New Beer Sunday (week 531)

I'd like to try that beer.

 

4.23/5 rDev +8.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Weltenburger Kloster Barock Hell has a very thick, frothy, off-white head, a hazy, bubbly, yellow-gold appearance, and lots of lacing left on the glass. The aroma is of rich, pungent barley malt, sourdough bread, yeast, and a slight cream cheese cake icing note, that one will get with Genesee Cream Ale. Taste is of sweet, bold, barley malt, a slight hop balancing bitterness, and lager yeast. Mouthfeel is medium, and Weltenburger Kloster Barock Hell finishes on the dry side, a little dirty, and highly drinkable.

RJT

 

Hi guys! Just stopping by quickly, as I'm headed to Seattle to watch the Mariners game today. Why I thought getting up early the day after a brewfest was a good idea, I don't know. I'll probably be trying a couple new brews whilst in the big city, and I'll try to check in tonight. Happy NBS all!

 

New Java Stout Sunday
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1683/36164/?ba=WesMantooth

It came with glassware instructions. Who am I to decide?


3.82/5 rDev -5.2%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 3.75

Poured into a coffee mug, so appearance is what I see coming out of the can. Very dark brown to black. Fairly viscous, with a fluffy/frothy tan head that all but disappears entirely, leaving a very small ring with some tight, tiny bubbles around the outside.

Aroma is ashy smelling. Mainly burnt malt barley and coffee beans.

Slightly sweet initially, with chocolate and caramel malts. Then it turns to bitter coffee and that deep burnt taste. Like the stuff that you have to scrape off the bottom of your pot when you have left a soup/chili sit too long. Very, very, very ashy. It seems to be improving as I make my way through it. Honestly not sure if it is temperature related, or the bitterness is starting to numb my taste buds. Either way, it is better toward the end.

Body is outstanding. Very silky and almost chewy. A little bit too much carbonation maybe as there is an initial crisp zing to it.

This is really close to being an outstanding beer. If I didnt have the aftertaste like I had just stuck my tongue in an ashtray, I would have been in the 4 range on taste and overall. It is just a little too rough for me though. If you are someone who likes a super black, super roasted coffee, you may want to give it a ride. It is still a very good beer overall.

 

Jack’s Abby NEW to Southeasten PA – Hoponius Union Woo-Hoo!

Jack’s Abby is making a ‘guest appearance’ to Southeastern Pennsylvania for the month of April. This has been discussed in a past BA thread:

“Jack’s Abby will release its lagers for the month of April, allowing the brewery to test the market prior to permanent distribution when the brewery’s major expansion is complete in the first quarter of 2016.”

There are a number of Jack’s Abby beers available for sale: I purchased a 6-pack of Hoponius Union.

Poured into my Spiegelau IPA glass:

Appearance:

A pretty golden-orange color with a creamy white head.

Aroma:

A pleasant but mild aroma of tropical fruit; notes of passionfruit and mango.

Taste:

A BIG flavor of tropical fruit with just a bit of pine on the mid-palate. There is just enough malt backbone to provide some balance.

Mouthfeel

Medium bodied and moderate carbonation. A very crisp/dry finish.

Overall

The drinkability of a lager with BIG juicy flavors of tropical fruit like a West Coast style IPA. A powerful 1-2!!

I very much look forward to Jack’s Abby beer being a full-time beer in Pennsylvania.

Cheers!

 

Stunning...

And at a Lagunitas price-point...



Sfolgiatelle in my belly, blue skies bringing cool breezes inside, snifta o' beer before me...

ScareCity #3: High West-ified Imperial Coffee Stout

Strong coffee and whiskey right off the bat; veins of vanilla, wood, and bittersweet roasted malts woven throughout... medium-weight, smooth; lightly drying on the finish with a dark lingering bittersweetness... classy start-to-finish

Horns up with some Mastodon \m/

 

It was a glorious day yesterday as I cut down two dead silver maple trees in my back yard, and I can say that being on a ladder with a chainsaw and surviving with perfectly felled trees deserves some beerfreshment. Sawdust, sweat, ticks ... Summer is coming.

Today I chose Uinta's Sum'r Summer Ale. It is a golden ale weighing in at a session able 4% ABV.

First of all, after I reviewed this beer, I did some research. I've had 15 different American Golden Ales, and it appears that I either love them or hate them. But I've only had a few bad ones, so this style is definitely a style I enjoy particularly under the "summer ale" name.

Uinta Sum'r in the St. Bernardus goblet (didn't want to use a shaker, didn't have any better ideas so I used this glass -- I love it) looks like a hazy faded straw yellow color with a white head that eventually recedes to a wispy layer. Surprisingly good lacing coats the glass, patchy and webbed froth galore.

The nose is a beginning of bready, cereal grains from the malt bill but tapers off to a spicy, hop conclusion. Orange citrus offers a zesty little summer reminder. There may even be a bit of a yeast note in there somewhere, but it is very minimal if present at all.

The taste is where it's at with less bready malts and more citrus zest and a lot of spicy hops. This is a lot like Kona Brewing's Big Wave Golden Ale -- that's a compliment as I loved that beer. The aftertaste is of spicy hops, maybe even a little bit of cedar if you will. There's a nice blend of malt and hops for the proverbial "well-balanced" tag here.

Overall, a lovely low ABV beer with big taste. This is exactly what I mean when I say I love lower ABV beers ... it does have taste and I can drink many without massive consequences. I rated this 3.77 which is good for a +8.6 rDev. I probably should have rated it higher, honestly.

Cheers BA.

 

Piperworks Brewing Company - Mosaic
American Double / Imperial IPA | 10.00% ABV

4.49/5 rDev +1.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5



I had the treat of visiting Chicago last week and acquiring this delicious morsel. Absolutely stunning and my favorite of the ninja series that I have had - although citra seems to always evade me.

L: A dulled copper tone. One finger of head with thick/bubble white lacing maintaining itself all the way to the end of the pour.

S: Brilliant nose, very sweet and inviting. You can tell that this beer is Mosaic hopped from right away. I am picking up on some tropical notes (pineapple, mango) as well as the sweetness of the malts. Is honey used in this beer?

T: Marvelous! Mosaic is absolutely one of my favorite hop varieties. So diverse, yet so satisfying. Almost like my tastebuds don't know which signals to send to my brain first. This is definitely a sipping beer and as it warms (a but) the floral notes become more and more pronounced. A rich dankness is followed quickly by an explosion of juicy/fruitiness which gives way to a clean finish. Very little bitterness.

F: Great feel. Moderate carbonation. Not syrup-y or boozy like many other IIPA's. Feels like a 7.5% IPA.

O: Search out and try this beer if you are at all interested in IPA/IIPA syles. While this one is 10% the alcohol level is brilliantly disguised. A bit on the pricier (10$) side of bombers that I would purchase so I can not wait until Piperworks begins to offer their beers in 16 oz format. Another great beer from one of Chicago's stand out breweries.

 

Good morning everyone,
It's a cold drizzly low 40s lazy Sunday. After a big hearty breakfast we walked out through the unpeopled woods and the hounds were tracking all kinds of smells and generally being very distracted by what must have been a very busy night for local critters. Otis was in full voice and just a bit embarassing. The boy is a canine bugle! The swallows were skimming the lake lapping up fledgling bugs, and the blue and green herons were creeping like animate trees quietly stalking young fish. I love these days!
Today's first beer is Asheville Brewing Company's Liberty Saison, a tribute to Liberty Bicycles, a 35 year veteran of the Asheville scene.
ABC's Liberty Saison pours a hazy golden glow, a reminder of the saisons and biere de gardes along the borders of France and Belgium. This is a very pretty beer bubbling slowly to a diminished meringue head, breathing out prominent Belgian yeast aromatics- sweet and spicy.
Drier than many effusive Saisons, Liberty cleans up very nicely with a crisp snap and a distinctive clove-like finish, but ever so dry and thirst quenching. Tastes Belgian, smells Belgian, looks Belgian, by golly I think they've done it! Great job ABC!
Today's second beer is Asheville Brewing Company's Beer Guy Rye. ABC is a very good brewery much like Asheville's version of Olde Hickory- lots of top quality brews across many styles.
Beer Guy Rye pours a deep amber capped with a bright white lacy head, with a continuous healthy bead keeping things lively.
A bone dry, crisp amber ale, with distinct rye graininess and a long pure finish that leaves me smacking my lips. This beer screams for a pastrami and swiss on pumpernickel.
The nose is rather muted at first- too cold I believe- and as it warms it reveals very nice malty-rye flour aromatics and mimics the lasting rye flavor.
This is a first class beer, perfect with deli food and it is an outrageous good value. I highly recommend this beer with or without pastrami!

 

Deciding what to do today, decided one thing: to have a beer. Today my GF will be joining me, because it's a new beer and she's got a bit of a ticker side to her. Today's coffee-beer is Amager/Mikkeller Hr. Frederiksens Væsel Brunch. This beer pour isn't too exciting, although I did pour rather light.


The nose takes a little to develop (if you pour a beer from "fridge temps"), but is quite nice, if not that strong. Typical mocha coffee and some oat notes; as I said in review, it reminded me of freshly baked cookies. Taste was similar to nose, but with a nice smoothness in the opening feel that accentuated the flavors, even though I wish the beer felt a bit more heavier in body. Strange note of wood in the lengthy end taste/feel.


Expect to be back with another later today, will bore you with my week's adventures then. Cheers!!

 

Good Sunday morning, BAs. Although I'm still trying to get over all the Lagunitas Lil' Sumpin Sumpin I had last night, I'm happy as a hungover clam to be here for this weeks' New Beer Sunday. Today, I'm sampling a style that I admit to being a relative novice with : Gose. I've had several American offerings before, but never an actual example from Germany, the country where the style was born. So, at my last trip to the bottle shop, I picked up a bomber of Original Ritterguts Gose brewed in Leipzig. Anyway, here we 'gose'...

Appearance:

A slightly-cloudy light straw color with a thin white head that is held by a continuous carbonation.

Aroma:

A not-entirely-unpleasant combination of saltwater and -don't laugh- urinal cake. (Did I seriously just type that ?)

Taste:

Fortunately, the taste is quite different than the aroma ! There is a marked salinity, but also a very crisp green apple and lemon acidity that induces a sour candy-like pucker. Only a tiny bit of wheat in the background. Hop bitterness is extremely subtle, and is not discernible to me. At only 4.2% abv, I don't even detect the alcohol.

Mouthfeel

Very light body, with a dry, crisp finish. The salinity lingers slightly for a bit.

Overall

This is fine beer, from the country that pretty much invented fine beers. While I wouldn't drink this style all the time, I found it to be a refreshing change from the usual styles I drink, and would be especially good for warm or hot-weather drinking. I invite all beer drinkers to give this style a try at least once. As I understand it, the process for making this style differs somewhat than the process for other styles, and takes some real skill and dedication to do well.

Cheers, and happy NBS !!!!!!

 

This was the beer that allowed my girlfriend to realize the dreaded lager wasn't something to avoid (was one of my first hoppy lagers, as well). Hopefully JA eventually makes it to DC area, the sooner the better.

 

Good morning New BSers! Well, it's another Sunday and time for NBS reviews. My wife got home from her quilt trip about 0300 today, after I hit the rack at 0220. She seems to have picked up the respiratory problem I just shook so now she sleeps upright on the couch while I get to be horizontal in bed. Oh well, life's a bitch. Today's New Beer is:



I'm not crazy about New Belgium brews but I am willing to try anything Terrapin brews, so I bought this. It's described on the label as "Wood aged/Imperial black rye wit/spiced ale". Sounds like a lot is going on here. The wood in question is sassafras, something that's all around the woods here and something I've used in home made wine. The spice is coriander. Somehow, after the sassafras nose disappears as the beer warms, all we are left with is a slightly sweet, slightly oily muddled taste which is unoffensive and uninspiring, and un-coriander. Sorry Terrapin - for me this pairing with New Belgium definitely didn't work out.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2372/148358/?ba=Ozzylizard

 

I dig this brew too. To me it looked like Lagunitas was trying to Nail what 50/50 Eclipse variants were providing. Especially the Java 50/50 variant. I think they did a good job with it. One of the easiest drinkable high gravity stouts I've had in a long time. Coffee and Barrel notes that's balanced on enough sweetness to make it interesting and not a sugar bomb.

 

What is happening NBS!? The cool cold weather of last week has moved on and warm sunny days are here! I am celebrating last weeks last snowfall, with Funky Buddha's Last Snow! This morning I had my yard rolled because it was similar to walking on golf balls. Much flatter now and should make mowing a bit easier.

What a treat this beer is, thank you @Yohann

A wonderful aroma of steeping Italian espresso with freshly cut open coconut. Dark chocolates mingle with the roasted malts. The tastes starts off with the roasted malts and quickly moves into a coffee, espresso flavor. After it settles the sweet coconut drenched in dark chocolate (mounds bar!) comes in to entice the palate.

This is in my amazing zone because of how much I love coffee, and coconut covered in dark chocolate.