New Beer Sunday (Week 657)

Welp, I'm done in the yard for today. Time to put my feet up and enjoy NBS #2 on the day. Same brewery, different beer.

Marble Brewery
India Pale Ale



And more info. Can help but notice the lack of decorations for this one.



A: Pours light amber, or dark gold. Same difference. Great retention, great lacing.

A: Yup. This is gonna be good. Grapefruit and honeydew melon finished off with pine. My kind of IPA already.

T: Even better! First impression of grapefruit is quickly overcome by lightly toasted sesame, blueberries, orange peel, then melon and pine to end it all.

F: Crisp enough to chug, rich and smooth enough to savor. Well carbonated, wonderfully bitter, and just a touch of alcohol warmth.

O: A lot of you know how much of a fan of Beachwood's Amalgamator I am. This is the first beer that has ever come close to reminding me if it. Absolutely delicious IPA that I will gladly, and hopefully, be seeing much more of.

Cheers everyone, and I will see you all soon!

 

Absolutely love Hatch chiles. Damnit! Now I want a Chile burger.

 

Lucky, lucky! Someday I'll make it...

I'll be watching for you on TV

 

Almanac Passion Project, a lovely barrel aged/sour Farm House Ale, way better than that first beer 4.52 overall:

A: Pours an effervescent gold with 2+ fingers of pearl colored head. Hazes a touch once the bottle is drained, stellar head retention & lacing (4.75)

S: Sourness, a little passion fruit, some grassyness 4.5

T: Follows the nose, dry, puckery up front. Sourness dominates as this warms along with dryness, a little grassyness & barnyard. Finishes dry with tart passion fruit & a little lemon 4.5

MF: Light/medium body, delicate carbonation 4.5

One the best offerings I've had from this brewery, especially as sours go, drinks too easy 4.5

 

Last new brew of the day right here and it's another special one! Thanks goes yet again to @y2kawakami for this long time want.


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16 oz can poured into a snifter. Canned just over a month ago.

A perfect looking IPA. Vibrant golden yellow with a fluffy finger head that slowly works it way down. Nice lacing and very little carbonation.

Subtle pine, citrus, dank lemon, green apple, and tangerine on the nose.

Taste is perfectly balanced. Lovely hop bitterness combined with pine and tropical notes and a citrusy finish.

Feel is excellent. Crisp, refreshing, and not overly carbonated.

Nearly a perfect beer right here. All the flavors work so well together and none are overpowering like many juice bombs these days.

4.73/5 rDev +3.1%
look: 5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.75

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Cheers!

 

Thanks to @cjgiant for the scintillating send off. I have beers that are at opposite ends of the beer nerd spectrum this beautiful Texas evening. First, a Helles beer from St Louis .....



3.75/5 rDev +4.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Pours a pale yellow, slightly off-white head that dissipates in seconds. Aromas are grass, a touch of lemon, and bready malt.

The lemon is more forward on the taste, but it's a subdued flavor, along with the grassy flavor (noble hops) and the star of the show, the bready malt.

This is brewed in St Louis, which is fitting because St Louis is a GREAT baseball town, and this would be a great beer to enjoy once or twice or thrice (or quatrice or quintrice) at a ballgame on a hot summer day.

 

You and me both brother.

My thoughts exactly! I love a lot of beers but that one checks so many boxes for me that I have a hard time not putting it on a pedestal.

 

Greetings, everybody! I had a lovely weekend in S. Jersey visiting #1 Son for a nice but hot Family Weekend at his school. We try to take advantage of these things to both explore parts of the University where he doesn't tend to see on a day to day basis, as well as the surrounding area and towns. This one was the most enjoyable mini vacation yet, and it was over too soon. For me, that is: ask him and you might get a different answer .

For now, I'm going to have to kill two birds with ein stein-

Here's my Stein Sunday shot, as well as a new beer for me. I know that an IIPA may not seem appropriate for the stein, but it's a new beer that I happen to have multiples of- so at least I filled the damn thing .

This one is Crowd Control by Southern Prohibition Brewing, and comes to me by way of @Squire123 . I gotta say, I'm really enjoying it- quite vibrant, with strong resiny grapefruit peel leading the way, and an evergreen, almost rosemary-ish tint to it, singing backup- but after a few sips the tropical fruits start to really show themselves. It's more bitter and dry than soft, but there's a bit of both approaches here, and it really serves the 'hybrid' nature of the beer extremely well. By the end of about 500ml, the grapefruit peel has faded to the background and a more fruity yet gentle pineapple/papaya feel is taking over. All except for the throbbing citrus oil presence that comes on very late in the finish- this stuff just won't quit!. It's keeping the beer feeling real, and honest, to me. I love the complexity and many facets going on here in such an easy drinking beer. A (4.4).

Thanks again, Squire- for the beer as well as the 2 cans!

 

Blame it on spell check.

 

#2, had to break out the heavyweight bottle opener - I love the Surly opener, but it can't navigate wax.



4.35/5 rDev +6.1%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pours the color of a Coke, with loads of light leaking around the edges, and a firm tan head. Lovely.

The barrel is most prominent on the nose, with the bourbon the dominant character. Rich cocoa and spicy notes are also present.

The taste ..... is nigh on perfect. The cocoa and cinnamon cavort on the tip of your tongue, the barrel sneaks in as you begin to swallow, and then the cayenne announces its entrance to the party as you finish the swallow.

A really well-executed gargantuan porter, this is another example why Deschutes is one of the best breweries we have, IMHO.

 

Glad to see you're really enjoying those guys! Hopefully the next assault treats you well! Cheers man!

 

This is a world class beer and one you can feel free to age longer than a year. I'd say up to 5 years in the right cellar conditions should be fine.

I suspect that at each year of bottle age it will seem almost like a different beer than what you had the year before.

 

Just rounding out my personal Oktoberfest. I figured I would grab a small and unrepresentative sample with which to celebrate. The first, local to me, the second from a small, fairly unknown brewery and the last, a presumed archetype to show up the first two.
A - 2.5 medium gold with a coarse head that was replaced by a thinner and creamier one due to the lively carbonation.
S - 2.5 Bright, stinging hoppiness. No malt or sweetness.
T - 2.25 Total pale Euro lager. Consistent with the smell but crazy off for the style.
F - 2.25 Consistent with the smell and taste but crazy off for the style.
Overall - 2.5 Thank god it was not a blind tasting. I'm sure my guess would have been insulting, quite possible creating an international incident.

Now I have to figure out how to get there next year and do more in-depth field research.

 

Great lakes Oktoberfest. Amber ,orange color with medium carbonation. Aroma is malt,brown sugar,and an almost candy like smell. Taste is similar but not as sweet as I thought it would be with a very slight hop bite in the middle. I thought it was a very good tasting beer that I gave an overall 4. Maybe too generous but it was a solid beer

 

Happy New New Hampshire CANned Beer Sunday (Week 657), CANtinued!

I am disappointed & saddened by Th' Stillers' CANduct today, but at least I had beer to help me take the edge off. I CANtinued my New CANpshire foray with:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1285/8600/?ba=woodychandler#review

Next up was:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1285/8602/?ba=woodychandler#review

& I finished this segment of the journey with:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1285/3426/?ba=woodychandler#review

I then moved in a new New Hampshire direction to have:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20417/219001/?ba=woodychandler#review

I got that one in just before the site's UTC clock ticked over into 25 September, so I am going to close here. See yinz next week!

 

You picked a good un' for your first Gueuze and one that stands up to aging quite well if you find a few bottles.

If you want one that's fairly good but also less pricey see if you can find the Lindeman's Gueuze Curvee Rene. It's also quite enjoyable in it's own right and much more widely available, at least around here.

 

Victory festbier, had this earlier. It was a bit thin feeling and that kind of describes the whole beer. Aroma was mostly malt but the taste fell short. I realized as I was drinking it that I didn't even pay attention to what I was drinking. Just nothing stood out too much.

 

Back for another new beer tonight, continuing the Jackie O's theme. I hadn't heard about this collaboration before seeing the bottle on the shelf but both of these breweries certainly know how to make dark ales.

Pitch black, the head settled fairly quickly. Lots of cocoa, some molasses, dark malts and chili pepper. The can lists a couple of other adjuncts but I feel they get lost in the 12% size of this beer. It's not hot (nor sweet, in fact rather dry) and overall a tasty, decent stout. Perhaps the dryness was the result of fermenting some extra sugars but I think with a lower abv a few more flavors may shine. Overall 3.99 rDev -1.7%
Cheers!

 

South Jersey, eh? What's your overall assessment of Hops and Grapes on Delsey Drive?