New Beer Sunday (week 597)

Lovely review Maria, makes me feel as if I were at the table.

 

I had just given up on Lagunitas after the 12th of Never, because I think all of their beers taste the same. Then I saw a $3.49 bomber of Wilco Tango Foxtrot and since I'm a sucker for rather cheap bombers ....

From the outdoor beer photo studio, this 7.85% ABV brew pours a deep, clear copper color with a solid cream colored head that leaves a nice film of bubbles after receding. Not much lacing after the first pour but sheets of lacing cover the glass on the last pour.

The aroma starts out with syrupy sweet malts and subtle brown sugar or carmelized sugar notes. The back half of the aroma is piny and driven by orange peel zest.

The taste starts out malty but not as sweet as the aroma. More of a toasted malt brown ale experience that doesn't last long as the hops soon announce their authority. The second half of the beer is piny hops and more grapefruit than orange. It does have that noticeable Lagunitas house taste, but maybe not quite as much as their other beers.

Mouthfeel is medium bodied, dry, easy to drink at 7.85%.

Overall, I rated it 3.8 for a -3.1 rDev. It was worth the price of admission but I also tend to not enjoy "imperial" versions of classic styles. I'm going fishing with my son now, so later I'll be back with a beer I am highly anticipating. Cheers!

 

My first opportunity to give this one a full review so I'll count it as new . . .

Southern Prohibition Crowd Control DIPA
8%, fully hopped





Appearance: Light hazy gold, bountiful white cap with good lacing.

Aroma: Citrus hops first, rather dense hop aroma giving off notes of grapefruit zest, lemon oil, woodsy, earthy and a brightness that seems spicy but really isn't spice. Good depth to the hops but little malt apparent.

Taste: The malt contributes mostly to the body and as a carrier for the hops which it does rather well serving as a launch platform rather than substantially contributing to the flavor. Good integration of taste sensations here, fairly complex. No alcohol apparent, clean finish with lingering hop aftertaste.

Texture: Medium to full.

Overall: Good product here which starts with a sense of complexity and carries that through the end. This is an Imperial style (8%) with a big hop wallop and the feeling you're drinking something substantial that isn't overwhelming. Strength with restraint yet satisfying. Easy to enjoy more than one but if you're going to session this Bad Boy plan to stay put.

 

Good morning New BSers! It's a hazy "Light in (almost)August" kind of day here in NW PA and soonI'll be picking more apples form my yard, thanks to last night's mild rain storm. Maria, that was a beautiful review - almost makes me want to drink pilsners - you and Jack may soon convince me! However, my New Breakfast Beer on this Sunday (NBBS) is:



$ 12.00 (Including tax)/25.4 oz bottle ($ 0.472/oz) at Spec’s Liquor Store 14623
Batch 11 bottled 7/20/15 (purchased 3/7/16) at 42 degrees allowed to warm to 55 degrees into a hand washed and dried JK snifter
Aroma initially very strong of rum and alcohol, quickly fades to a more demure date/plum wafting
Head large (Maximum 5.5 cm, aggressive pour), light brown, thin and frothy, diminishing to a three mm ring and partial layer
Lacing - none
Body – deep brown with some hints of red, clear as seen around the edges but so dark as to be opaque through the diameter of the glass
Flavor – fruity, slightly sweet, mostly date-, plum-, fig-ish types of dark fruit flavors, well blended
Palate – full, bordering on syrupy, soft carbonation after some initial fizziness

“I like big beers and I cannot lie” and that’s the extent of my ability to parody songs – time to call Weird Al. Quads are one of my favorite styles of beer and this one is pretty good. After the initial “POP” of the cork, followed by no foaming and a blast of in-my-face rum and alcohol gust, the aroma settled to a pleasing generic “dark fruit” balm. As I poured aggressively, the head threated to overflow the lip unless I paused. I did, and allowed the cascade of froth to slow down before I continued pouring. The head was thin and ephemeral, lacking the mousse-like density of a good Belgian quad - it rapidly returned to CO2 and liquid. The flavor cannot be faulted – it captures the essence of a well-crafted quad – dark fruit phenolics and esters abound, a pleasure for the taste buds. There is no vanillin from the oak cubes – if the label didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have known they were ever used, except for the initial rum assault. A little syrupy to my palate, but still a pleasing and highly drinkable offering from Adelbert’s.


Appearance 3.75, Aroma 4, Flavor 4.5, Palate 4.25, Overall 4.5.
Rating 4.32, Avg 4.26, rDev +1.2%

 

Mornin' NBSers and kudos to @utopiajane for both the great start to this virtual pub gathering and for the great information about beer I'm hoping to find and try myself.

The weather here is forecast to be spotty with both periods of sun and thunderstorms moving though (some storms potentially strong ).

I reckon I'll be getting back here to the "shared table" for a while today, and quite possibly at least twice. We're getting some company from out of town visiting later today and one of them is a beer lover. So he and I may well get a chance to have one together for the first time in a long time while the ladies share their stories about kids (and us ).

There is also a distinct possibility we'll all be headed out to dinner tonight at a place known to have a great offering of fresh beer on tap (at least that's the place I'll be voting for and so will he, so if we're not out voted ). That means that once again my wife and I will have the chance to share good food, a good long conversation, and some good beer with friends. (Now I ask you, could someone ask for a better time and place to have some excellent beer and discuss it with at least one other person who's actually interested in that same beer? )

(NBS may come close to that but we're limited by not yet being able to reach through the screen and across the Web to offer someone else a taste of what we're having and watch their face light up as they sample it. )

Later then and Cheers, all!

 

Spectacular! TY

 

Good early morning NBSers! I've got a couple I'll be getting to later (after all, it's not even 7:30am yet here), but I had a little nugget I'd like to share. I was recently offered, and accepted, the opportunity to write reviews for a local for a local beer website. They want me to do 2 a week, and focus on new brews coming out of the breweries here in Bellingham. I tried a beer yesterday, and will knocking out my first attempt, and submitting it, here in a little while, after I'm fully awake.

I'm a little nervous, and a little excited. I've never really worried about my writing in my reviews here on BA, because they're really just notes to myself, so writing, intentionally, for a wider audience is a wee bit daunting. I hope not to embarrass you guys. When I get a couple posted, I'll link them here, and you guys can give me some feedback. Cheers, and happy NBS!

 

That's great news!
Congratulations!

 

Good morning, NBS! Turns out I am actually low on new beers. I must be close to having tried them all . Actually I have a couple new brews lying around, but none of them seemed like summer morning brews. I have been enjoying the thread our hostess referenced, the The 750 Saison and had a new beer or two on it yesterday.

I think I may finally be coming around to the point where the beers within the style of saison/farmhouse that I like are moving up my list to becoming more of a go to. Unfortunately there are quite a few in the style I do not like as much as others (as it is apparently a wide-ranging "style"), so I will have to navigate it accordingly.

Anyhow, onto a beer from my Richmond trip that is now two months in the past. A variation on a beer I reviewed on NBS a little while ago (and see if you get the irony): New Beer Sunday (week 597)

This is O.T.I.S. - Gin Barrel Aged with Juniper and Rose Hips


I have recently noticed I enjoy gin-barrel aged pale beers (IPAs and tripels that I can think of for sure). This is a lighter offering than some of those, and then you add in the sour aspect, and, well, we'll see...

As per usual this summer, you can't get the clarity from my pictures. Today is worse than most, I think the glasses started gathering condensation before the caught a whiff of the liquid they were to contain. This bee is actually quite clear and maybe 1 SRM point darker orange than the photo shows.

That head lasted a little while, but eventually joined the humid air and left my glass with not a single bubble. The nose is nicely floral - like an early spring floral in the vegetable garden where you are getting the smell of the blooms that you hope will adorn your plate as a lovely meal later in the year.

The gin/juniper do add a refreshing minty note to the nose, and does eventually grab my nose more than that original impression. Quite oddly, there's also a little bubble gum note in this thing.

The taste is a big divergence from that nose. The opening note is a watery, lightly woody, funky sourish flavor. The cucumber impression is not at all lost in these opening notes. I am not knoweldgable of rose hips, though I have had them before. I think they might be the cause of the flavor I get in the middle of the beer as a transition to the piney/minty end notes.

Feel is almost flat, but just enough light tickle to not be completely so. The tartness of the beer, which grows from that funky note to be more tart, helps the tongue stave off boredom.

This beer is more subtle in its flavors than I expected. It isn't trying to hide them, but it isn't throwing them in your face, either. The "extras" in this beer play a nice role without dominating the base beer. Re-reading my prvious review - it seems the tartness might have been quelled a tad, but the cucumber comes out - and the melon might be a part of the middle that the rose hips are accenting. Definitely glad I pulled this to take home, and I would grab this again if I saw it on tap, but I feel the bottle was a little more pricey than I'd like to pay for this again.

 

Hey what's going on?!

Man this heat and humidity last week... just brutal... hasn't really let up today either very much.

Speaking of heat, I need to cool off. Pulling weeds has worked me up an appetite and a big sweat in this jungle like humidity.

Always wanted to try this, so what better excuse to mix things up a bit for NBS..

Off we go!!

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Foster's Premium Ale | Foster's Group Limited


Foster's Group Limited - Foster's Premium Ale by imbibehour, on Flickr

Poured from the can into a nonic pint glass. Dec 26 2016 stamped on the bottom of the can, best before I assume. Big 750ml can. Brewed in the USA stamped on can. Seen this listed as English Pale Ale more so than bitter.

Deep copper amber, real nice clarity and hints of chestnut brown. Very little carbonation but some pinhead bubbles come up to the surface, and there's some microfine streams. Head is a big fluffy consistency, bleach white with an easy four fingers tall height. Pill lacing hits with good cling, and crowned bubbled collar. Nice looking beer. Pouring out of this can really sucks though it's very awkward with lots of dribbling and splashing. Horrible design.

Light toffee notes, and a bit of a clean water smell. Slightly airy grain but quite light on the nose, not too sweet, a very dry faint caramel note coming along. Quite neutral and hints at a wet body possibly.

Palate isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but not that great either, and definitely gets worse after time. First sip is pretty light on the malt depth and manages just a touch of sweetness towards toffee. But it quickly disappears on the swallow. The aftertaste is very ferrous and metallic, the kind of taste I associate with badly canned beer I remember growing up with. Steely aluminum aromas and carbon dioxide flavors kick off on the finish and seem to take everything pleasurable out of the brew. Soda gaseous in the gut strangely which does not make for a fun experience. Lingering hints of burnt grain gone far beyond the toasted level and a lingering mild hop bitterness that is not pleasurable.

This beer feels like it's playing tricks on me. First sips are actually okay, there's a hint of solid English style here, but once the swallow hits all bets are off as the beer seems to taste like it has a designed fault. It's just flat out weird.

look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 2.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 2.5 | BA Generated Score: 2.91

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Going to be a tough slog going through this can... or perhaps we will just move on shall we?...

 

That's pretty sweet! Congratulations! I'm sure you'll do fine.

Do you plan on just giving your thoughts, or combining it with that of others? And by that I mean, are you going to take a "go in blind" aspect, or a "learn as much as possible," including your own perceptions (leaning heavily on the latter, perhaps)??

 

Good for you! Fear not, you'll do a great job.

 

Don't really know yet. They want +/- 500 words per entry, and they told me to write like I was sitting at the bar talking to someone. I don't know that I would have 500 words to say about a beer if I were just hanging. I think the big challenge will be not becoming redundant, quickly. I don't want them all to sound the same, which my reviews here certainly do.

 

No sweat - we're all pretty easy-going here! Looking forward to your efforts!

 

A day of clouds and rain and beer drinking.

Who doesn't have a best friend? Doug is mine. We met 46 years ago when we were first year medical students, and have been best friends from the start. He's been by my side for my divorces, and I've been with him throughout his wife's debilitating illness. Nowadays we see each other once or twice a year, and we just pick up where we left off. Doug was here this weekend to play in my golf club member/guest tournament. We had a great time, finished third in our flight, and are already making plans on how we will win the flight next year.

I am drinking Henry's Farm Double Bock. I've had some beers from Two Roads Brewing, and thought I'd try this one.
It poured a reddish/brown color with a small tan head.
There was a caramel and sweet fruit aroma.
Caramel and toffee taste up front, then some apple.
Thick and syrupy.
I liked this beer, and I think bock beer fans will like it also.

 

Poured at near room temperature and got a one inch off white head that leaves behind some lace as it settles into a layer of bubbles. 4.25 Smell is clove, banana bread, brown sugar, biscuit, toffee, vanilla, dark fruit, and some tart cherries. 4.25

Taste follows clove, banana, and biscuit upfront with dark fruit, vanilla, brown sugar, and a little shot off of cherry in the finish. 4.25

Mouthfeel is a solid medium almost creamy, moderate carbonation, maybe a little dry, and very drinkable. 4.25

Overall this is an excellent beer, not a style that I love, but I am starting to appreciate it more and more. 4.25

 

Wait, a doctor that golfs!? Unheard of!

 

Hmm... I definitely could see me worrying about the 500 word limit
But I thought that if someone asked me to do something on the regular, one of my first concerns would be becoming redundant; so I feel you there.