New Beer Sunday (week 621)

Good morning NBS crew! A big thank you to @utopiajane for getting the party started. A cloudy and frosty morning here should call for something dark and roasty but I'm opting to go light and roasty with a beer I purchased when I was shopping in Michigan on Friday. Let's move on.....

The latest release of Stone Enjoy By 02.14.17 with coffee and chocolate has been on my radar since I heard about it. I loved Mocha with it's strange but tasty mix, so I figured this is worth a shot as well. Let's pour this 9.4% bomber in my trusty Stone chalice on this cold morning and see what awaits?

Pours a rather flat looking dark gold leaving a thin layer of off white foam. It settles quickly leaving very little lacing. The smell is very hop forward with grapefruit, passionfruit and pineapple. A hint of dark roast is hiding in the back. The taste is pure Enjoy By hops! Pineapple, grapefruit and passionfruit. There's a dark bitter roast finish which I'm guessing is the chocolate and coffee, but I can't really differentiate the two. The hops have won! The feel is oily with a very bitter and dry finish.



I was a fan of Stone Mocha and had high hopes for this being just as interesting, but was left disappointed. It's too much Enjoy By, not enough coffee and chocolate in my opinion. The huge hop profile seems to squelch the other ingredients turning it into a bitter pill to swallow. My score is 3.54 / rDev -7.3%. I'm glad the store only had bombers and that I just purchased one. Worth a shot for the curious, but I'll move on and wait for Mocha to be released again.

Have a great Sunday gang. I'm going to be doing some cooking shortly before settling in to watch some football here with my brother. Here is the official scorecard......

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/256146/?ba=Prager62#review

 

Winter of Pilsners

Today I have another installment for my series of Winter Pilsners: Highland Pilsner.

I was gifted this beer by a good friend over the holiday season. I have never heard of Highland Brewery so I am very excited to try this beer.

I did some research on this brewery and I thought others might be interested in knowing about it too:

“Highland Brewing Company has crafted the highest quality beer with North Carolina mountain water since 1994. Family-owned and Asheville’s first legal brewery since Prohibition, it is a favorite destination for beer fans, music fans, and families. From the balanced, food-pairing favorite Gaelic Ale, to the tad aggressive, fruit and pine hop-burst of Highland IPA, the portfolio always showcases quality. Highland’s name honors the Scots Irish who settled in the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th and 19th centuries. Come see us! Get a beer at Asheville's first legal brewery and learn what we believe in.”

I don’t know about you but the fact that the word “legal” was used twice in that paragraph sure got me thinking. I am aware that in the past (and even today) that making moonshine was popular in the Appalachian Mountain regions but maybe bootlegging beer was popular too? Hmm?

While the name of the brewery highlights their Gaelic ties they obviously make other beer styles since Highland Pilsner is certainly not a Gaelic related beer style.

On their website they describe Highland Pilsner:

“A finely nuanced pilsner features German Hallertau Blanc hops and three other Hallertau region varietals. Saphir, Perle, and Hersbrucker hops add notes of stone fruit, pepper, and lush grass to the German pilsner malt body. Cold fermented with lager yeast for a crisp, dry finish.

ABV 5.5%

Hops Perle, Saphir, Hallertau Blanc, Hersbrucker

Grist Best Pils

IBU 35

Original gravity 11.9 Plato”

Through my homebrewing I have familiarity with some of the hops listed and I have brewed with Best Pilsner malt before (Bestmalz is a German Malting Company) so I am having very positive feelings about this beer.

So, what do you think? Can a Gaelic ‘connected’ brewery make a quality Pilsner beer? We shall see,

Served in a new Christmas present – Firestone Walker Pivo Pils glass

Appearance:

Light straw colored with a BIG white head.

Aroma:

The first think that hits my nose sweet Pilsner Malt aroma. There is also a hint of what I will term as ‘yeasty’ in the nose as well.

Taste:

The flavor pretty much follows the nose. There is notable breadiness from the Pilsner Malt. I am also picking up some herbal/spicy flavors from the hops. There is a firm bitterness here.

Mouthfeel:

Nicely carbonated, medium body with a dry finish.

Overall:

I really enjoyed drinking this beer. I found the flavors to be pleasant with an enjoyable balance between the Pilsner Malt flavors and hop flavors. In German this beer was süffig!

I have one other new Pilsner in my existing inventory and I have another locally produced Pilsner ‘on my radar screen’ for purchase. Stay tuned!!

@RobH @rotsaruch @nc41 @KOP_Beer_OUtlet @zid

 

Good morning all, we started early but the weather is so crappy everybody but me decided to tuck it in and go back to sleep. I was thinking something a bit heavy this morning but that would require getting up in which case the puppy would spring to life and it would irk Miss Kitty who is soundly asleep on the footstool between my feet, so rather than disturb the natural order of things I reached in the small fridge next to my desk (ain't retirement great) and found there's a song in the air . . .





Score 3.89
appearance: 3.5 | aroma: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

Appearance of light banana yellow with large white cap and good lacing.

Aroma is also light but complex being a mixture of floral spice and mild malt. There's also a touch of something like banana but I think that might be a suggestion of the appearance rather than an actual flavor.

Taste is a bunch of little things rather than a hit of any large flavors. At first I thought there wasn't much there until I realized the complexity of flavors were working so well together what I was tasting represented a whole rather than parts. Hops interplay but really show up in the dry, slightly astringent finish and aftertaste.

Texture is lighter side of medium with a rounded feel.

Songbird is an appropriate name for this brew. It reminds me of early Summer walking through a meadow where various flowers and herbs are growing. This sense even on a cold, wet, dreary Winter day. I like the taut, tart complexity of this one and could drink it anytime.

 

I've enjoyed NBS for some time, and finally have a photo to share. Hope I'm doing this right!

This is a home-fermented sorghum beer I tried in a village in northern Togo (West Africa) a few Sundays ago. It's called tchouk, and served body-temp warm in a calabash. It's a cloudy orange-brown, the color of many of the dirt roads and mud-brick houses of west Africa. The smell is yeasty, and the taste is tart and a little funky, but quite good! The BV varies greatly depending how long the batch was allowed to ferment. But you definitely taste the alcohol in the ones I tried!

Tchouk is almost always brewed and served by a woman. Typically, before serving she will clean your calabash by dipping it in a bucket of not-too-sanitary looking water, then fill the calabash with the brew. Then she will take a sip before offering it to you to show that it isn't poisoned. After drinking, it's customary to toss the yeasty dregs in the dirt, signaling that you are finished - or ready for more!

Tchouk is an extremely social activity, and it's nearly impossible to walk through a village without accepting a few calabashes. In larger towns there are little tchouk huts where you can step inside out of the fierce midday sun and enjoy a calabash of blood-warm tchouk for about 15 cents. Enjoy!

 

No, I did not know that.

Did you read that on Ron's blog?

Cheers!

 

Howdy, NBSers!

My post-football-season afterglow at work is slowly subsiding with dental implant surgery on the horizon, but I brought back enough beer from a recent trip to Houston to fill my refrigerator, so ... well ... it's helping.

I got off the late shift last night (earlier this morning) and cracked open this can of Houston-brewed beer:

(I NEVER get beer this fresh)

When the head starts slowly sliding down the side of the glass

OK, so it's not going in the beer head sticking/lacing hall of fame, but still ... kinda cool

Spindletap Brewery Hop Gusher

Spindletap is a new brewery to me, and I would've passed on this beer from the unknown brewery but saw the "1/3/17" printed on the bottom of the can as I stood looking at it in the Whole Foods on Waugh St. in Houston on 1/9/17. I counted on my fingers ... "three, four, five, six ..." The math was too good to pass up.

Hop Gusher pours very light for an American IPA, almost pure yellow out of the can. As it piles up in the glass, some darker yellow (gold) shows, and once poured, the beer shows some amber highlights. Call it SRM 4-7 with a 4-5 rating most of the time (my eyes and judgement suck, so I need ranges).

The nose is sweet grapefruit, a pinch of cilantro/green onion ... but let's say "hoppy" to start with. You can smell the hops as you pour. Then the sweeter malt shows up, and the mix is a very sweet grapefruit juice. The greener notes are very light.

Flavors follow the nose, and grapefruit pico de gallo or ceviche come to mind. It's citrusy and plenty sweet from the light malt, but there's something oniony and acidic and almost salty to it. It's bitter. My palate gets adjusted quickly and cancels out most of that bitter ... but it's bitter. And that salty flavor is a mere mental shadow, for the malt adds plenty of sweetness to it, even ice cold to start with.

The mouthfeel is fine, plenty of carbonation and a solid weight bolstered by all that malt. A good midweight.

I like it. The fact that it's still in a two-week-old window is likely helping it a ton in terms of hop flavor -- there's enough malt to suggest a malt takeover in its near future. As it is, I like it enough to look for it again and to look for some other Spindletap offerings. There's not a single note off key -- not in the look, aroma nor flavor. Promising.

The review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43368/226016/?ba=Premo88#review
3.86 (-1.3% rDev)

New breweries scare me. I go on a beer-buying trip and see a bunch of 6-packs in strange-looking labels and start calculating:

# of new breweries —to— # of established breweries —to— #people buying craft beer

... a ratio that leads to purple haze all in my brain. But good ol' NBS keeps the adventurer spirit in me alive, so thank you, @cavedave , @utopiajane , and all you friendly patrons of the best beer thread in the world for helping me cross that great beyond on a mostly-weekly basis. Sure, it's not climbing Mt. Everest, but adventures come in all sizes, do they not?

Cheers!

 

Thank you, Maria, for getting New Beer Sunday off to an impressive, incandescent start.
I saw what might be my favorite movie yesterday, La La Land. It's a well-acted, well-choreographed love story with a particularly poignant ending. I can't recommend it highly enough. Go see it!

Today is a cold winter day, but sunny. We've had a lot of ups and downs weather-wise this season, and it looks like that will be the pattern for a while.

Today's beer is Allagash Hoppy Table Beer, bottled 12/14/16.
It is a pale yellow color with a small white head that leaves a little lace.
Aroma of citrus (grapefruit mostly) and spice. There is also a grassy/earthy/herbal aroma.
Taste is more pine-forward, with a little grapefruit, and, surprisingly, some peach. Coriander is there. And there seems to be a little funk going on.
This is a light-bodied, very drinkable beer.
Allagash does a beautiful job with these "simple" beers.

 

I think I've seen something along this line listed on Wicked Weeds sight, hence he IPA they brew called Pernicious. Hops were thought to be "pernicious " weeds, pesky and not welcome.

 

Good morning New BSers! Maria, thank you for getting us started and the pork loin sounds FABULOUS! Coconut and star anise and pineapple! Be still my clogged coronary arteries - don't blow yet!

It looks like we're going to use up another of our 30 sunny days today - maybe it'll be dry enough to finish raking the leaves that I started yesterday. Unfortunately it was still so wet that a lot of the moss came along with the leaves. After having some trees cut down last summer (No more fresh spruce tips for brewing!) sunlight can finally touch the ground in my yard. I don't know yet if that's a good or bad thing.

Today's New Beer:



$ 11.87 (Including tax)/bomber ($ 0.540/oz) at Oppermann’s, Saginaw, MI
Undated bottle at 42 degrees into a hand washed and dried JK snifter; allowed to warm to 50 degrees.
Aroma – pretty much like every barrel-aged brew; oaky and some roasted malt.
Head small (Maximum < 2 cm, aggressive pour), light brown, dense and creamy with some rocks, decent retention finally diminishing to an irregular six to ten mm creamy ring and a thin layer with a large rocky island.
Lacing excellent – wide rings of tight lacing connected by short stalactites, mostly tiny bubbles with a few small one to break the monotony.
Body – dark brown/black, opaque
Flavor – starts off with some harsh alcohol and a little bit of rum, little to no vanillin, no roasted malt chocolate or caramel. After it warms, the alcohol becomes less harsh to the taste but begins to be felt in the gastric tract. Not really tasting or smelling any hops. No diacetyl.
Palate medium, watery, lively carbonation

You’d think a beer from an oak aged series brewed in a town called Oakville would have a little more oakiness evident in the flavor as well as the nose. Oh well, life's what you make of it, and so is oak, apparently.

Appearance 4, Aroma 4, Flavor 3.5, Palate 3.5, Overall 3.75. Rating 3.7, rDev -3.1%.

This isn't a bad beer, it's probably just misunderstood (by me). I've had other beers from Cameron's and they have all been above average but not fantastic. With my limited experience with Canadian beers, I still prefer those from Quebec over Ontario.

 

I was checking out the Jester King bottles in the background. Interested in getting together the next time I'm in Texas (Probably Aug +/- or sometimes around Easter) and tipping a few?

 

Yeah, another NBS.

Cheers!

 

I was just googling about that after I saw the King Henry (VI or VIII?) quote Wicked Weed uses regarding hops as a "wicked and pernicious weed"

I saw this blog post about it and found it reasonably interesting:
http://zythophile.co.uk/false-ale-quotes/myth-two-hops-were-forbidden-by-henry-vi/

 

Definitely a different take on the N of NBS - nice opening effort. Feel free to stop by again with something a little more "mundane" (for lack of a better word) at any time, as well.

 

Hence the name Wicked Weed, the term purportedly attributed to King Henry VI.

Old news now I see!