New Beer Sunday (Week 727)

Thanks @brutalfarce. Super fresh. This was fantastic. Great rocky head retention/soapy lacing. Aromas and flavors of huge tangerine, orange juice, red grapefruit, peach, pear, pineapple, apricot, passion fruit, papaya, red apple, mango, watermelon, guava, berries, citrus peel/zest, and light pepper/pine hops; with moderate wheat, cracker, white bread dough malts; and herbal, floral, grassy hop earthiness. Light pine, citrus peel/zest, herbal, floral, woody, grassy, spicy bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body; creamy/bready/grainy malts, light sticky hops, and slight lingering resins/rinds in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing lingering bitter dryness, no hop astringency. Super smooth, soft, refreshing 5.6%. Feels like Galaxy, Citra, Simcoe, El Dorado. Very juicy, vibrant, and lightly dank/earthy hops; with a great balanced wheat/oat/malt backbone. Mild residual sweetness from lingering resin dryness. Spot on NEAPA as expected. 4.25


Cheers

 

#2, an appropriately named localish winter warmer that is keeping me warm whilst I prepare to grill these .....



..... on this .....



..... on a pretty chilly Northern Indiana evening.





A poundingly aggressive pour uncovers a dark brown beer with a minimal tan head and LOTS of carbonation. The nose is loads of toffee malts, stone fruit (pureed dates, anyone), and a subtle vanilla note.

The taste has the toffee notes, but the stars are the dates and the bourbon soaked vanilla beans. The dates provide a richness I’ve not found in many winter warmers and the vanilla is the perfect complement to the toffee flavors. This is REALLY well done, IMHO. Rated 4.31.

 

Translated: The way to understand and appreciate a poem is simply to collect all the words in a pile. The arrangment and relationships aren't important.

 

No, you forgot to include it on your profile page....

 

Figured I'd try my hand at NBS for once...I try enough new beers as it is. This is batch no. 1 of Copestone, an english-style barleywine brewed by Fox Farm, a favorite local brewery of mine that makes some great lower-ABV beers along with an outstanding NEIPA rotation. I've never managed to get to their yearly (both BA and non-BA) stout release, so I was pretty excited the get a hold of one of these bottles a few weeks after its release on the way to New Haven...

This pours a deep brown a shade away from black with a decent head of tan foam materializing for only a short while before reducing to a thick collar; an occasional smattering of thick, webby lacing is also left behind, which although sparse, is appealing. 4

Aroma starts with an extended punch of a boozy cognac/port combo, which when sifted through reveals notes of baked apples, brown sugar, caramel, prune, and earthy baking spices, and a sturdy oak backbone; lighter tones of rye and black bread, syrupy port wine grapes, and semi-tart cherries. 3.5

Taste definitely doesn’t betray the aroma; plenty of boozy cognac dense dominating alongside more subtle notes of port wine grapes, red apples, molasses, and cherry, with oaky cognac/port puncheons on the back end; alcohol dominant for the most part, hindering the bigger, diverse tones from really shining. 3.25

Mouthfeel shows a medium body with an inky, almost creamy, composition and an even carbonation going hand-in-hand with the body; this just glides, with an oaky and semi-sweet grit appearing as it finishes. For a bigger, boozy beer, this is about as good as it gets, as it reveals itself in full, alcohol and all, while maintaining all the subtleties it takes to make this just the right amount of effortless on the palate. 4.75

This is a big beer with plenty of flavor to share were it not for the intrusive barrel notes. Between stone fruits, baked apples, the bountiful barrel presence, and of course the typical near-perfect Fox Farm mouthfeel, I can’t help but feel this should have been more than it was, and that maybe its youth did it in. At least after this bottle, I’ve got to think some age would really do this one wonders, and really allow the extent of the profile to shine through. Nonetheless, this was enjoyable at a basic level and even beyond, so I don't feel the need to be terribly harsh; I've just come to expect much more from this brewery. 3.5

Happy NBS, BAs!

 

Thanks a lot! I'm hoping to give glimpses into my thought process as I go, so it's really nice to see people trying to play along, and at the very least I hope you can get a mental image of what the beer is like.

 

Mission accomplished!

 

I have been grading exams days and nights, so no shopping for a brut IPA today...
Schlafly's Tasmanian IPA presents cloudy and tangerine from the can, with a 1.5 cm foam cap. The aroma is very light, but the flavor is rich with orange and pineapple with moderate hop bitterness. The carbonation is pleasantly prickly. I really like this brew.

 

Fair enough. Some don't see it in other areas as well.

For example, I have a good friend, a physicist, who thinks this:


l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

--e.e. cummings

Is nothing but nonsense because things don't add up.

 

New arrival this week from Cousins Brewing, Waitsfield, VT.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/51302/395230/



Brewed and canned by Cousins Brewing at Goodwater Brewery, Williston, VT.

Bottom of 16 ounce can reads:

"Good Water
01/17/2019
Great Beer"

Moderate pour yields a one inch white head over a murky golden body with some lacing. Really nice nose of orange and tropical fruit with something floral as well. Very nice! Taste of orange pith, a bit of pine resin and finishing way more bitter than the nose would imply. Yikes! Good feel, but overall, a beer that doesn't quite follow through. Cheers!

 

A new pilsner from the local-ish brewery Thin Man. Pills Mafia.
A great showcase of what I am guessing is purely Saaz hops. Grassy, peppery, zesty and dank. Great Noble hop showcase. I wish it was just a touch drier and more bitter, but otherwise a great pilsner.

 

Pours a very slick near pitch black with a 3 finger plus sticky light brown head, that leaves thin webs of lace behind.This is a very complex Imperial Stout. 4.25

Smell is Licorice, char, vanilla, dark chocolate, dates, Oaked bourbon, toffee, and leathery tobacco. 3.75

Taste follows so damn complex and that doesn’t always equal amazing. Tobacco, vanilla, oak, dark chocolate, dark fruit, and Oaked bourbon. 3.75

Mouthfeel is almost medium, plenty of life, a touch dry for sure, and at 11% goes down rather easy. 4

Overall this is a very nice stout and at 11% very east drinking.

 

Hello New Beer Sunday!!!

And hello from the soon to be a deep frozen hell hole - AKA central, Minnesota.

Yuck, is all I can say about temps at -30 and wind chills around -60. Not going to be fun, and it's going to make work a dead zone till it warms up again, when ever that's going to be.

But enough about the frozen tundra, time for a well earned beer after a long work day.

I was planning, all day, dipping my way into my Junkyard Brewing crawler of Super Slurp Guava/Passion Fruit. It was calling my name like crazy. There was one problem: this bad boy was in it's way.


Night & Day Imperial Stout With Cold Brewed Coffee from Trillium Brewing Clocks in at 12.7%

@smanson56 kindly sent this to me in the NBS BIF 8.5.

This is my first ever Trillium Beer. I've seen their beers posted here, and just assumed they were a one trick pony with their NEIPAs.

So are they?

HELL NO!

This beer is astounding. It is very coffee flavored, and I like it, even though I'm not a coffee drinker. So thick. So rich. So tasty. So delicious.

I can't thank you enough @smanson56 for sending this to me and popping my Trillium cherry. This brewery is making the real deal here.

Review

4.47/5 rDev +2.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.5

Pours jet black. There was actually a brown 1 finger head, but it didn't last long at all. Very thick pouring beer.
The nose is really deep and rich with the coffee. I do get a hint of chocolate and a whiff of vanilla, but the coffee is the main star of the show.
Taste - Started drinking at 50 F - up front a bit of vanilla and chocolate. Those flavors are mild. The backside the coffee really kicks in for me, and doesn't let go, but then the vanilla also kicks in again with a bit more vigor.
Very thick beer. I wouldn't have had a clue it was almost 13%, because there's no burn or alcohol warming at all. Very smooth.
Damn rich, and solid beer. Just rocks it out of the park .



I'm a lightweight, and I just can't see myself having anything else after this. I'll see you all next week, and throughout the week in WBAYDN.

Enjoy beer.

 

New Beer Sunday: English Stout

Evenin’ NBSers, with a recommended treat for folks who enjoy stouts aged on the wood used in whiskey barrels.

This eveing’s new beer is from Innis & Gunn and is called Kindred Spirits. There are two things to be noted about this beer. The first is that Innis & Gunn have used brown bottles for this beer. The other is that the beer has been aged on pieces of barrel staves from whiskey barrels used to age an Irish Whiskey, Tullamore D.E.W.

Innis & Gunn say they break up the used barrel staves and then re-toast the pieces before use. They then make up a mixture of stave pieces with different toast levels, depending on what they want from aging a particular beer.

As usual, my review, subject to revision until the beer is finished, can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10272/323594/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors include dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, vanilla, bit of earthy hops and a bit of wood. There’s also some light dark roast bitterness and some earthy character from the hops. On the whole an enjoyable beer worth trying. It has a good bit of complexity to the aroma/flavor profile so I’m glad I have some more bottles waiting in the basement.

With no football this evening I’m going back to Bach and picking up where I left off a few weeks ago. On the player this evening is the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4.


Cheers, all!

 

It's not the votlage, its the fall off the ladder

 

Tonight's NBS contributions were a three part series of Missouri beers, with an unintentional focus on St. Louis. Here's the closing act for my contributions today. Something larger, which will be sipping on while I clean up my place.



4 Hand's Volume 3.

Pours a translucent dark brown with two fingers of khaki foam. Head retention is good, with a layer of khaki foam lingering on top for a long while. Aroma is rye, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, toffee, caramel, molasses, maple syrup, and barrel. It smells sweet, with the spices rounding and balancing it out. Very little hop shows through, but hits a spicy, sticky note. Malts are roasty, toasty, bready, and caramely. Flavor profile is toffee, caramel, molasses, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and rye. Beyond these sugary and spicy complexities is firm roasty, toasty, caramely malts with barrel character. Light sticky hop residue lightly counteracts the malts, although the flavor profile as a whole leans towards 'sweet'. Rye helps shore this up and keeps the sweetness from running away. Mouth feel is still, with a soft, lightly-bubbly texture, finishing lightly dry. It has a medium thickness. Overall, sugary, but still balanced. The rye cuts the sweetness just enough to keep it from lingering on the tongue, thus keeping this from being pulled from the 'beer' menu and placed on the 'dessert' menu.

Score: 4.25 | 4.25 | 4 | 3.75 | 4.25 | BA Score: 4.1 | rDev: -1.0%
Pours a translucent dark brown with two fingers of khaki foam. Head retention is good, with a layer of khaki foam lingering on top for a long while. Aroma is rye, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, toffee, caramel, molasses, maple syrup, and barrel. It smells sweet, with the spices rounding and balancing it out. Very little hop shows through, but hits a spicy, sticky note. Malts are roasty, toasty, bready, and caramely. Flavor profile is toffee, caramel, molasses, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and rye. Beyond these sugary and spicy complexities is firm roasty, toasty, caramely malts with barrel character. Light sticky hop residue lightly counteracts the malts, although the flavor profile as a whole leans towards 'sweet'. Rye helps shore this up and keeps the sweetness from running away. Mouth feel is still, with a soft, lightly-bubbly texture, finishing lightly dry. It has a medium thickness. Overall, sugary, but still balanced. The rye cuts the sweetness just enough to keep it from lingering on the tongue, thus keeping this from being pulled from the 'beer' menu and placed on the 'dessert' menu.