New Beer Weekend #114

Had a new beer from Great Heights Brewing in Houston yesterday afternoon.

Corvallis Pale Ale, 6% ABV. This is a fresh hopped pale ale, with all Strata hops from Oregon.



Pours a clear golden/yellow color. A one finger white head forms and recedes to leave some lace behind.
Oh man, this is really aromatic. Peach, strawberry, big fruity hops are the show here. Not the most complex, but very pungent, intense, and enjoyable.
Taste wise, dank and pungent up front. With that fruity hop character again. Peach, strawberry, melon. With all the fruity flavors, this becomes a bit sweet, though not overly cloying. A light woody flavor, that I specifically get with Great Heights from time to time, and light lingering bitterness.
A medium body with crisp carbonation. This is really clean and becomes smoother as this breaths. I can drink this a lot.

I'm typically not that impressed with big fruit salad like hop characteristics, especially any more. Though this is a really good example of that. All fresh hopped Strata from Oregon. A really good showcase of the hop, and of what a fresh hop Pale Ale, well really an IPA, can be.

Overall score 4.15, easy A- for me.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/50326/622091/?ba=champ103#lists

 

Another Pour Man’s beer

A few weeks ago, I discussed a Czech Dark Lager from Pour Man’s Brewing. This week I have another beer from them: Ja’Crispy Kölsch.

I looked forward to this weekend’s tasting since I am a fan of the Kölsch beer style.

For those BAs who are less familiar with the Kölsch beer style I would recommend the article “What is a Kölsch beer?”.

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Brewing_Kolsch

Below is how today’s beer is described on the Pour Man’s website:

“Ja'Crispy Kölsch

5% ABV

25 IBU

Pour Man’s Brewing Company

Ephrata, PA

Crisp and crushable German style ale brewed with Pilsner malt and hopped with Hallertau and Saaz hops.”

And an extract from the above linked article:

My Requirements for a Kölsch

• Flavor: a combination of Pilsner malt flavor and subtle fruity esters (white wine flavors) from the Kölsch yeast
• Low-moderate bitterness and zero hop flavor/aroma
• Very light in color: straw colored
• Mouthfeel: light – medium bodied with a crisp/dry finish

I have my fingers crossed that this new beer will be consistent with my requirements above; let’s find out.

Served in my Polish Pilsner glass:

Appearance

A straw yellow color with a white head which dissipates fairly quickly.

Aroma:

There is a balanced combination of bready Pilsner malt and herbal/floral flavors (from the hops?).

Taste:

Flavor follows the nose but with the bready Pilsner malt flavor dominating with the herbal/floral flavors being secondary and there is a subtle aspect of minerality in the background. There is a low/moderate bitterness

Mouthfeel

Light - medium bodied with a dry finish.

Overall

This beer is good – very good.

Cheers!

@rotsaruch @RobH @KOP_Beer_OUtlet

 

Thanks @Victory_Sabre1973 for getting us going this weekend. Poured into a 13 oz Teku glass not sure when it was canned. Pours a hazy milky yellow with a half finger sticky white head that leaves plenty of thin lines of lace, with excellent retention. 4.75

Aroma cantaloupe, passionfruit, papaya, dragonfruit, and apricot. 4.5

Taste follows cantaloupe, passionfruit, papaya, dragonfruit, and apricot really balanced and awesome. 4.5

Mouthfeel is above average, not sticky or dry, soft gentle almost creamy carbonation, and at 7.9% loaded with tropical flavor but really easy going down. 4.75

Overall I trusted my BAs and went and found this. That is the main goal of this thread. Really a great beer experience. 4.5 Cheers all.

 

Founders Panther Cub.



Ebony with 1/2" tan head, dissipates. Light lacing. 4.5
Aroma of caramel, chocolate, maple, molasses, toffee. 4.75
Tastes is caramel, chocolate, maple, molasses, coffee, toffee, licorice, bourbon, oak. 4.75
Full body, light carbonation. Oily, semisweet finish. 4.75
Outstanding! One of the best Porters. 4.75
4.74 rDev +13.7%

This is a very tasty Porter. Back to the beer store for more!

 

Conducted a full side by side between the two Paulaner Oktoberfest varieties in the Oktoberfest Thread. This is the first time I reversed the order of post construction, I have always posted a full review in the NBW/NBS thread before proceeding to an auxiliary thread. However, since it was a side by side, I took notes on both while I was drinking back and forth, and will share the notes germane to my lone new to me beer in the excerciese.

Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen



Bottle Notes: Purchased store temperature 9/23/22, refrigerated over the past 20 plus hours until opened for this tasting. 11.2 oz, best by April, 2023. 5.8% ABV. Since 1634. Brewed and bottled by Paulaner Braieri Gruppe GmgH & Co. KGaA, Munich, Germany. Bavarian Beer.

Quality and heritage brewed with uncompromising standards that strictly adhere to the Reinheitsgebot, using only 4 ingredients (water, hops, yeast and malt), for nearly 400 years.

Appearance: Full single center pour into a large mug. Clear brown bronze base, mild carbonation, head egg white with a touch of tan, creamy and full. 4.0

Aroma: Bread, caramel, spices, cinnamon. Nice and enticing. 4.25

Taste: Consistent with aroma, caramel, bread lead backed by a light spicy flavor. Hops presence felt but no taste isolation. Kept everything balanced and very enjoyable. Deliciousness, hold the sweetness. Well done. 4.25

Mouthfeel: Dry, balanced, medium body, perhaps even slight creaminess, light fizzy carbonation. Easy drinking, clean finish. 4.5

Overall: This is an excellent Marzen, well balanced, enjoyable from start to finish, nice range of flavors, very easy drinking. This is reported to have the same ingredients as Paulaner's Festbier, just in difference balances. I enjoyed this Marzen more than the Festbier, which is not typical. Will definitely pick these up in future Oktoberfest seasons. Another great offering, need to explore the rest of their catalog! 4.25

Planning to come a bit closer to home for my selection tomorrow. Until then, cheers!

 

4.08/5 rDev -2.4%

look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 4

Poured from a 16 ounce can dated 6/27/22 into a snifter.

Look- Pale gold, very hazy, opaque, fine white head, below average head retention, average lacing.

Smell- Clementine, ripe melon, pineapple.

Taste- Clementine, ripe melon, grapefruit, moderately astringent.

Feel- Medium body, substantially below average carbonation, mild bitterness, moderately creamy, moderately astringent.

Overall- Very pleasant bouquet and flavors. Astringency was a major detractor, but the ripe melon flavors did offset some of the astringency.

 

Thanks for the kick-off @Victory_Sabre1973, and @Roguer glad to see you finally have a full weekend at home. I'll celebrate this by enjoying a beer you sent me a couple BIFs ago.

Alom's Imperial Stout from Cigar City Brewing.


Received from @Roguer. Pours a standard deep, deep brown / black. Solid amount of mocha colored head that receded to a thin omnipresent ring. Aroma is fantastic. Rich chocolate and vanilla with hints of cinnamon and faint barrel. Very good smelling beer.

Taste mostly follows the nose, with a couple exceptions. The rich chocolate notes are definitely still there. The vanilla takes more of a back seat, with chili pepper taking its place. The pepper and cinnamon is used brilliantly. Either ingredient can very easily be overdone, but with this beer it adds just the right amount of spice that combined with the rich stout notes makes for a complex, very well balanced beer. Smooth with a slightly thinner than anticipated feel.

Overall very good beer and an excellent example of Andrew's generosity!

-----------------------------------
p.s. Didn't get a chance to post last weekend as I was too busy drinking with a couple friends of 40+ years to write a review. That said, I enjoyed some great beer, including On Tuesday's We Brunch from @2beerdogs and BCBS Cherry Wood Stout from @Ozzylizard both of which were fantastic.

 

I am a big fan of Hop Butcher for the World NEIIPAs. This one has a light orange color with thick foam insulation. The foam quickly disappeared, leaving a nice lacing on the glass. The smell is citrusy, with scents of lemon, pineapple, grapefruit, and lime. The taste is like pink lemonade, as it states in the tasting notes on the can. Grapefruit comes through as well. There is a light sweetness. The mouthfeel is soupy and thick. It is very juicy. The carbonation is light. Overall, this is a very nice beer. It is quite refreshing.

 

That is the best beer name from Orange Cat ever, especially since they are now brewing at 12%.
Beer stains the palm trees in Venice.

 

Thanks @Victory_Sabre1973 for the tap opening on this thread!

Rapture by The Alchemist



4.33/5 rDev -0.7%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
Can poured into a spiegelau ipa glass, galaxy and citra hops with British malts

Translucent golden liquid capped by a two finger fluffy white foam cap , good retention, settles to a solid layer with spotty lacings

Fragrant aroma on the pour , pine, citrus orange, mango,

Taste is pine, citrus, hint of tropics

Sudsy mouthfeel, smooth with a big hop bite on the finish. The big hop bite nicely lingers, semi dry finish

Good beer

 

I picked up a bottle of Jester King's Year Eleven Anniversary Saison. 5.6% ABV.

From the bottle, this uses a "Culture of Brewers Yeast and Natural Yeast, and bacteria." This also uses Texas Blue Corn, which I was not aware of when I got the bottle, they tend to hide these details where ever they can ha.



Pours with a slight haze, a pale yellow color. There is a massive amount of foam that forms, and makes this almost impossible to pour. This does use bacteria and other semi wild yeast strains so no biggy there.
In the nose, the first thing I get is skunk. Not funk, but light struck skunkiness. A bit of grains, and some hops in there as well.
Taste wise, yep, skunk. There is a toasted grain, almost dry toast malt presence. Hops come in strong in the finish. Oily, woody, a bitterness lingers on forever. Which detracts for me, and becomes astringent.
A medium body with spritzy effervescent carbonation. Though the astringency does this no favors. A bit of a mess, and it becomes more of a chore to drink after a while. Not one of my favorite Saisons.

Well, I didn't want to make a thing about this being skunked. Though since Jester King insists on using green bottles for some stupid reason, as they think it gives it actual character, then I don't mind pointing out how stupid that is. A Saison "funk" comes from yeast and not being a skunky light struck beer. Other than that, I really didn't get much of a yeast or bacteria character. That must be working as this is a big gusher, but no discernible flavor comes from that as far as I can tell. Outside of skunk, what is here is an astringent hop bitterness that I wasn't a fan of.

My score is way low from the norm, 3.09, about a C if I cared to give it a letter grade that low. I guess I will just never be as much of a Jester King fan as some others.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24018/589828/?ba=champ103#lists

Side note: I took this out of the back cooler, and directly into a box (its my friends beer store, I get privileges ha), still couldn't avoid the skunk. And I should have just gotten some Saison Dupont cans that were right next to this instead, ugh.

Edit: Also, this was bottled in December 2021. So it is getting old, but the hops didn't seem to be faded, and with a bacteria/wild yeast Saison, was thinking the age wouldn't be that big of a factor. I think I'm right, as the biggest issue is the skunk and astringency. Maybe the age would have been more noticeable without those?

 

I too think that green bottles are "stupid".

There is a Philly brewery, Human Robot, who make a 'thing' out of using green bottles for certain brands:

· 6pk Roggen Heu (Green Bottles)

· 6pk Schaufel (Green Bottles)

· 6pk Dinkel Heu (Green Bottles)

I refuse to buy these beers because like you aptly stated it: “stupid”.

Cheers!

 

Hi Folks, figured I would give this the rundown. I'd bought several 4 packs of Paulaner fest this year - all last year's stock, which is best by end of may 2022 I believe. I bought the first 4 pack because it was on closeout for 5 bucks ish, I thought it would be a gamble to see if it was any good. Well, it was. So I continued to buy from that stash. I then stumbled on a single of this year's version, it is a 1L but was also 5 bucks, so numerically everything felt in order haha.

So this is 2021/22 Paulaner Festbier.



Pours a lovely copper-et-straw blend. Rich dense head that recedes and pillows and laces wonderfully. Nose is clean and floral. There's a lot of sweet malt sugar upfront but it really lends itself to grassy, herbal, almost medicinal character. throughout.
This is picked up by the taste. Largely sweet malt sugar leading very deeply into pleasant medicinal herbal hop character. It has a touch of funk, almost estery, but that's not a note I like in Festbiers which speaks to how well nuanced it is, given I like this.

What follows is pleasant bitterness, easy drinking and really wonderfully complex and rounded. This I believe has either held up or changed, I'll find out in about 20 minutes or so. Traditionally I've drank Hacher-Pschorr, Fox Farm, left hand, life on marzen, really just all the marzens and I adored them. My palate has shifted a lot lately so this became my preferred, probably alongside (this year's) Weihenstephaner, Schnitzengiggles by Nebco, Counterweight's Fest and the annual slept-on Benediktiner.

Once I've kinda worked this over I will continue the review.

Here we have 2022/23 Paulaner Festbier



Aesthetically sorta similar, perhaps more clear here which makes sense I suppose; age kind of suspending in the glass more there than here. Nose is somewhat fruitier, and more vibrant. Held this up to the light, and have to impress just how clear it is, reminds me visually of the weihenstephaner. Nose just springs more than the older version.

Okay so quite different. There's a lot more of that grassy, sharp herbal character upfront. The malt body is still there but it decidedly more calculated, sort of playing the director rather than the plot. There's a lot of hop character here, all grassy, floral, medicinal and clean.

The younger beer is better, but that's almost not a fair statement because they're actually quite different. I like both, I prefer the fresher version but I also really like what I've been drinking that is dated.

In any event, that ends this segue. Why I like the older version: pricepoint, overall balance between malt and hops, medicinal, herbal finish and easy-drinking, pronounced malt bill. Why I like the fresh version: all throughout sharp hop character that is pronounced grassy, herbal hops playing atop the malt body, in a way that just feels more idyllic than the older version. Maybe I could say that age, here, separates the parts of the whole into more distinct entities, whereas youth very daintily draws them together - tapestry.

Have a great weekend! Hope to be back with more traditional postings later.

 

A new one from Upper Pass Beer Co.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46275/622324/



16 ounce can with no packaging date, but we just received a couple cases on Thursday of this new offering from Tunbridge, VT; so, a week old?

Moderate to vigorous pour yields a one and a half inch white, fluffy head over a cloudy body with sticky lacing. Clump of head is still floating on top almost halfway through.

Nose of tropical fruit and a tad citrus with a bit of floral attributes as well.

Taste is where this shines with wonderful tropical fruit up front through the middle and a nice citrus pith bitterness at the finish.

Nice medium mouthfeel.

Overall, I definitely recommend this one for all you hazybois out there.
Seek this out and you won't be disappointed (if you can find it!)

Cheers!!!

#LFGM