide behind its malts with only token displays of lupulal affection. It blends the aforementioned flavours seamlessly and presents them as a whole. It has won accolades as an APA, and acclaim as an IPA. In this modern era of over the top and in your face, this beer is content to sit back on its porch and smile wisely at the clamour around it, never engaging, simply being, knowing it needs prove nothing.
Err... it's good. It's not fancy, it's not big, but it is very drinkable, very enjoyable, and I am glad to have five more waiting for me.

I also liked the picture of Pako -- the namesake dog -- that adorns the cans. It felt doubly appropriate as my own little puppy went north with my brother this afternoon to have her lady parts surgically removed, then spend a week recuperating with Momo and Pop Pop (the titles my mother and I assigned to her and my dad as they relate to Porter) (And yes, that is a squeaky Jabba the Hut in the background...)




Now back to M*A*S*H and cleaning what was my kitchen before my brother got back...

 

Sounds like it could be interesting, but I will definitely take your advice on only getting a single the first time around .

Enjoy the Teku!

 

Wow was thread great this week! 5 pages of NBS awesomeness =) Thank you to everyone who participated and let's do this again next week. For now though, Monday comes and I would like to wish you all a terrific week ahead. Cheers !

 

Thanks to all our contributors. Really enjoyed reading all the great beer descriptions on a day I didn't consume. Ironically, tasted at least ten new-to-me beers Saturday evening.

Cheers also to @utopiajane for her calm and diplomatic handling of the huge and inexplicable faux pas committed by veteran BA @lordofthewiens.

Will be in the big city visiting a fine new brewery called Singlecut on Wednesday and hope to be passing some tastes around our virtual table next Sunday. See y'all then.

 

I had to post this. LOL Ok back to Monday. Cheers to Utopians!