New Beer Sunday (Week 731)

This:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1141/400247/

Not this:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1141/334846/



341 ml. bottle.
On back label:
PM FRA BOURBON
2018-06-08.

Slight gusher before a gentle pour that yields a 3/4 inch pinkish tan head over a dark ruby brown body with some sticky lacing. Nose of raspberries foremost followed by coffee, chocolate, caramel, and vanilla. Taste mirrors nose except the first few sips which were a bit too tart and hid the other flavors. After a little while it all comes together. Feel is very nice and full with a finish of slight raspberry tartness. Cheers to DdC for another very unique offering!

 

First thanks @Harrison8

Torn label leap of faith
American ipa 7.6%

Pours light with darkish orange color
Smells bright and bitter with medium head that holds good throughout
Drinks light with fruity bitter taste that holds well
Lightly bitter throughout
Scary crushable at 7.6%
Tasty easy drinking brew 4/5
Also love 12oz cans cheers

 

Back with one more phenomenal new beer from the other coast:

look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
Look: A clear but dark mahogany color with a medium, rocky tan head. The foam slowly settled and left scan laces in the glass.
Aroma: a huge fresh coffee aroma from just cracking the can open. A closer inspection revealed chocolate and roasted grains. Great coffee through and through.
Taste: as on the nose, smooth rich roasted coffee was there all the way through. The chocolate and roasty notes were also silky smooth. A floral bitterness balanced things out and were featured on the finish.
Feel: medium bodied and carbonation. The ABV was well-hidden.
Overall: this was outstanding. Perhaps my new standard for a big coffee porter. The interplay of the coffee and chocolate flavors was masterful.

 

It was a very fun and tasty tasting that I'm glad I was able to piece together thanks to some generous beer drinkers.

Thank you. That means a lot.

 

Finally joining into NBS after finishing for grading. Reading @thebeers review of Dewey Beer Co. Strawberry Pretzel Salad I decided to open a can.

4.23/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

16 oz can poured into a teku

A- A slightly hazy bright red with a two finger pink head.

S- Tart, a little salty, lots of strawberries, some cream.

T- Strawberries mainly tart but a little sweet, some cream, nice saltiness, touch of pretzels.

M- Smooth, medium body, a little creamy.

O- Really nice fruited gose, flavors come together really well.

Cheers!

 

Just another reason for me to drink Ruination again with the unfiltered version, been a while. This was amazing. Cloudy pour with lasting thick lacing/head retention the whole glass. Aromas and flavors of huge red grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, peach, pineapple, apricot, passion fruit, papaya, mango, honeydew melon, guava, blueberry, gooseberry, citrus peel/rind, wood, peppercorn, and pine hops; with moderate cracker, white bread dough, light honeyed malts; and herbal, floral, grassy hop earthiness. Moderate pine, citrus peel/rind, herbal, floral, woody, grassy, peppery bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body, and fairly crisp finishing. Balanced creamy/bready/grainy malts and sticky/resinous/rindy hops in the mouthfeel. Moderate increasing resin dryness, no overly aggressive, minimal warming 8.5%. Amazing Magnum, Nugget, Centennial, Simcoe, Citra, & Azacca profile. Super juicy, vibrant, dank, and earthy balanced hops complexity; with a great balancing bready malt backbone. Mild residual sweetness with lingering resin dryness. There is literally ZERO reason for them to release a 3.0 Ruination. Period. Glad it fell off the release calendar. This is a home run all year. 4.38


Cheers

 

I've done shipping to both Ontario and Quebec and found the costs to ship UPS only a few bucks more than the cost of shipping an equivalent weight to California, so I don't think cost is really that big of a deterrent. Please consider participating in NBS.

 

Greetings All from the Great Northwest, where we are having a really bad February. Third coldest February on record in these parts, and a lot of snow to boot (or shovel).

So today I dream of San Diego with a stone IPA. Scorpion Bowl IPA.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/322210/

Sweet and dry, just the way I like my weather.

Until next time,

Happy Trails!

 

So 2018 bottled on 10/04/18 pours a gorgeous mahogany with a solid finger plus head that leaves minimal thin streaks of lace with solid retention. 4.5

Smell is so complex brown sugar, toffee, vanilla bean, dates, sweet oaky bourbon, and blackstrap molasses. 4.25

Taste Oaked bourbon drenched in vanilla, toffee, dark fruit, molasses, and a hint of cocoa. 4.5

Mouthfeel is a big medium, gentle carbonation, a little on the dry side, and at 12.7% a sipper that makes you savor every sip. 4.5

Overall like every with this beer only slightly different and always exceptional andcrazy complex. 4.5

 

Made a stop at Creature today and picked this one up.

Athens to Athens Grist to Grist is a saison (6%) made with spelt sourced from Jackie O’s community in Ohio and wheat locally sourced from DaySpring Farms in Danielsville, GA. The saison base was split among wine barrels. Half the barrels inoculated with our house-mixed culture, and the other half with Jackie O’s house-mixed culture.
Pours a slightly hazed golden yellow with a finger of white head that dissipated fairly quicky.
Smells of ripe peach, light funk, white oak.
Taste follows, slightly tart, a bit of lemon, peach, apricot, light funk.
Medium body, smooth, good carb level.
Overall a tasty saison and nicely executed colab.

 

Fat Orange Cat - Do All Sixteen Dances

This is my third and last saison of the day. Out of those, it’s the one that has clicked with me the least. It’s hazy (but the clearest of the three) and gold. It’s fruity and bitter... like orange with the pith. It’s rough and too sweet for me. Low drinkability.

 

12 year Elijah Craig RIS from Arclight. This was amazing! Pitch black pour. Great rocky head retention/spotty soapy lacing. Aromas and flavors of huge milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, molasses, brown sugar, toffee, vanilla, fudge, brownie batter, marshmallow, bourbon, coconut, toasted oak, roasted nuts, and dark bread/crust; with lighter notes of licorice, raisin, prune, cherry, fig, date, smoke, charcoal, leather, tobacco, herbal, grass, pepper, and yeast earthiness. Light-moderate herbal, grassy, roast, charcoal bitterness; bourbon/oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Light-medium carbonation and fairly full body; with very creamy, silky, velvety, rich, bready malts; light slickness, sticky hops, chalky roast, and bourbon/oak tannins in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing lingering hop/char bitter, and bourbon/oak tannin dryness; no cloying, acrid, astringent. Dangerously smooth, mild increasing warmth of 8.5%, minimal lingering barrel booze. Holy shit. This is very reminiscent of Bourbon County as the name suggests, at nearly half the ABV. Insanely rich dark/black/roast/bready malt complexity, with perfect bourbon barrel presence/integration; solid earthy hops against sweetness. Bit of yeast fruitiness. This is a a top tier RIS all the way through. Would buy another. Similarly priced to the 500 ml BCBS as a 22 oz. Wow. 4.35


Cheers, have a good night NBS

 

Evening, NBS!

I’ve got one more, maybe two, as I finish watching Baby Driver.

I’m heading down to Columbus/Atlanta from Tuesday to Thursday, so I’m hoping to find some exciting new beers to share here in the near future.

This is my sixth and final can of Sixpoint Dabble consumed over the past week or so. Although I’ve had this beer, I haven’t written a review yet and I think the hops and their combination are unique enough to share.

Don’t believe I’ve ever had Sabra. I’ve had beers with Cashmere and Idaho 7, but not many.



Let’s dig in!

This beers looks great for a NEIPA. It is a tangerine color. Cloudy, translucent, pale tangerine color. A few bubbles visible and streaming from the bottom. An eggshell head with no retention or lacing. The color is quite attractive to me.



Here is the first instance of my struggle between dislike for this beer vs. dislike for the hops. There is a banana like aroma you’d expect from a Hefeweizen. This note is the Sabra. What Sixpoint is calling “coconut.” I do get some of that as well. Very ripe cantaloupe. There are some softer tropical fruit notes like mango. A faint lemony note as well.

The banana / coconut notes translate to the flavor too. Also getting overly ripe cantaloupe. The beer is sweet and lacks balance with other flavors.

The feel of this beer is quite nice. Very soft carbonation and smooth.

My overall impression of this beer is that it is rather boring. It’s quite flat. The aroma and flavor are not too great. When I’m drinking an 8% + ABV NEIPA it should pop out of the freaking glass and this beer is not. Also, the lackluster nature of this drinking experience is amplified by the fact that I’m comparing it to the last Sixpoint IPA I drank, Meltdown, which I absolutely loved.

The beer is drinkable in a strict sense in that the ABV is not apparent anywhere. I would put off buying beers with Sabra based on this experience. Having had Idaho 7 before, I feel comfortable saying that I am not a fan of that hop either.

Here’s a pic from last week that captures my favorite aspect of this beer, the can art (and the color too).

 

Another two beer Sunday for me. Two multi-beer Sunday’s in a row. Will wonders never cease?

This one teaches me to never judge a brewery by its first beer to me. Earlier today I had a below average kettle sour from Chronicle Brewing of Bowmanville, Ontario. After dinner, I had a far better than average stout from the same brewery.



Pours a deep dark brown with a strong mocha head that settles very slowly leaving nice lacing as the beer is consumed.

Roasted malt on the nose with light notes of milk chocolate

Milk chocolate, toasted cereals, cream on the tongue.

Thick and full. Very creamy and very pleasant.

I really enjoyed this stout from Chronicle. Well made and would gladly have one once more.

Cheers!

 

I opened this at 8:45 for the newest "The Walking Dead" episode. Cable was out for a few channels including AMC. Watched some of the Oscars instead. I checked and realized I hadn't had this version of Darkling.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28609/313453/



750 ml. bottle.
Bottled November, 2017.
Moderate pour yields a one and a half inch tan head over near black body with nice lacing. Nose of whiskey, dark malt, chocolate, vanilla, caramel, spice, and dark fruit. Taste mirrors nose almost exactly with a finish of dark fruit, chocolate, and caramel. Very nice feel and overall, this certainly is a great whiskey barrel(s) aged stout.
Cheers to the crew in Everett, MA for a job well done!

Just poured the last few ounces from this bottle and the cable is back on!

 

Thanks. I’ll run it by the group in the sign up thread.

 

Good evening NBSers. Just cracked open my first brew of the night. Spent the day cleaning the house as it was hovering around 0° all day with windchill in the negative teens. Got a lot accomplished and the boy got his room clean enough to build the shelf I bought for his bigger LEGO projects. The top shelf is reserved for the ‘66 Batman Batcave set he got for Christmas that we just started tonight in celebration. 2536 pierces in all in 23 separate bags. Got the Batmobile done and started on stately Wayne manor this evening. Gonna take a few weeks to shoehorn in time to get it all built.



Enough about all that for now, here comes a beer...


Best by 06/06/19 on the can, pretty sure that means canned 2/6. 5.5% abv and 45 IBU’s using only Strata hops. Clear straw appearance with a moderate dry carbonated mouthfeel. Nose is dry peach and grapefruit, hint of pineapple. Taste follows with with a spicy dry rind element as well. Overall a 3.8. Fun tick but probably wouldn’t revisit with the plethora of IPA’s available.

Our ‘wolves’ took turns napping with brief spurts of backyard rambunctiousness before getting too cold.

 

Good Evening Late Night NBS.

I will not be participating with a beer tonight, I had plenty last night.
But at least I did get to hit 3 SoCal breweries for the first time: Monkish, Cosmic Ales, and Smog City. I've had some solid offerings from Monkish and Smog City before, but never at the source. Cosmic is a small place, but had a few very solid offerings that I'll write up in the next few days.
So I wish you all well, and look forward to reading more of your insights.

Cheers!

 

Enjoyed this one from @Buck89, I was going to share all three of the anniversary cans with my neighbor today but he had some things come up and wasn't able to make it over so I couldn't resist cracking into one of these any longer.

Poured much clearer than I'm accustomed to with BI hops(not bad at all, just different). Foggy golden with a finger of white head.
Smells of citrus, blueberry, some tropical notes.
Taste is more berry upfront with the citrus lingering in the background. Some ripe stone fruits and a hint of spiciness.
Medium body with good carb levels. Well balanced with a slightly dry finish.
Overall another tasty one from BI, looking forward to getting into the rest of these.