New Beer Sunday (Week 757)

We just rec'd a bunch of new beers from out west.
They are mostly, sours as we are in Vermont after all.

Here's one that's not sour.
Cheers!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/396/422522/



16 oz. can.
No date.
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a well over one inch white head over a golden amber body with some nice, sticky lacing. Kangaroo floaties are present. Nose of some tropical fruit, a bit of candied citrus, and some floral/herbal/pine as well. Taste is all of the aromas with the malt asserting itself as the backbone of this Aussie/West Coast IPA. Very nice feel and overall, this IPA means business with a fairly dry finish and turning more piney as it warms. Cheers to the guys at Alesmith and Beachwood for a great job on this one!

 

That's my white whale beer. I drank several bottles of it in the summer of 1999 while studying in Germany and haven't had it since. Unquestionably, It was my first doppelbock. At the time, I almost exclusively drank Guinness, but this one made me go "Whoa! Gotta have more of this!"

 

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

This is my first NBS since going out of town for 13 1/2 days, most of which were spent in the 50th state, where I acquired an impressive amount of sunburn, did my first snorkeling, and found I liked fruity drinks a lot more than I had previously thought (I had a couple Pina Colatas and Blue Hawaiians that were practically life changing). Sadly, no Hawaiian beers I had were as memoable, although the couple I had from Big Island were pretty good. In particular, I think I can say I never need another beer from Kona Brewing.

Now I'm back in Spokanistan, where I'm cautiously optimistic about the amount of wildfire smoke that will assault my asthmatic lungs this year <knocks on wood>. In that regard, this has been the clearest August in several years thus far.

Today I'm hitting a session IPA that was given to me by the friends I was house & critter sitting for in the week before I went on vacation. Seems they picked up the Odell variety 12-pk while they were passing through Colorado, and they gave me half of it. This one is apparently only available in packaged form via the aforementioned variety pack:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/267/417608/?ba=woemad#review
This is pretty good. I'm not exactly a connoisseur of session IPAs, but I feel this would make a pretty good repeater on a hot day. My biggest quibble is that it's good points make it cry out for a crisp finish that doesn't happen.

 

Bruery Terreux Room For More. 11/2016 bottle. Outstanding stuff. Great fluffy head retention/spotty soapy lacing. Aromas and flavors of huge sour/tart/tangy peaches, nectarines, apricot, fruit fuzz/skin/pits, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, plum, pear, melon, red/green apple, white grape/wine, oak, hay, straw, and grass; with moderate wheat, white bready malts; lighter notes of oaken vanilla, peppercorn, leathery/musty/lacto funk, white wine vinegar, and yeast earthiness. Moderate fruity/lactic tart/sourness, fruit tang, and light yeast/oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Medium-plus carbonation, light-medium body, and moderately crisp finishing. Very acidic, tangy, tannic; some grainy malts in the mouthfeel. Moderate increasing acidic/tangy drying; moderate lingering pucker, but not too overwhelming. Minimal warming 5.7%. This was intensely sour, nice slow sipper. Super juicy/jammy stone fruits and Brett/bacteria complexity; great oak presence, and solid pale/wheat malts vs acidity. Zero residual sweetness with crisp acidic/tangy dryness. Really impressive, just with it wasn't so puckering. 4.15


Cheers

 

A recent arrival from Bend, OR with very limited distro in Vermont.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29600/429753/



375 ml. corked and caged bottle.
Brewed 12.2017.
Bottled 3.21.2019.
914 bottles.
Moderate to vigorous pour yields a 3/4 inch white head over a pinkish amber body with a little lacing. Nose of citrus, grape, oak, and a bit of spice from the dry hopping of crystal hops. Very nice! Taste mirrors nose with additional flavors of spice from the rye malt. Exhibiting a wonderfully tart, spicy finish of a little grape tannins, oak, and spice. Whoa! Very nice feel and overall, yet another world class offering from AA in Bend. Cheers!

 

Happy Sunday NBS players. A really nice cool summer day here on the island and a welcoming break from the heat. Another busy day working and getting shit done- not my prototypical Sunday by any stretch or desire. Anyway, I've got a bunch of new beers on hand so we'll see how many I actually get to.

My first new beer is Try And Try, a hazy ipa, from Barrage brewing. The brew checks in at 6.1% abv, has no canning date, and features simcoe and mosaic hops.

An amber blonde color on the pour with murky clarity and a huge head of fluffy white foam- a bit too much actually. The nose is sweet with hops and subtle fruit. Sweet, fruity, and tangy hops hit on the first few sips. A rather smooth flow that finishes ever so slightly bitter. A light/moderate mouth feel that feels rather over-carbonated. Flavor notes of lemon, orange, grape and dry white wine. The hops have a candy like sweetness which seems to dominate. I'm not a big fan of this flavor.

Overall, I'm not that impressed here. Average at best but I doubt I will re-visit in the future. Probably gonna score it in the low 3's.

 

New Beer Sunday: English Bitter

Evenin’ NBSers, with an idea for SE PA fans of a bitter.

This evening’s new beer is a Bitter from Bonn Place Brewing Co in Bethlehem (PA). This is both a new beer and a new brewery for me. The Brewery is one of several located about 1 1/2 hours north of here. In the 1800s a group of Moravians settled in that area to establish a communal community and now Historic Moravian Bethlehem has been recently designated as a National Historic Landmark District. If you should have a chance to visit Bethlehem, PA during the Christmas season you’ll spot their influence fairly quickly.

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

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46658/242866/?ba=drtth#review


The aromas/flavors of this beer focus on the gentle but definitely present citric bitterness against a background of toasted malt and light caramel sweetness. The gentle (as opposed to harsh) orange tinged citric bitterness is up front and seems well supported and controlled by the malt backbone. I let this beer warm a bit from the fridge before pouring, but the temperature was still colder than would be expected if on cask in a proper UK pub. As the beer warmed the balance of fruity bitterness and caramel malt sweetness changed some as the malt flavors moved a bit more forward .

On the player this evening there’s bit of Opera from Verdi. It’s called La Traviata and includes a drinking song called Brindisi. This is where the hero and heroine are featured. (Interest and love awaken.)



Finally the tragic ending....



Cheers, all!

 

On to another brew!



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Clear bodied, with a lighter brass faintly hinting copper orange body appearance. There's a trace amount of chill haze in this as well. Bit of a large head for a marzen, off white with a punchy four fingers of head, settling to a good bubbly collar.

Quite a nice nose. Good crispy caramel action and clean aroma. Hits an excellent spicy note, that's almost more Christmas cinnamon like than clove. Has excellent mellow sweetness, and this exceptional dry spice of nutmeg. Very unexpected. A little different but real impressive.

Palate is interesting. First sip seems to contain a good noticeable hop bitterness that seems traditional spicy, but seems to lean in some other angle that almost senses experimental. Lingering bitterness on the finish that has almost a hot spice, even peppery aftertaste that is slightly jarring. Mid palate manages some light caramel and crispy flavors, that provide some at least contrasting needed sweetness.

The bitterness, and I would say even hotness on this beer is really unexpected. Still an easily drinkable Marzen.

look: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5 | BA Score: 3.73

Cheers!

 

Cycle Rare DOS 1. 2017 vintage. This was amazing. Nice head retention/spotty lacing. Aromas and flavors of huge milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, toffee, molasses, vanilla, whiskey, toasted oak, roasted nuts, biscuit, and dark bread/crust; with lighter notes of coconut, raisin, prune, cherry, fig, date, smoke, char, leather, tobacco, herbal, grass, and yeast earthiness. Mild herbal, grassy, roast, charred bitterness; and whiskey/oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Light-medium carbonation and super full body; very creamy, silky, velvety, bready malts; light slickness, sticky hops, chalky roast, and oak tannins in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing lingering bitter/tannic dryness; no cloying, acrid, astringency. Amazingly silky/smooth/soft feel from 1+ year barrel aging; mild increasing warmth of 11%, zero lingering barrel booze. Perfectly balanced super rich malts and whiskey barrel presence/integration; mild earthy hops and fruity yeast. Not overly sweet/heavy from lingering dryness. Top tier quality stout! 4.35


Cheers, have a good night NBS.

 

Good evening NBS
I didn’t need an airplane to get home from work tonight. I was looking forward to a favorite style from two excellent brewers...

The review:
16oz undated can (from May-one time collaboration with 3Floyds) poured into a Rastal glass at fridge temp, no ABV listed on can. The beer pours bright dark brown with mahogany highlights and mocha colored head. The head recedes to a thin ring and leaves a little lacing. The aroma is mild, but rich with malt. The taste is multifaceted malt with notes of toasted bread, caramel, roasted malt along with some faint cherry & berry fruit. The finish features mild to moderate bitterness and is barely sweet yet drying. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with adequate carbonation. Overall, very good. How sad that this is a one off. This beer showcases what these two breweries can do. Grab a single if you see it. The other three IPAs in the four pack are past their best by date.

Cheers all & enjoy the new beer in your glass tonight!

 

Right along NBS players.

My second new beer tonight is Home Grown, a dry hopped lager, from Victory. The Victory pack simply didn't hit on the eastern part of the island so when I was west visiting a beer store and saw it I grabbed it. The brew checks in a 4.8% abv, it has a best by 12/10/19 canning date, and it features azacca, cascade, centennial, chinook, citra, and mosaic hops.

A pale off yellow color with decent clarity and a white and quick head of foam bubbles. The nose is semi-sweet with hops and malt. Very clean on the first few sips with lots of nice pilsner malt and rather hoppy on the finish. Smooth as all hell with really nice balance between the malt and hops. A light/moderate mouth feel that drinks refreshing but will full stick on flavors. Notes of bready malt, grass, straw, mixed spice, herbs, pepper, lemon, and grapefruit.

Overall, this is pretty nice stuff. It's a bit hoppy for a lager but that seems to be the point and I think the balance is really well done despite that. Gonna score it around the 4 range but I've got two more cans to re-visit first.

 

My second new beer today is courtesy of @JayWhitson

Thank you, sir!

Überbrew Canü Beer

A little bit of an experiment here. I don’t know anything about this beer and the label indicates nothing, so a semi-blind tasting.



Look: The beer is slightly cloudy and translucent. Pale gold. A bone white heat that rises to a couple fingers, settling to a thin layer across the top. Some visible carbonation.

Smell: My first thought when opening the can was “lager.” A mild nose of sweet, bready and grainy malt. A bit corny. A spicy, earthy element that reminds me of German hops. The beer gets very bready as it warms.

Taste: A very mild beer. As it warms up I get a honey, corn bread sweetnes. The finish is semi-sweet. Zero bitterness.

Feel: Moderate level of carbonation but a pretty full bodied beer for something that I’m guessing is 4% - 5%.

Overall: An enjoyable beer. Clean and crisp. My original thought when smelling the beer right out of the can was “lager.” I suppose it could be an American Adjunct Lager. Or a Cream Ale. It reminds a lot of Carton’s Canoe and Rabaska cream ales. More so the former. So, it’s either a lager or an ale haha. As for a rating, I’m probably at 3.75 - 4.

Pretty good stuff. Thanks @JayWhitson !

 

Happy New Summer in the Dark with a Beer in the City Sunday (Week 757), CANtinued Even Further!
Crayons at the ready, I dove right in with:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43699/241231/?ba=woodychandler#review

After finishing with Molly's flogging my Bishop to relieve my Blue balls, I turned to my favorite color. It is the color of luck in many Eastern cultures & I find it very appealing in its many shades & hues. At this point, I was CANious (Double):
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43699/360149/?ba=woodychandler#review

Okay, kids, Blue & Yellow add up to?:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43699/351036/?ba=woodychandler#review

All right, that does it for now. I've got an early reveille scheduled, I'm feelin' the effects of the day & the last two are a Rye PA & a TIPA (!), neither of which seem poised to do me any favors. I will probably get the former in tomorrow following M Night Trivia & the latter on Tuesday after school. It gives us all something to look forward to. See yinz in WBAYDN & again next Su, following a Bucks County excursion.

 

Let the malty-ness continue...



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Deep amber and a wonderful bronze orange body color is presented with nice clarity. Head creation is slightly khaki colored with a nice bubbly and frothy appearance. Touches of pill like lacing and a good crowned collar make an appearance. Great looking beer.

Aroma is real nice. Emphasis on toffee quite a bit here, with a fairly sweet and somewhat sticky sensing flavor on the nose. Lots of sticky malt sensations, a bit extract like smelling out of the package, but with a nice faint hint of clove.

Flavors tend to follow the nose. Fairly nice backbone, which is inescapable and really powers the flavors. The malt character does come off a bit thick but nothing too syrupy. Hints of sticky caramel and touches some good fusel heat surprisingly. Aftertaste has a bit of remedial hop spicy bitterness but not much.

A bit of a malty and somewhat hot bock.

look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.75

Cheers!

 

You may be right about that, and I may have spoken too soon. After a quick glance of Beermenus it looks like the Loral Lager is at a couple of places close by me after all. Now I'm really looking forward to checking it out!

 

NBS round #2
Everyone here should know that I shun no style. Thanks to @woodychandler for hooking me up with four Genesee samples to further my studies.

The review:
24oz can stamped A259 1112:44 poured into a my vintage Spuds MacKenzie mug at fridge temp, no ABV specified on label. The beer pours bright straw yellow with nearly white head. The head recedes to a nice cap and leaves a little lacing. The aroma is acceptable by AAL standards with light grain, a bit of sweetness and faint vegetable tangy notes. The taste is mostly nuetral with slight cream corn and a little tangyness. Minimal bitterness. The mouthfeel is thin bodied with above average carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Just a hint of butter in the finish but cleaner that a lot of premium AALs. Overall, good. If I happened across a $6 / 12 pack in my travels, I'd probably bite.

Cheers all!

 

Good evening, NBSers. I had a long day driving from Fort Collins to Golden/Idaho Springs and to the top of Mount Evans. Beautiful weather and views thankfully. Time for a beer!



La Cumbre - Full Nelson - 8.7% ABV DIPA

Canned 3 weeks ago. Pours clear gold with a fluffy white head.

The nose is dank. Pine, diesel, honey, and orange candy. The taste is orange, honey, subtle white grape, and medium to high bitterness. A clean West Coast punch of hops. The mouthfeel is a nice velvety medium.

Overall, very good. The hop profile doesn't scream Nelson to me, but it does have the earthy dank intensity you'd expect in an overall clean package. 4.32/5

 

A gift from one of the von Trapp brewery workers a few hours after it was canned on Thursday.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46275/435899/



16 oz. can.
Canned 08/22/19, 3 days old.
Moderate pour yields a one inch white head over a very hazy golden body with sticky lacing. Very aromatic nose of tropical fruit and citrus with a floral/herbal thing going on as well. Taste mirrors nose, flavorful and smooth. Feel might be a bit "soft" for some, but overall, a pleasant experience to be sure. Cheers to the crew up the hill here in Stowe, VT!

 

Greeting, NBS peeps. Definitely a fall type day here...very enjoyable. We are back in the home base after our week on Hobbs Pond in Hope, ME. A mixed week, for sure. The missus came down with something Tuesday evening - stomach and intestinal, so we suspect food. But we have been wringing our brains to figure out everything we have eaten for a week and we have had nothing different or that wasn't shared, so maybe not...

Before that started, she managed to catch two largemouth in the 3 to 4 pound range just casually tossing a worm on a hook off the cabin dock... I caught one a bit bigger while on the kayak casually tossing a fake worm under a dock in deep shade. Caught me unaware, pulled me toward the powerboat sitting at the dock. Got the fish in the kayak, but trying to deal with a flopping fish, hook, pole, kayak/paddle, dock, and momentum toward an outboard prop made it...interesting. Anybody nearby would have learned new words...mostly four letter variants rhyming with truck stuffed into normal words...glad there was nobody around except loons and the eagle...and the soon to be released if it would just calm down a bit bass...

We drove home in 4.25 hours straight, no stops, wife still suffering. We have never done that - always take our time and make stops. Paying for it today...and the daughter texts and says her lawnmower won't start. Fortunately it was just stale, water-laden gasoline. Now, daughter dear, how old is the gas...oh I dunno...well, see all the cloudy junk, its water...oh, um, I guess I filled the gas can last spring... You know those four letter creative words...I refrained. But the mower...a plastic carburetor...heard about them, never seen one. Interesting...potentially 3-D printed???

Well, it was a great opening post @cjgiant . In response to the theme, I hate flying but I do like being places once I get there. Air travel is so undignified now and people can be so unreasonable...just not something I enjoy, but rather endure. @lordofthewiens - happy anniversary. @superspak - especially glad to be reading your positive posts this week

The beer tonight in the Duvel, no less...with hints as to what went on the grill...woof, woof...




This is Foundation Brewing's Dark Side Corruption. It is a Belgian Saison on here, seems to be unclassified by the brewery. The label just says oak aged ale, but the web site gives a good description of what's in the recipe. Bottle conditioned, no date I can find, bought at the brewery about four weeks ago in an oh that sounds good moment.

Pours like you see it. Stout-like brown/black but with a super foamy, persistent head that almost escaped control. You can smell this beer from across the room...chocolate, boozy, dark fruit like brandy soaked cherries...pretty awesome on the aroma.

This stuff is yummy. Yeah, going all technical there. It just plain tastes good. Layers of flavor - chocolate, caramel, figs and drunken cherries, brief flash of alcohol, very faint Belgian yeastiness floats on top. It all wraps up somehow with added vanilla, some sharper phenolic likely from the barrel treatment. Maybe a little tobacco, slight milk chocolate sweetness. It rolls together into a flavor that makes me think marshmallow fluff with chocolate and cherries and brandy/cognac. Slightly dry but mainly soft and lush on the finish, a little warming. It feels and drinks like a cross between a porter and saison.

This is making me happy. And happy we bought two...the wife will love this when she's operational! Really an enjoyable, well-constructed beer, well north of 4.0 for me. I guess Belgian saison is as good as anything else to call it...delicious wouldn't cut it as a style. If I had tasted this last Sunday, we would have been stopping on The Corner in Portland, sick or not (yup...internet bravery right there).