New Beer Sunday (Week 744)

My grandfather was on the USS Missouri when the Japanese surrendered in WWII. He was more of a Manhattan kind of guy instead of beer. However, as an extraordinarily skilled painter and designer, he would’ve loved the views I experienced today.

Have a lovely Memorial Day weekend, everyone. Always make sure to express gratitude to those you love in life right now.

 

Thank you @lordofthewiens for the start, and I’ll touch briefly on both topics, which are relevant and intertwined for me.

A photo of me and my grandfather who served in the Navy during WWII. Everyday I wear his tag,
to which he attached an emblem that translates to “With this, Victory.”



I have a 1.5 year old son and a 4.5 year old daughter. Grandchildren to my parents and products of the environment set forth by my grandparents, parents and me & my wife.

The way you feel @lordofthewiens when you give them back to us at the end of the day is the same way we feel when we give them to you at the beginning of the day!!!

So a heartfelt thank you to our veterans, parents, grandparents.

As well as the fine BA’s such as @Orca_Whale who provided me with this delectable beer for which I am grateful.





Look: The beer pours a cranberry juice color. Light pink head that leaves no lacing, but a thin film across the top of the beer and a thick ring of foam around the edge of the glass. Crimson. Dark, but translucent. No visible carbonation.

Smell: Sweet cherry pie. The fruit compote and flakey crust. Slight cherry acidity. Cherry skin. Floral aromatics. A slight mustiness. Flares of manure seem to come and go. Inklings of melted plastic.

Taste: Upfront the beer has a cherry sweetness and manageable lemon acidity that hits the tip of the tongue. As the beer washes over the back and sides of my palate the two cherries truly fight it out. Cherry pie sweetness competes with bracing and gritty cherry acidity. All natural flavors. It reminds me of randomly pulling a sweet or tart cherry from the plastic container and being surprised. You get both here. The finish is very dry, and as the beer lingers on my palate I get some C. Howard Violet Chewing Gum. Quite floral and a bit powdery. A faint hint of herbal, earthy bitterness on the very end.

Mouthfeel: Carbonated, but softly. Feels highly carbonated up front but the sting and bubbles dissipate immediately. Fluffy on the palate.

Overall: This beer is delectable. One of, if not the best, cherry sour beer I’ve had, alongside Belgian comps. Very happy and satisfied with the chance to have finally tried this beer. I submit that this beer is a world class example of the cherry sour ale.

May you all be victorious in your chosen endeavors.

Thank you, Bill, for this delicious beer!!!

“Bout Six / February 2019”

4.75/5 rDev +5.1%

look: 4.75 | smell: 4.75 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.75 |

overall: 4.75

 

Poured into a 16 oz can shaped Stoneface glass canned on 5/13/19. Pours a very attractive hazy orange yellow with a massive 2 finger sticky white head that leaves loads of thin webs of lace. 4.5

Smell tangerine, lemon zest, pineapple, and papaya low on bitterness. 4.25

Taste is even better, tropical front to back tangerine, some lemon lime flavor that is really nice, pineapple, and papaya really tasty stuff. 4.5

Mouthfeel is a solid near medium, soft gentle carbonation that coats the entire palate, sticky not dry, and so crushable but drinks bigger than 5.6% in flavor. 4.5

Overall this is a treasure at under 6%, really tasty and I feel I couldn’t get bored, but could crush them all day. 4.5

 

Good morning New BSers! It's starting out a lovely day here in sunny NW PA - hope to get some more accomplished in the great outdoors before the daily rains begin. Our grand-dog will be spending the day with us, part of acclimatizing her before our son heads to a weekend bachelor party and a week-long wedding cruise - not his, his housemates. They were high school buddies, went to different universities, then ended up working in the same town, and, eventually, sharing a house. My grand dog guarding the house:



Today's New Beer:



Received from @jdell15 in NBS BIF #9. Reviewed 5/26/19. Thanks Jacob!
On rifle butt “2018”. 750 mL corked and caged bottle. Stored at 42 degrees and served at 50 degrees (per bottle instructions) in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter. Final temperature 56 degrees.
Appearance – 4.
First pour – Dark brown, clear. Such a dark brown approaches opaqueness.
Body – Dark brown/black, opaque. When held to the light, still opaque.
Head – Average (Maximum 3.8 cm, aggressive center pour), dark tan, medium density, short duration. Rapidly diminishes to a two to three mm crown and a thin, partial cap.
Lacing – None. Not unexpected with a 13.3% ABV brew.
Aroma – 4.25 - Begins with a strong sweet aroma of chocolate fudge brownies. The aroma weakens but remains. Alcohol fumes dominate the aftertaste.
Flavor 4.5 – Begins with some chocolate fudge goodness followed, at the end of the swallow, by bourbon and a post-nasal blast of alcohol (13.3% ABV). No hops, no malt, no dimethylsulfide, no diacetyl.
Palate – 3.5 - Medium, almost creamy, fizzy carbonation.
Impression and interpretation – 4.25 – Overall, a good example of the style, if a bit heavy on the alcohol fumes.

 

Poured into a 16 oz Flying Goose Snulip bottled it loooks like January of 2019. Pours a slick near pitch black with a 2 plus finger mocha head that leaves thin wisps of lace as it quickly settles, leaving a few thin wisps of lace. 4.25

Smell is exactly what you would expect from the Name and Prairie, always a tad over the top but dark fudgy chocolate, vanilla, some alcohol, and a little Expresso. 4

Taste yields a touch more alcohol than the nose would make you expect, dark chocolate, vanilla, and some black coffee. 4

Mouthfeel is big, low carbonation, a touch dry, and at 11% ABV a sipper that goes down rather easy considering. 4

Overall this is what I signed up for, a monster stout that’s name says it all, I love what they do with Stouts. One dimensional but excellent. 4

 

Good morning, posting early today since I'm hosting a BBQ starting around noon. There will be a 1/4 keg of SNPA to be drunk there. This week new beer an Imperial Stout named Concrete Ship. Brewed by Cape May brewing in Cape May NJ. Poured from a 16 OZ can it is jet black with a thick brown lasting head. I found the aroma to be mild for an Imperial Stout but nice roasted malt a hint of coffee. The same is true for the taste nice and what one expects but mild for the style. Odd because the can claims 10.1% AVB. The mouth feel is full and the finish is dry. Overall a nice brew but a few steps below the heavyweights of the style like Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout or Sierra Nevada Narwhal ect.
The name comes from a local landmark. You should be able to guess what it is.

 

New Beer Sunday: American Pale Ale (APA)

Mornin’ NBSers with a thanks to @lordofthewiens for the early start and an alert for folks in SE PA who like APAs. But more importantly I’ll be raising my glass today with a special salute to those who served and did not return to become grandparents, “To absent friends!”

The weather today is going to be warm and humid with high temperatures in the upper 80s. The clouds are expected to come and go and there is a chance of showers in the late afternoon.

This morning’s new beer is called Back & Forth from 2SP brewing. This is one of our local beers done by a multi-award winning brewer.

My review, still in progress, can be found here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/40976/335788/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors of this beer are full of citrus, citric zest, a bit of pine and just enough bready malt to be noticeable. Overall it’s clean and crisp with a persistent bitterness that fades slowly in the back of the palate. For me this is a drinkable, enjoyable APA that I’ll be more than happy to have again. (Especially since in a 16oz can I prefer the ABV of an APA to that of an IPA.) Glad to say this is from a local brewery close enough to where I live that I can visit the taproom at the brewery once in a while.

Cheers, all!

 

A-Pours an amber color with a generous head and lacing
A-Aroma has citrus hop and malt hints
T-The taste follows the nose with citrus hop and strong malt flavors
M-A heavy bodied decently carbonated beer
O-A good Quadruple IPA with a whooping kick!

 

2SP is terribly underrated IMO, everything I have had from them thus far has been great and I am definitely going to be exploring them further.

 

You might also enjoy a visit to their taproom. Informal, sociable and lots of stuff to sample.

Note: Early on there were a couple of their beers that didn't excite me very much but I figure that some stuff was still being dialed in.

 

Classic New York Beer - Bock Beer

Last week I featured a Polish fruit beer that I had super low expectations for... and I loved it. Today, Im featuring a beer I had even lower expectations for. I noticed some terrible looking "beers" at a store that I've never seen before. They looked like generic Gatorade. Image below.



The language on their website resembles product instructions from a Chinese manufacturer and seems to be provided by a non-native English speaker. Here's a sample:

"The best way to experience our beers collection of tasted is to visit the store. Follow the aromas and choose the most enticing tasted to satisfy your palate."

The beers aren't made in New York or China, but rather, Monroe, Wisconsin. That must mean Minhas. Amongst the selection in the store, they also had a "Bock beer." I grabbed a single.

The beer is a very dark brown/near black and it's opaque. It tastes of cabbage. It's a little sour and a little bitter, but both in an unpleasant way. It tastes burnt. I can't find any pleasure in getting this down, so I'm not gonna stick with it all the way to the end. It's just gross.

Minhas is in the top 15 of craft brewers by volume. We should be afraid. @woodychandler

 

Today I am going to start with one from a great BA, @TheGent

Beer: Single Shot w/ Vanilla Bean
Brewery: Tree House (Massachusetts)
ABV: 6.4%

Pouring from a 16 oz. can into a Tree House Willi Becher style glass, this beer pours out a dark brown resembling coffee, before quickly mustering up caramel colored bubbles to form two fingers worth of thick and chewy looking crown to sit at the top.

The nose is charged with subtle, balanced decadence while offering to show the depths it can dive into. Sweetness of vanilla, toasted marshmallow tangle with notes of milk chocolate, slightly charred bitter baker chocolate, fudge and a kiss of toasted caramel coffee. This thing is like walking into a bakery first thing in the morning, when the coffee is hot and the treats are right out of the oven. Wow.

The taste brings the bittersweet symphony back to the stage. The layers of sweetness dance with the bitter, slightly burnt chocolate while the coffee watches with approval.

The mouthfeel floats through with creaminess. It’s silky, while offering a level of stickiness to make it almost reminiscent of marshmallows, which is impressive for a 6.4% stout. There is no burn at all in the mouth, and if it wasn’t for the slightly warming in the chest, you could probably convince someone this isn’t beer.

Overall, the balance and subtle nature of this is what makes it a winner. It won’t wow you if you are looking for any extreme flavors or a punch in your face, but it’s charged with depths and layers, while not letting any get out of hand and over shine the other. There’s a very fine line between nicely balanced and underwhelming to me, and this remains perfectly balanced the whole time, while never crossing into underwhelming for me.

Thank you for the chance to try this Anthony. I’ll hold my glass up as a toast to your grandpa. Thank him, and others for their service.

 

Do Saisons make you hoppy?

Firstly: Happy Memorial Day weekend everybody!

Today’s beer is a brand new beer from Sly Fox with a long name: Circle of Progress Dry-Hopped Saison. The part of the name of “Circle of Progress” is based upon the address of the Sly Fox production brewery in Pottstown, PA which is located on Circle of Progress (331 Circle of Progress Drive).

A brief discussion of this beer from the Sly Fox website:

“Circle of Progress Dry-Hopped Saison

Dry-Hopped Saison

14.1 OG 38 IBUs 6.8% ABV

This unfiltered, hoppy farmhouse ale was brewed with locally grown PA barley and wheat from Two Particular Acres and Double Eagle Malt. Fermented with our proprietary Saison yeast strain and generously hopped with Citra and Cascade, our latest CoP creation is a unique ale boasting a spicy yeast character balanced with flavors of melon and citrus from the hops.”

An intriguing description wouldn’t you say? But how does the beer taste?

Served in my Heavy Seas tulip glass:

Appearance:

Golden colored with a BIG fluffy white head

Aroma:

The first thing that hits me is spicy (phenols from the Saison yeast) but there is indeed some citrus from the hops.

Taste:

The flavor follows the nose with the spicy flavors being front & center but very nicely accompanied with the hop citrus flavors. There is a low/moderate bitterness.

Mouthfeel:

The body is smooth/medium with a dry finish.

Overall:

I think this beer is very good! I really enjoyed drinking it. For my palate the combination of spicy and citrusy play beautifully together

Cheers to Sly Fox for crafting a wonderful new beer!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @RobH @NeroFiddled @Mrstiffington

 

Nice review. Now I want one!

Thanks!

 

Good morning NBS
I overdid a little last night so I'm starting slow this morning

The review:
12oz undated bottle poured into a can glass at fridge temp 5% ABV 18 IBU. The beer pours bright in a dark copper color and produces a meager light khaki head. The head recedes to a thin cap. The aroma is toasted malt. The taste is more toasted malt, maybe a hint of rye malt and mild to moderate bitterness in the finish. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, adequately carbonated and mostly dry in the finish. Overall, good. The label is certainly confusing and a typical fan of cream ales would probably not care for this one.

I feel like I'm in a beer twilight zone here in southern Indiana. I assumed from the packaging that this was a cream ale, but it's listed as an American red ale and fits there. Last night I visited one of the three breweries in town with my family. My Helles and my wife's blonde ale were both amber. The bourbon barrel aged American strong ale was barely darker than their blonde ale and the feel was the same. I'm three hours by interstate to a decent brewery. For those of you who have access to great local beer, good for you. We're not there yet here.

Cheers all!

 

Thanks @lordofthewiens for the great start to NBS. Will be back later on with a new brew.

Cheers!

 

Terrifying! Thanks for the warning.

 

Mystic Flower of Perpetual Slumber is an Imperial IPA from Foreign Objects. Double dry hopped with Citra and Galaxy. The yellow cam pour holds a uniform, deep haze and sports a 1.5 cm foam cap. The aroma is bright with mango and strawberry. The flavor is full with kiwi, Cara Cara orange and a mint note. The hop bitterness is low to moderate. The body is smooth and the alcohol is well hidden.
The can art is predominately poppies, is referential to the name, but no seeds of the somniferum seem to be included in the recipe.

 

A-Pours a hazy golden color with a generous silky head and lacing, there are floaties present
A-Aroma has tropical fruits and citrus hop hints
T-The taste follows the nose with a pleasant balance of tropical fruits and citrus hop flavors
M-A medium bodied well carbonated beer
O-A very good Imperial IPA