New Beer Sunday (week 798)

Seems like some brewers only focus on the word Dunkel and ignore the actual style. For a long time, a local brewery that I've long since stopped visiting did what was essentially a really sweet brown ale and called it their Dunkel.

 

Unrelated but kind of related. Have you tried Tonewood Fuego? A kind gentleman at work tried to tell me that Fuego was the best IPA in jersey and tonewood is 20 minutes from me.

 

Greetings, NBS! I've been enjoying reading through your reviews this week, much like every week. I hope everyone is doing well, and thanks to @superspak for getting the thread off the ground this week. A common theme lately seems to be that life has often become a surreal experience. I find myself often thinking of the lyrics "the world around me's turning, I'm just standing still / the time has come for changes, do something or I will." Echoing the sentiments of another poster above, I sometimes find myself feeling guilty for finding pleasure in my life where I can. While we all do what we can to fight for progress in this world or take care of each other or just get through the day, it's important to find ways to keep yourself grounded. One of the things that has always kept me grounded is my relationship with my friends and family. Yesterday I was fortunate to spend some socially distanced time with one of my best friends in my back yard. On Friday my parents visited, and my father and I built a vertical rack for a hanging herb garden. My wife and I usually travel during the summer keeping us from ever really doing any gardening. With all of our summer plans canceled, this is the year to finally do those things. It was a great experience spending time with family, and brought back feelings of helping my dad around the house that I haven't felt in decades. The end result turned out incredibly, and my wife is absolutely thrilled(the most important part of the whole project). I hope everyone else is able to enjoy a little bit of grounding in these uncertain times.

One of the other things that has been helping to get me through the pandemic and civil unrest is the kindness of strangers/new friends that I've met here on BA. The BIF shenanigans and generosity have given me something to smile about and be grateful for. @ATLien was my target in the most recent Rookies BIF and ended up returning fire a week or two ago unexpectedly. Many of the breweries he sent were all new to me, like Monday Night Brewing from Atlanta. Tears Of My Enemies is an imperial milk stout conditioned on vanilla and coffee and this variant is aged in rum barrels. I haven't had many rum barrel stouts that have blown me away, but this one is one of my favorites I've had. I was hesitant to drink this on a sunny day in the 70's on my back porch, but it ended up being a good decision. The base stout is beautifully balanced and the subtle rum actually lightened it up. Very nicely done, and a great first impression of Monday Night Brewing.

4.27/5 rDev +5.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Look - poured an almost jet black into a 10oz. snifter with a minimal tan head that faded quickly leaving no lacing.
Smell - The aroma was beautiful and complex with different notes revealing themselves with every inhale. Roasty chocolate was the first thing I noticed. The next inhale brought out the vanilla. The rum barrel only played delicately in the background.
Taste - Bittersweet chocolate and vanilla interplay very nicely at the beginning of my sip. A deeper roasted malt quality lurks beneath it all and begins to grow in intensity. The coffee lends a bit of bitterness, but is not explicitly noticeable. Finally, the rum barrel is the most tame of the notes, but brings a lightness to an otherwise deep and dark stout.
Feel - This stout is smooth with a medium body. It is not thick and heavy, nor is it cloyingly sweet. The easy drinking quality is not at the expense of any flavor.
Overall - A solidly balanced stout that brings a wide array of flavor.

I still plan on drinking another bottle today that is on the other end of the spectrum. I've been looking forward to it since procuring it. Hopefully I won't be quite as long winded on that one. Until then, NBS!

 

Stone Buenaveza - I have been excited to try this beer, as I love Mexican style Lagers, lime, sea salt, and the packaging and can art... But sadly I have to report that I am not in love with this beer and while I would gladly drink again if handed one, it's missing the mark a bit for me. It has a strong dry corn taste and I think that they did what Stone normally does and tried to make this a too hoppy version of the style. Maybe it's just the Liberty hops (I wasn't too familiar with them going into this) but they did hit the corn chips taste they mention, though. I will work through the six pack and see what I think by the end but I wish that the lime and sea salt flavors were a little more prominent.

Flying Fish Salt and Sea - this is a 4.3% session sour ale brewed with strawberries and lime. It's an easy drinker and tastes quite good and I will gladly drink this one again.

 

Thanks for getting us going today, @superspak.

Been an odd week. The big BLM protest went really well last Sunday, so much so our conservative mayor issued a statement that was essentially a humblebrag directed at bigger cities where rioting had happened. Then, rioting happened. There wound up being an overly cautions curfew (much bigger, area-wise, than was needed) for several evenings. Today, another protest is scheduled, with all sorts of rumors about neo-****s, Proud Boys, etc, supposedly planning on upping the ante. So, there's a near-constant buzz of police and news choppers overhead, and there's probably already been a curfew imposed foe tonight. It's enough to drive me to drink.

Speaking of that, I'm going with a hazy from a brewery in Bozeman, Montana, that is entirely new to me.



https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/51963/448301/?ba=woemad#review
Quite easy drinking, but not overly distinctive. Dave may be a nice guy, but he's not that interesting.

 

Happy New English Barleywine Style Ale Sunday!

Pretty nice day here on the Western Slope, sunny, some clouds, freakn' windy, around 78 at the trailhead. Having an awesome brew today, always a joy to drink something from Fremont. Watching some Picard.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20680/475641/?ba=Wasatch#review

Cheers!

 

It's definitely very good and worth checking out. My son was in Glassboro for 4 years, so I picked some up every time I made a trip down that way. For that particular beer I didn't need to go to the brewery, it was available at a number of local shops.

 

Today I'm drinking a style that I'm not too familiar with: Dortmunder!

BA's Style Description:
Sometimes referred to as a “Dortmunder export,” the European-Style Export has the malt-forward flavor and sweetness of a German-style Helles, but the bitter base of a German-style Pilsener. This lager is all about balance, with medium hop character and firm but low malt sweetness. Look for toasted malt flavors and spicy floral hop aromas.

In his book, Lager: The Definitive Guide to Tasting and Brewing the World's Most Popular Beer Styles, Dave Carpenter describes Dortmunder, "Sometimes it acts like a hoppy helles. Other times, it’s more like a soft pilsner."

I picked up a crowler this afternoon from Bierstadt Lagerhaus of their Dortumunder, brewed in collaboration with Goldspot Brewing Company, also in Denver.

The beer pours clear, light straw color. It smells of sugar cookie and spicy hops. Mouthfeel is slick, finishes watery. The beer's sweet malt flavor and spicy hops almost give you a malt liquor vibe.

While I would prefer a pilsner or a helles, this beer is a nice change up for lager fans. If pilsners are too hoppy or harsh, and if helles is too soft and dull for you, this is a nice alternative.

 

Yeah, if they don't distribute to PA it's a case of so close yet so far. The brewery itself is bordering on Camden.

Poolside is certainly hoppier than any Mexican lager that I've had, but that may be beside the point. Perhaps that's just a marketing category rather than an actual style. If I had to guess I'd put the bitterness in the 25 to 30 IBU range, noticeable but not in your face.

Thanks again for the glass, it's in the heavy rotation and gets a lot of use still.

 

Beautiful pictures.

 

Rutgers ? Or is it Rowan?

 

Greetings NBS friends on the prettiest day of 2020 thus far in Northern Indiana. Thank you to @superspak for the launch, and a very special thanks to @DoctorZombies and @cjgiant for their exchange on Abraxas.

That exchange is why this is my favorite thread on this site - they both effectively and (most importantly) respectfully conveyed why they rated that beer as they fit. I’m more in line with Craig’s position, but that’s irrelevant - these two exemplary beer nerds provided an honest appraisal of the beer that would allow me as a beer consumer to make an informed decision (and I love cinnamon and peppers in a beer, so you get my lean to Abraxas).

THAT is what this site is all about, IMHO. An open, earnest exchange of views about our favorite beverage, with no desire to do anything more than share an informed opinion about a beer. That is why I vet every beer here before I make a purchase, and have been doing so for 10 years.

I have a couple of beers tonight, the first from an iconic brewery in our beer nerd world with a beer that has a lot of variability in the ratings it has earned.





4/5 rDev -3.1%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Pours a slightly hazy orange color with a dense, foamy white head. This looks closer to Two Hearted than a NE-style IPA, IMHO. The nose has the mango referenced in the beer notes here, and I’m also getting a really nice tangerine aroma.

The taste has even more of the tangerine to my palate, and I also get the mango, but the pineapple is MIA. There is a subtle caramalt flavor, which is appreciated, and there’s also a nice little alcohol burn.

This drinks big and easy at the same time, which is difficult to execute, but Bell’s is world class, so no surprise they pulled it off. The mouthfeel is to style, too, but every drink I take, I look at it and think, “this ain’t a NE-style IPA,” like Bell’s didn’t really commit to it.

I’m glad I tried this, and I’d drink it again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek it out.

 

Well, that does indeed read quite tasty!

If I ever see this beer at my local beer retailers iI will definitely buy it.

Cheers!

 

#2, this is courtesy of @2beerdogs and an NBS BIF that took place last fall, and the glassware is courtesy of @beertunes and an NBS BIF 3 years ago.

I am indebted to NBS BIF’s for like 17,000 years. IJS.





4.35/5 rDev +23.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Perfectly clear amber color after an aggressive pour that props up a light tan head. There’s caramel and cocoa on the nose, and those aromas translate directly to the taste, with an emphasis on the caramel.

There is nothing fancy about this beer, but it is executed perfectly, IMHO. If this is the only beer you drink the rest of your life, you are a very lucky beer nerd. What a magnificent example of the style.

 

It seems like you might have just changed the style listing for this beer (or requested it). I just want to point out that the brewer seems to consider it a sour porter - for what it’s worth.

 

It's interesting that you rate the lack of turbidity as such a fault in this beer.

 

It was Rowan, and he graduated last year. The transformation of that town in the 4 years he was there was pretty remarkable.

FWIW, Clayton Liquors was the best place for beer in the area, particularly the growler station.