New Beer Sunday (week 538)

I had Knockout on tap a while ago but never in cans. I decided to pick up a 4-pack and revisit this local IPA today.

Look: Pale orange and very hazy with LOTS of hop bits floating around. Reminded me of a snow globe, but infinitely better because it's beer. The more I looked at it the better I liked it, but my wife was not impressed.

Aroma: With the haze and the hops, I was expecting big things. There was disappointingly little aroma, with some floral and grassy notes and mild toasted malt.

Taste: Slightly sweet with some caramel. Initially floral and grassy hops with a touch of citrus, but not much. Also picked up a little dank. Finished VERY bitter and clean. The balance seemed off, with a malty start and a bitter finish.

Feel: Medium carbonation that seemed appropriate. Medium bodied more like an English-style.

Overall: I like this brewery but they have some room for improvement. A hazy IPA with visible hop bits should deliver big aroma and taste, and this does neither, especially with the malt presence. Not a total loss, as I do find the snow globe effect entertaining.

Cheers!

 

Lol, depending on your age, this poem matched my 486 I had to throw away a few years back. They don't make parts that big for her after 2002. In the computer age it was a like trying to put a Porsche 3.6 flat six in a 1990 Toyota Corolla!

 

Back with another PNW IPA, this one from Fremont, but first a quick pause to thank our hostess with the mostest, who I neglected to congratulate earlier - @utopiajane!

I have a hard time imagining NBS not being started off by the fantastic introductions provided by you or @cavedave, so for that reason I was surprised that you've only been with us for 2 yrs. Here's to many more!

Back to the beer.
Homefront IPA is a beer that started as a "charity beer" brewed by Fremont with former Mariner Chris Ray and Virginia brewery Center of the Universe, with all the proceeds going to various charities for service men & women. Since then, a number of other breweries have taken up brewing the same beer to achieve the same goal, either as Homefront or Operation Homefront IPA:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20680/71718/?ba=woemad

Brewed for a great cause, but it comes across as just a good, decent, light and citrusy IPA, and seems already a little tired for something that's only been available since Memorial Day. Still, it's enough of a low-impact beer in terms of the effect on the palate that I could see myself sessioning it were I to have more than one.

 

Just Tried Clown Shoes, "Mexican Sombrero". Nice Stout - Chocolate/Cinnamon/Vanilla play nicely. Didn't get the peppers for a little bit, but they showed up as it warmed...

 

Well if you want to talk shoe horns I once put a 350 V8 in a Chevy Vega Wagon. Now that was a tight fight.

 

So, next weekend is the annual Washington Brewers Festival, 3 days of celebrating WA beer. It's become a tradition for me to pour the early session on Sunday, then drink the final hours of the fest away. Last year a local charity held a new fund-raising event in late July-early August, Baconfest!. Well, the powers that be decreed that this year Baconfest! would be held on Fathers Day. Which is always the closing day of WBC. And, I'm in charge of setting up and overseeing the beer garden at Baconfest! (and, this year, they're giving me minions! My very own minions! Poor things.). All that is merely to introduce a beer that would be right at home at Baconfest!, a bacon brown ale from a Nonobrewery in Everett: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30692/176825/#navigation

 

That is a tight fit! I bet after the hardwork that thing was a beast!

 

Ha ! Yes, it's funny how fast the technology keeps getting smaller and smaller, and the lightning speed with which computers can become obsolete. When I was organizing, consolidating, and downsizing all of my stuff before my move from AL to NC last year, I counted 7(!) desktop towers that I had amassed. And only the Dell that recently died was working among them. I even had an old HP that used to run Windows NT 3.1. I finally asked myself "why am I keeping these ?", wiped all the hard drives, and donated them all to Goodwill. They probably just threw them away.

 

Would it even go around a corner? A buddy of mine once stuffed a Windsor 351 into a Pinto wagon, and that thing had no weight in the ass, cornering was an adventure.

 

You should've been with me in my friends Camaro with a stroked 375 cornering in the rain!

 

NT? Dayum! You're talking my language now.

 

Wow! A Vega? Was this fairly recently, cause my hat's off to anyone who has made a Vega stand the test of time. They're like Chevettes or Citations in the sense that they've become exotic simply because there's so few survivors (my old man had a Citation X-11 that was one of the two most accursed cars I've ever ridden in).

 

Well, at least it's given me a crazy story. I might even be able to laugh about it, at least once I'm able to start shaving again.

 

The following story takes place circa '77-'81; my friend Randy rehabbed a '69 Mach 1, doing all the work himself. Well, after a few months he wrecked it, taking the whole front end off. So, he bought another from the junkyard, and swapped it over. Well, a few months later it was the rear. Well, he already had the parts. Then the left side. Then the right. He had a huge assed pile of dented Mustang parts in his back yard. In the end, I think only the engine core and some of the interior were original. Dude is still a hell of a mechanic, but man, he wasn't much of a driver back in the day.

 

I had a tasting of that at Three Cellars - Wonderful stuff! (I didn't review it...I'll probably pick up a bottle during the week...If you liked that try the Hopanomaly French Oak Chardonnay Barrel - It is awesome, too...About to post about it...

 

Lol, I've seen some of this too. Not I but my friend's Camaro. He just settled on driving a truck for now. I don't speed like I used to, don't need to, I've seen 175MPH I'm done with going faster. I'm now about comfort versus beating a 1/4 mile run.