New Beer Sunday (Week 754)

Hah! That's a nice way of putting it, yes. Glad that one worked out for you .

 

Happy Sunday, NBS crew! Below is my 1000th review on BA, and also my 5000th unique beer on Untappd. Strange how life sometimes lines up like that. @FlintB was kind enough to provide this beer specifically for this moment. Brian knows how much I love Speciation, so he sent me perhaps their best and most limited bottle. Less than 400 bottles produced, and fermented via wild yeast the wort collected when left outside for a night at Lake Superior. They trucked the wort up there (and back) just to expose it to the lake microbes, then left it for almost 2 years in a barrel. What a baller way to introduce yeast into a beer!

Lake Superior with Huckleberries - Speciation
American Wild - 7% abv
Bottled 2019 (although brewed in 2017)
Score: 4.56 (+1.3% rDev)



Review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/48069/397259/?ba=CanConPhilly#review

Synopsis:
I’ve never tasted huckleberry before, but it has elements of raspberry and strawberry sweetness, with blackberry-level tartness. Quite a superior berry (ha!), so I can see why it was selected for such a special beer. Modetately acidic, but not over the top enamel-peeling sour. The interplay of the extended time in a barrel with the wild yeast is wonderful, and beyond my ability to properly describe. Woodsy, earthy, oaky. It’s an incredible sour, and I’m very grateful for the chance to try it. Thanks again Brian!

 

Happy Sunday NBS players. A beauty of a summer day here on the island. A very nice and welcomed lazy day for myself. Hanging on the couch and watching some Mets bball all afternoon. Might be heading out to dinner but if not I'm lighting up the grill.

I only have one new beer in the fridge, right now, but I do have a few new beers that I had for the first time this week that I may review too. My first new beer is City Wide, a porter, from Interboro brewing. The brew checks in at 5% abv and has no canning date.

A dark black color on the pour with a frothy off-white head. Roasted malts on the nose. The drinking hits with chocolate malts upfront but it's rather light body is very apparent. Very drinkable with a very smooth flow and finish. Subtle notes of cocoa, coffee, and caramel. Again, a very light mouthfeel that drinks dry and sways a bit to much towards watery.

Overall, just not that good. The light watery feel really drowns out the flavors to much for me. I can find a substantially better 5% porter just down the road. I'm in the low 3's.

 

Happy New Russo-Japanese-Vietnamese-Chinese CANned Beer Sunday, CANrades (Week 754) (С новым русским-日本人-Tiếng Việt-中文 Пиво воскресное, товарищи (неделя 754)!

I was absent last week as I was up to NYC for the weekend & did not return home until late-Monday. The trip was ostensibly to see the Pirates get swept in three games by the Mets, but it also gave me a ChANce to reconnect with a college classmate & her husband, neither of whom had I seen since their wedding in ~ 2008. I also attended one game with a Navy buddy whom I had not seen in 30+ years until he & his wife visited Lancaster during the 2018 Holidays. Later, in April, he organized a mini-reunion in New London, CT & now, the game together. I spent most of my time in LIC, a place that I really didn't visit much while on the USS Normandy (CG-60), then homeported at Staten Island. Now, they have an LIC Beer Tour with a souvenir tasting glass at the CANclusion of the visiting of its six (6) establishments! You CAN bet that I hit 'em all. I also made one foray into Manhattan (other than to get off & on the train at Penn Station) to visit The Museum of Sex, especially to see the special exhibit on Punk Rock!

Upon arrival on Thursday, I made a beeline over to Brooklyn & specifically Brighton Beach. I really dig that area due to its eastern European vibe. I have self-taught myself to read Cyrillic & my tastes are quite European so the shopkeepers are often shocked when I inquire about Kvass & okroshka (a cold soup of greens & other veggies with chopped hard boiled eggs). Hee hee. I also managed to find some new CANs of beer for today, plus I am digging out from under my backlog & I have a number of Asian CANs also, hence today's theme.

I am getting a late start since I was just at a short story discussion of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", held at nearby Otterbein United Methodist Church. I go over there every seCANd Saturday for their "Attic Treasures" rummage sale so they know who I am & I wanted to participate in a book discussion.

Start, though, I did, beginning with:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/401/84557/?ba=woodychandler#review

Man, that Russian blondie babe really laid it on me! 0.9L in the CAN! Wait'll yinz see what happens next …

 

I have not tried any beers from the rinse and repeat series and I don’t know too much about the hops involved so I’m going into this one blind BA.



Rinse and Repeat: topaz, Nelson, El Dorado

The appearance is slightly darker than I’ve come to expect from the NE style. It very much like pulpy thick orange juice with 3 fingers of white head resting on top. Delicious bold aromas of nectarines, pineapples, oranges, and an earthy tone. Taste follows exactly with a nice little hop bite and some bitterness to the finish. Possibly a little alcohol in that bitterness as well. Mouthfeel is lighter than expected, slightly lighter than medium. Smooth, soft, and I can’t make up my mind if it’s the alcohol tickling my throat or the hop bite. Either way it’s a really good beer and a nice introduction to the rinse and repeat series. I don’t know much about the individual hops, but together they combine to make some good juice.

 

Time for another beer.



Poured from the can into a Spiegelau IPA glass.

Pale orange body color, opaque and solid with a flat appearance. Holds off on turbidity or haze, with a very bubble bath short head barely reaching three fingers off the pour. Big thick soapy bubbles with little retention, and virtually no lacing.

Subtle hop aroma, somewhere between tropical and citrus notes. Hints at a little bit of juice but mostly kind of small and hidden.

Palate seems a bit more expressive than the nos, but only slightly. Interesting hop flavor, somewhere between floral and tropical notes. A bit of large baby aspirin flavor to this unfortunately, and a slightly chalky mouthfeel to go with it. Comes off as a bit gritty grainy aftertaste as well.

Hard to pinpoint this, but it's lacking a little in body and flavor, with some odd qwerks on my palate.

look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75 | Final 3.68

Cheers!

 

Greetings, fellow NBSers, and thanks to @lordofthewiens for getting us underway today.

I've only been to Los Angeles once, when I was 10, and Disneyland and the Queen Mary/Spruce Goose (they were together in Long Beach back then) were the attractions we saw while there. And speaking of big ships, I'll be touring the Mighty Mo in Pearl Harbor in about a week or so. I'm leaving for a family vacation in honor of my parent's 50th anniversary on Thursday. Most of the time we'll be on the Big Island, but we're spending a couple days on Oahu basically so my brother, his wife and I can check out the ww2 historical stuff, as none of us have been to Hawaii before (my parents went last fall so they will be entertaining my two nieces on that particular day as we all expect their attention spans won't hold up to stomping around the Missouri, the Arizona museum (the actual memorial built over the Arizona's wreck is still too damaged to permit tourists; apparently the NPS just can't afford to fix it) and the submarine that's there.

So I'll probably miss the next couple outings of NBS. I missed last week's on account of having been in a lot of pain after injuring my back. It's still not great even now, but last week it was much worse, so I was not in the mood.

Today my 5:58 alarm clock looked like this:

Not pictured is an extremely voluble cat.
I've been house and pet sitting for a couple friends of mine who, until a few months ago, ran a mobile canning company, canning beer and cider (for a time I worked for them). They're driving their trailer and equipment to a buyer in the deep south, and needed their somewhat high maintenance pets looked after. I was looking for a little extra cash for my upcoming tropical adventure, so it worked out. Only problem is their guest bedroom is on the same floor the pets hang out on, and they quickly figured they could force their way in when they want their breakfast (the house has no a/c, so one has to leave the door open for air flow.

Finding my Sunday sleep-in plans nullified, I hit this

(a food truck specializing in breakfast) for a breakfast burrito, drank some coffee, and am about to dive into something from @ovaltine.

 

Sierra Nevada Trip in the Woods: Rum Barrel Aged Quad. Clocking in at 11.70% it's a true heavyweight. Poured into a brandy style snifter it generates a moderate, but quickly dissipating head, and is a very dark almost cola like color. But with a sniff you won't mistake it for one, big fruits, sweet molasses and cane sugar. Taste matches with additional bits of tobacco, and delicate rum notes. Mouthfeel is slick and moderately carbonated, could be a tad thicker. Overall a real treat, should've grabbed two of these.

 

Dear Lord, Kestrel. I always love reading your posts. You are so eloquent. Your prose flows. Of course I am happy to be connected to your day with the beer. But your timing is beyond impeccable. I don't think I mentioned that during our recent trip to Ireland and Scotland that we spread some of my mom's ashes amongst the greenery of a wonderful walking trail in Dufftown, Scotland. It was solemn yet energizing due to the fulfillment of one of my mom's wishes. (Interesting to note I carried the ashes in a Chumash leather pouch that looks very near what you have in your photo, minus the beadwork).
But for the last 2 years I have been blessed with the love of my dear Vida, the glorious Mexican mutt on the right in my avatar. After a very rapid onset of an unknown immune disorder, her system started attacking platelet production. After battling for a few days, clinging to hope, we said goodbye to her yesterday. So fucking wrong. So outta nowhere.
But reading your elegant musings reminds me of the love and respect and resiliency that abounds in the world. We are connected to so many beings in such profound ways, be they human or fauna relations. In light of all of the abysmal sadness this weekend, I am reminded of hope. Thanks.

 

Here's one from the ALDI store. I saw some fair reviews on the BA and got a 4 pack and they turned out very hoppy and not bitter. So I will get some more of this one. The price is excellent.

 

ISO: Breakfast at Dave's FT: Name it!

 

Troegs raspberry tart
...cloudy orange cranberry color
..medium carbonation with a slightly thin feel
..aroma is raspberry jam,malt,grain,raspberry vinaigrette
..taste is mildly sweet with a cranberry dryness. Very low on the tart or sour side but has again some cranberry dry bite to it
..not extreme I any way but decent and their trasperry art ale went well with raspberry tartsimage hosting service

 

Lawdamercy, how’d that end up in Texas? Third Street’s pretty small, even in Minnesota (at least they used to be). I’m flummoxed.

 

I'm still on the "what exactly IS a NEIPA, anyway?" kick started last week. On the good side of this, I got me trying more of the style again after having abandoned it as over-priced palate-fatigue-inducing beer. On the bad side, I still don't know what a good example of the style actually is.

This week I will be trying two more semi-locally-brewed candidates.

First up is:
Toppling Goliath Twisted Galaxy Double India Pale Ale
ABV: 8.0%
IBU: 100



Aroma is tropical fruit, sharp citrus, grapefruit, faint pineapple, slight grassy malt aroma.

1 inch+ thick, creamy white head that retains nicely. Thick strings and loops of lacing as it sags a bit in the middle. Yellow-orange hazy color, like a mix of orange and pineapple juice with sparse bubbles visible. Some highly visible white floaties are in the initial pour, with gobs of them in the final pour - again, typical of many TG IPAs.

Feel is medium-thin, somewhat sharp.

A fairly bitter, somewhat piney, start with tropical fruit flavors, but not what I would call "juicy". Flavors of orange, some pineapple, with a nice grapefruit-like bite. Moderate to a bit stronger bitterness throughout all the way to the finish. The brewer states this beer has an IBU of 100, but the hops don't translate that into the perceived bitterness you might expect; moderately bitter, more like a 60-70 or so IBU beer.

Malt presence is grassy but subdued by the hops.

Finish and aftertaste are dry with the moderate bitterness, citrus flavors lingering for short time, eventually fading to nothing but the bitter aftertaste remains. The bitterness in the aftertaste builds as you drink.

L: 3.75 | S: 3.75 | T: 4.25 | F: 4.0 | O: 4.0 | My calculated BA rating: 4.03

I didn't judge this against the NEIPA BJCP guidelines, but if I had, in my view, the main thing "New England" about this beer is the hazy appearance, which has been a characteristic of TG pale ales and IPAs for a decade.

The aroma is tropical fruit, for sure, but not tropical fruit juice, and the malts are grassy. The feel is not soft, and is medium-thin, not medium-full; the taste is moderately bitter (not necessarily a disqualifying feature by itself), but the taste is more IPA-citrus-like rather than "juicy", and the finish is dry and, again, moderately bitter.

Here is the BJCP summary:

This is a very good DIPA, but is it mis-characterized by those calling it a NEIPA?

I'd be interested in the comments from those who have had both Twisted Galaxy and several of the commercial standards of the NEIPA style from New England, such as (in this ABV range) Treehouse (King JJJuliusss), Hill Farmstead (Abner) (or other standards of the ~8.0% ABV NEIPAs).

 

New Sour Ale Sunday (Week 754)
Well, from the picture I left this morning you might not believe that others pickers also hit that same extensive area below Trapps, which is Mohonk Preserve property. Hard to tell, though, if they have done, though, since modern day shroomers no longer cut stalks above the ground like we all were taught to do, leaving a "stump". The Swedish Study proved that pulling quickly from ground actually is better for future fruitings, and less stress on the mycelium and hyphae, the opposite of what we once believed. That same study also showed that the big problem is tromping harshly on the ground and disturbing the habitat (I was a tromper now I am super lightfooted).

So there is no real way to tell nowadays if a spot already was picked, or if it just didn't produce. Today I had bad luck at all the fairly easy to get to spots for two or three miles. So I went to this crazy spot that is hidden between two huge fallen oaks and on a steep hillside that is wayyyy off the trail. No one knows this honey hole, and likely wouldn't attempt it if they did. Jackpot! But it showed me the competition already had been through. Glad to say I have two other good locations that no one (so far) knows about.

Grabbed this 4pak quickly to give the other customers a break. Luckily I've known Bill, the owner of the store, for over thirty years, and he knows I pick and stink sometimes haha. Wanted to get one of the Foreign Objects beers I researched, but I was too late. Ommegang Pale Sour sounded like the answer to a prayer. It is listed as a wild ale here, not sure I agree.


Orange peel, sweet lemon, grainy/wheaty sweet, sourdough, light rotted fruit funk, and very light herbal spiciness behind it all make a solid aroma.

More tart than expected, think Berliner Weisse, and the sweet is ramped up a bit more as well. All the flavors of the aroma are here, they could be better balanced so the rotted fruit notes were more prominent and/or there was more of a spicy dry end of sip. On the whole quite delicious.

This has the mouthfeel of a good Berliner Weisse, i.e. refreshing, high carb., plenty of viscosity to give it a lasting impression in the mouth, not super funky. Finish could be a bit less "sweetart" and it would be even better.

Tasty beer that is hitting the spot. I recommend it.

Hope you also have a Great American Beer in your glass. Cheers!

 

Yes, they do. What adds to the "usual pain" is how young she was. 2-1/2 years old. It's already hard that we outlive them by decades, but dang.

 

You are welcome any time my brother