New Beer Sunday (week 630)

Big flavor in this brew from NBS BIF care of @TeemuWPG

4 Mile Double Chocolate Porter

Near pitch black with a creamy mocha head. Settles into ring around the glass.

Aroma of bitter cocoa, dark roast coffee and hint of sweet chocolate syrup.

Flavor is deep roast bitter coffee, bittersweet baking cocoa, hint of sweet mocha smooths it out.

Moderate carbonation and a slight syrupy feel to the above medium body.

Was thinking sweet from the label, but this had a few roasty and bitter layers in there as well.

 

NBSers, who else is getting fed up with some of these hazy, cloudy APAs, IPAs, and DIPAs?
This one just doesn't do it for me at all.
Sorry, I think I'm being generous with the rating...

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42560/217154/



3.73/5 rDev -11.8%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

Moderate pour yields a one inch white head over yet another Aslin murky body. This time it has a lighter colored cloudiness. Nose of tropical fruit and citrus. Taste follows nose closely but with an added bitterness that is not to my liking. Feel is adequate and overall I don't think I can finish this. I hope I just got a bad can, probably from near the end of the canning run and should not have been distributed.

 

I need that! Love some thin mints, is there a Samoa version?

 

Good evening NBS, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the weekend once again. Thanks to @cavedave for getting us started off this morning. Been a bit less busy at work with the shelving of one of the programs I was working on, but I still have 2 others to worry about. Got a box from @Roguer on Friday for the NBS BIF. I will be sticking to those beers for today's reviews, and likely more during the week. I was informed that I should be receiving another before weeks end as well. I will be hopefully getting my targets box out this week, need to get more shipping supplies again. Other than that, just been a normal Sunday for me. Did some overtime work, but it was fairly limited since the data servers were down again. At least I had some other stuff to work on. Laundry and took the bottle returns back in to recycle. Review 5200 is tomorrow night.

New Beers:

This was really nice! Looked like a thick pour, lots of dextrins. Bit of haze. Head retention was nice. Aromas and flavors of nutty medium roasted coffee, chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, cream, wheat, honey, lightly toasted biscuit, and a touch of herbal hops. Light herbal hops and roasted coffee bitterness on the finish. Medium-full bodied with a lot of bready oat creaminess; slightly sticky/chalky cocoa/coffee notes. Lightly increasing roasted dryness. One of the few Golden stouts I've had, this one pulls it off really well. I thought the Stone one felt way too bitter with stale coffee flavors. This one is way more balanced with a lot of fresh nutty coffee and cocoa flavors; with a bittersweet roasted finish. Surprisingly thick, lots of oats and wheat; but very easy drinking all around. 3.88


This was fantastic! Aromas and flavors of big tangerine, grapefruit, peach, passion fruit, papaya, mango, melon, guava, berry, lemon/orange zest, and light pepper/pine hops; with some honey and lightly toasted biscuit malt balance; and herbal, floral, grassy hop earthiness. Light-moderate pine/citrus peel/grassy/spicy bitterness on the finish. Medium-full bodied; balanced bready/grainy creaminess and hop stickiness in the mouthfeel. Light resins with increasing dryness, and no hop astringency. Hint of rind near the end of the can. Dank and juicy as all hell. Never overly bitter, supporting sweetness with increasing dryness to keep things in check on the palate. Mildly warming 8%, it was gone fairly swiftly. 4.3


Fancy hand numbered bottle 1542/1624. Over a year old, judging by the site reviews. This was outstanding! Aromas and flavors of big milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, vanilla, toffee, raisin, plum, date, cherry, berry, red grape, toasted oak, and nuttiness; with some mild smoke, leather, pepper, and tobacco. Light roast bitterness and wine/oak tannin spice on the finish. Very creamy/silky/velvety medium-full body; light chalky roast and tannins. Very rich for 8.5%. Mildly increasing bitter/tannic dryness. Very drinkable, lightly warming ABV. Just downright fantastic stout complexity with great red wine barrel balance, without getting too fruity/tannic. I love it. Look forward to the Chardonnay Saison soon in the proper glass. 4.25


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Thanks for the note!

I can be a sucker for the dark malt, and Leaning Chimney delivers. My rating for it has some style bias added, but it's tasty, and if it's any indication of what that brewery is capable of, their whole lineup would seem at least worth running through once.

@TongoRad -->
I'll definitely let you know how the Leaning Chimney-x-Urbock mile relay goes. Hopefully this stupid allergy/sore throat/whatever thing is cresting and on its way out. (besides, I got a mini-vacation starting Wednesday with too much McMurtry, Austin, Houston and golf fun planned to be letting anything slow me down )

 

If it was so bad you didn't want to finish it, I'd say a 3.73 is way too generous. That's two hundredths away from a "very good" rating.

 

Send any you don't want my way please!

Cheers!

 

Second brew, Jack Abby, Framinghammer, Baltic Porter clocking in at 10%. Pours a motor oil black, very nice thick one finger head, smell is fantastic, sweet chocolate, coffee, taste is oats, bakers chocolate, roasted malt, the mouthfeel is very creamy, thick coating and overall exceptional beer that hides the ABV well. Thanks Larry @tasterschoice62 , you rock!

 

Yes

 

Greene King Old Speckled Hen, 5.2% ABV, 42 IBU. Pours thin and orange, with a one finger white head. Nose is sweet fruit and peanuts, taste is malty sweetness, a hint of peanuts, and slightly bitter. Good mouthfeel, overall good.

 

I'm glad you liked that one. The variance on the base beers are amazing also. I'll make sure to get you one in your next box.

 

It's been a hell of a long time since I've had that one. I remember there being some type of odd flavor to that - like a bergamot or something?

 

New Beer Sunday: An Herbed/Spiced Ale

Evenin' NBSers with special greetings to those choose collaborative beers.

Well we definitely had a warming trend here today so there are actually patches of grass emerging from the snow. I expect that by garbage and recycling collection days I'll actually be able to put out the bins for emptying when the trucks come around.

The second new beer for today is one of the New Belgium Lips of Faith series. To work with the New Belgium head brewer, they brought the woman who is now head brewer at Orval to the US as a guest brewer while they finalized things and did the brewing. This beer is the New Belgium Lips of Faith: Anne Francoise Spiced Imperial Dark Ale.

My review,subject to revision as I finish the beer and if I decide to try a second bottle, can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/238565/?ba=drtth#review

On the whole this is a quite interesting beer, with flavor combinations I don’t remember encountering before. The aromas and flavor include a rich malt base, some sweetness, something much like spruce tinged with cherry and citrus, and with a definite of earthiness as well. There’s also a bit of woody, peppery and spicy character. I wouldn’t mind having another just to continue to try and sort though the fairly complex aromas and flavors.

Cheers, all!

 

I found the oddest smell - very familiar but could not quite be sure what it is. My wife smelled grapes. I got some of that, but the stronger and familiar smell I finally decided reminded me most of peanuts. I haven't smelled bergamot, but I read that has an orange smell, but I wasn't picking that up.

 

Ok after a close UNC game I am moving to another beer from @Ozzylizard BIF box. Lavery Brewing 1847 Rye Stout. This beer had a decent nose but the taste was much better, the only thing I could find wrong with it was the thin feel other than that a very solid stout. It has been 20 minutes and the lacing is still stuck all around the glass!!

Appearance 4.25 - Pours black with nice dense mocha colored head. Excellent lacing.

Aroma 3.75 - Mostly roasted malts and milk chocolate with just a touch of vanilla. There are also hints of coffee.

Taste 4 - The taste is similar to the aroma, mostly roasted malts and some bitter dark chocolate. Just a hint of coffee.

Feel 3.5 - Feel is pretty thin, decent carbonation

Overall 3.91 - A pretty decent stout. If not for the thin feel it would be much better. Flavors are very balanced.

 

I gave it the same overall rating when I had it on tap at the brewery last year...

You can hold out for a better offering from Aslin... almost any of them, in my experience .

It was one of their least memorable efforts, I'd say (though mine wasn't undrinkable).

 

I'm not sure what you mean by the Samoa version, but that beer was absolutely delicious. As big as a sweet tooth I have, I've found most of the Blackwater "dessert" beers to be... eh. Thick Mint was delicious. So delicious that I almost wouldn't mind picking up a 4 pack of it.

Thin mints are easily my favorite Girl Scout cookie too.

 

Another quick one. Had a taste earlier in the week:
Greater Good "V" DIPA- 5 hopped
Pours a a slightly hazy burnt orange.
Aroma is tropical, dank with dampness and citrus/pine.
Taste follows with nice fruits and citrus and bitterness. Green hoppy bitterness ensues. No malt sweetness present but still pleasant drinking.
Feel is dry, slight bitter, higher carb and a slight slick/oily feeling.
Probably sound like a broken record from tonight's reviews. This one is pretty good though. A tad more malt and some powerhouse hoppiness. Decent brew from "America's first all Imperial Brewing Company". Thats weird. Beer good though.
That'll do tonight. Take care!