New Beer Sunday (Week 734)

After a couple wild ales from The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead? Why, a Maple Stout from the Mad River Valley, of course!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17980/395897/



22 oz. bomber.
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a one inch dark tan head over a black body with some lacing. Nose of dark roasted malt with chocolate and dark fruit. Taste of chocolate, cherry, maple, and slight sour cherry. Finish of bitter chocolate, cocoa, and slight cherry as the maple seems to be the most pronounced in the middle. Nice feel and overall, not as sweet as I was expecting as the maple is there but not overbearing. Very impressed with this.
Cheers to Sean for a well made Imperial Stout!

 

Another late NBS for me. As those in the NBS BIF know, I picked up my new car on Saturday morning. Today was given over to finding a store that had seat protectors for the car seats for my twins. Once found, I had to install the car seats, a chore I find stressful as I am always worried I am doing something wrong. My first free moment of the day came about 30 minutes ago when I cracked this can.

Grimm Splish.



Pours a murky light orange reminiscent of freshly squeezed orange juice with a thick head that maintains a firm presence on the sides of the glass as the beer is in imbibed.

Lots of heavy citrus in the nose, Jaffa orange, grapefruit. Dank.

Taste follows nose. Orange juice, grapefruit, recollections of a mimosa.

Thick and juicy.

I really like this. IPAs of this sort are in my wheelhouse, and this is better than the average one.

Cheers!

 

Greetings All from the great Northwest, where the winter weather of the last 6 weeks has finally left. Sunny and near 50 today. A good opportunity to clean out the commute mobile, which was starting smell.

In keeping with the St. Patrick's theme we have Smithwick's Irish Red Ale.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/665/1822/
Average at best, but St. Patty's day only comes once a year. I used a bottle of this as liquid in my dutch oven corned beef, which came out perfect.

Until next time,

Happy Trails!

 

Blackberry Farm Ampersand Saison

This was a collaboration with Food & Wine magazine. For me, Blackberry Farm is one of my favorite American saison producers. Unfortunately, their prices can be too high, but I'll occasionally splurge on something. Here's a case in point. I heard Blackberry Farm dropped their entire seasonal saison (pun intended) approach. Turns out, it's tough selling beers like this as seasonal products.

This beer was made with French Aramis hops from Alsace (as a nod towards French cuisine) and Nelson Sauvin hops (going for wine notes) to pay homage to "Food & Wine."

The beer is a hazy gold. Noisy active head. Smells of pear and lime. While the smell suggests fruit, the taste brings the earthy bitterness to the party... and there's plenty of that. This is dry and rustic. It's drinkable (despite the potent 7.3% ABV) but characterful. There's an old world meets new world vibe, and while this might not be due to the duo of featured hops, it certainly fits them thematically. Having said that, the heart of this beer is in Europe, and it really shows that wonderfully. There's a strong fruity and peppery yeast element. This is a hop-focused saison, but it's a cohesive beer. Really great beer.

 

There were lots of us. The current era is rather like 1968. Things are churning now and hopefully some sensible governance can surprise us once again. Then, we did not want to pick up where the French failed. I just re-read The Ugly American. These lessons loom large in our diplomatic service worldwide.

 

Finally cracking this one open from @Buck89, I waited to share it with my neighbor as he is a big fan of TIPA and Bearded Iris but our schedules just haven't been cooperating. Well I wait no longer and sadly for him he missed a good one! Thanks John for another great BI.

Pours a cloudy golden orange with a finger of loose white head that dissipated fairly quickly.
Smells of citrus, berries, a bit of resin.
Taste follows with a bit of peach lingering as well. The resinous notes are more pronounced in the taste than they are on the nose. Definitely getting a mosaic blast in this one.
Medium body, well carbed. Smooth with the high ABV well hidden.
Overall another tasty one from BI!

 

Getting in one more for tonight courtesy of @FlintB

One of the sexiest stouts that I have poured in awhile. Two fingers of mocha head sit atop a pitch black pour.
Aromas of dark roasted malt, dark chocolate, charred barrel.
Taste follows, chocolate, dark roast, soft barrel notes, hints of vanilla.
Medium to full body, seems a bit thinner as it warms. Good carb levels. No alcohol presence, quite smooth.
Overall a world class BA stout in my book!

 

Nice one @JBowenGeorgia, I was just there this afternoon! Really cool taproom.



Got the pleasure of visiting the Southern Grist East taproom today. Their staff is awesome and treated us like kings. I tried damn near the whole tap wall but of particular interest was the draft only small batch of Imperial Green Gummy Skies. This is a 9% sour ale to which they added a crapton of lime cream gummy bears. I've always been a fan of imperial versions of what would normally be low abv sours, so this was right up my alley. First sniff is pure gummy bears and lime. Taste is the same, candy sweetness, a little lime tang, pleasantly tart. Body nice and creamy with lactose. I really enjoyed this beer, so fun and unique. I love it when folks experiment and give me something I've never had before!

 

I noticed you were at BI earlier, I was hoping you made to Southern Grist. That one looks tasty and I too enjoy trying pretty much anything 'Imperial'.

 

Glad you enjoyed it! You mentioned liking coffee in beers, and well, the timing was right!

Not a coincidence. I saw you liked blueberries, and that was the only one I could find that wasn't in the sour category, which you mentioned not preferring. Most of the blueberry sours near me are pretty puckering as well (at least based on my experience), so I figured this might be closer to your palate.
It can be a divisive one, since it's kind of out there as far as flavour combinations, but I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Also: the kitty kat component: it used to be brewed with catnip as the final adjunct. I noticed on your can that that is no longer the case (don't remember what the replacement component is). Fun facts.

I assure you my fridge is very much not empty
(and it's en route to getting more full as I have a box of beer I'm bringing back with me from South Africa)

 

My NBS entry (entries) are showing up as a LNNBS situation. Time changes and the like. Reasons for it all.

I've been travelling in ZA for the last two weeks and sampling the local beverages quite a bit. Sunday night is my last night in Cape Town, so my buddy and I went up to Signal Hill/Lions Rump to catch the sunset, as that's supposed to be something you do.
Classically it's to be accompanied by a bottle of wine (and I imagine some romantic overtures), but I opted for beer, and no romance.

The first beer I'm entering here was from that sunset experience and is the Golden Ale from Dissident Brewing here in the Cape Town area.


I was not really impressed with this one. Aside from a can that was only aobut 2/3 full, the pour yielded a cloudy golden colour which seemed true to its name but no head to speak of.

Nose is straw grains initially with some sweet floral notes taking over next. Sweet grains dominate through and through.

Sipping on it brings mostly the same characteristics as it leads with the sweet grains, but more of like a sickly sweet kind of vein (though not as overpowering as that would suggest). Some mild spicy hops come in and biscuity malts. Finish returns to the sickly sweet character.

Watery but not light body with soft carbonation which was probably my favourite aspect of it.



This supposedly won a silver medal at the craft brewers pow wow or something like that, but it didn't work particularly well for me. Sunset was nice though.

 

And my second NBS entry is separated from the previous one for primarily thematic reasons.
I got back to the hostel with the intention of writing up that entry. Power outages are common in Cape Town, however (at least per my experience... utilities issues abound in general. Massive drought/water issues, frequent blackouts, all sorts of fun).
Anyway, the power went out, and I quickly had enough of sitting in the outdoor common area with a bunch of people smoking cigarettes (I don't smoke) and ventured off to Long Street (the CPT equivalent of like a Bourbon Street or 6th Street or Capitol Hill or what have you).
Beerhouse is a legit taphouse with 25 handles and 99 bottles of craft beer from primarily across Africa (mostly South Africa), but some international stuff as well (mostly Belgian).
Met a cool German dude there and we swapped stories and ideas and perceptions over a couple of beers before wandering home alone through the city. Probably a mistake, but I don't think the blood was mine, and they didn't get anything other than my pen anyway.

The first beer I had out and about was a Cherry Ale from Soweto Brewing. The bartender put ice in it.



As you can see the pour was a bluching rosy colour with visible carbonation and a small effervescent head. Image shows more lacing than I remembered.

Nose was creamy (I get a creamy like note from most cherry additions) with just a touch of light tartness. Almost reminds me of cranberry.

Flavour is somewhere between a syrupy sweet/tart cherry with cranberry suggestions as well. Tart finish. Kept kind of reminding me of like a craft cherry slushee.

Smoothe and creamy with soft carbonation and a tart bite to the finish. It was ok. Was happy to move on to the next though.

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Darling Brew's Black Mist is listed as a black porter and reportedly won South Africa's best dark beer of 2018. This one was a much more deserved award than the above listed award winner (Golden Ale) in my opinion.

Poured into the glass a deep dark body with a creamy off white head that builds and then settles into a nice fur cap. Good lacing.

Nose presented elements of black coffee (the German guy commented, "hey that smells like coffee." He wasn't wrong) and dark chocolate. This is more up my alley.

Taste presents the same. Rich bitter coffee and chocolate with just a touch of dark fruits, like a riesen candy. I liked this one quite a bit.

Creamy but lighter body with decent sparkly carbonation. This one was one I would happily revisit.

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Final entry was the Soweto Gold Lager. The German's choice and his kindness provided it.

Classic lager appearance of a clean golden body on the pour with a nice fluffy white head.

Nose was unoffensive clean grains and mild mild floral.

Flavour followed suit.

Crisp and clean.

This was just a basic crisp clean lager and I can see why he would reach for it. It would be perfect on a hot sunny ZA afternoon.

I'm not 100 percent clear on Soweto Brewing vs Soweto Gold Brewing vs Soweto Gold Lager etc... *shrug*

Anyway, that's my report. Back to the states and next week maybe digging into my South Africa box or maybe the rest of my Canada box or maybe still digging into the remnants of the generosity of @Dragginballs76 or @FlintB from the last two NBS BIFs or maybe just something Seattle local. There's options. And as you see, JT, my fridge is most definitely NOT empty