New Beer Weekend #149

Von trapp Bavarian pilsner
....clear light orange/gold appearance
...medium carbonation with about the same for the body but overall a very pleasant feel.
...aroma is malt,yeast,cereal,grain,earthy slightly floral honey. Just a bit of crusty bread as well.
...taste is again very pleasant with it not straying too far from the aroma.there is a very,very mild sweetness matched by an equally mild hop bite.
....overall this is everything I want in this style and is going down really easy

 

Another new beer for me this weekend is Great Divide- Orabelle- Belgian Style Ale. While it is clearly marked as a seasonal release, I am not sure what the season is. I had to snag the last 5 singles as no 6'ers were avail, yet they sell it in their sampler 12 pack.


To cut to the chase, this is probably my favorite Great Divide beer, yup even more enjoyable to me than Yeti., but I am not a huge imperial stout man, more porter.

And here is the review.

Great Divide - Orabelle- Overall final tally = 4.07

L- Pale orange color that is about 70% opaque. Head is white and foamy but collapses quickly leaving a touch of lace and a partly cloudy type surface. 3.75

N- Light yeast notes, some faint bread crust and apple skin. Late a faint bit of banana show up 3.5

T-Nice bread like malt flavor with an apple cider like sweetness around the edges. A hint of unsweet cinnamon powder is behind the apple notes with a hint of banana. A light clove and some alcohol dryness along with faint heat, add to the somewhat tangy fermenting cider finish. 4.5

M- Nice medium body slickness that is not cloying and with very fine carbonation that is on the lighter side. Smooth and well balanced feel. 4.0

O- I like this very nice example of a Belgian style ale. Lacks some of the unique ester notes yet has enough going on to keep it from being flat and boring. I especially like that the malt is not too caramel like; I’m thinking Golden Monkey as a contrast. 4

 

Is this what they mean by "holding your feet to the fire,"

 

Hello New Beer Weekend!!!

Well, done with work today, and I'm exhausted. It was busy as hell at the liquor store today, and now that I'm home, a new beer is in order.


Edison's Medicine - Revelation Ale Works - Hallock, MN - NEIPA - 6.4% ABV

This brewery is one of the most northern in the lower 48, not too far from Canada and North Dakota. The style is one I'm somewhat burnt out on, but, when done well, I do like it. I would say it's fairly well made. Nice and tropical tasting. Juicy feeling. The aroma was a bit of a let down, but, it is almost 3 months old. I'm glad I bought it, and I am glad I tried it.

Review:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/48720/357344/


3.92/5 rDev -3.4%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4
From a can dated 3-7-2023, consumed on 5-28-2023
Very juicy looking pour. It is murky and hazy looking. Light yellow in color. The head is quite thick, and I didn't do an aggressive pour. 3 finger fluffy, frothy, cloud like head. The head retention is decent, and there's some great lacing as the head dissipates.
The aroma is somewhat light, and this can is not at fridge temp anymore. I do get some tropical citrus notes, but they are faint. I get some pineapple.
There is some citrus and it builds in the tasting. I get grapefruit, and pineapple when drinking it. These flavors provide some tartness to the mix. I seem to burp up hops for a while.
The body is quite soft feeling, and it also is juicy feeling.
Overall, this isn't bad at all. It does what it's intended to and does it well.


I'll see in a bit if I have one more new beer in me tonight. Cheers all!

 

Looks like everyone is enjoying their long weekend thus far, my last and final offering of today is another beer from @FBarber. Only my second Rotbier I've tried so I'm interested to see how it compares to the one I had a month or so ago.

Roaring Table - Thither They Return (Rotbier 5.1%)



Pours deep dark amber, beautiful clarity when backlit, head was quick to rise, light brown in color; settled down to not much of anything pretty quickly.

Nose is very rich in malt; syrupy smelling in quality; dark toast and something fruity to me, almost date or prune like.

Taste leans into that malt, slightly sweet in nature; dark toasted in quality, some spice/pepper character on the finish, the syrupy nature of the malt and the spice almost reminds me of cola.

Light end of medium body; slightly sweet and syrupy, but it actually dries out pretty quickly, that sweetness is there with the liquid and instantly leaves upon swallowing; light touch of bitterness on the finish.

With only two of this style I can say that both had similar qualities to them; they were definitely different but also definitely had similar characteristics to me. They have sort of taste like darker oktoberefest marzens but with lower abv; and more malt. Thank you for sharing this with me Frank.

---------------

May or may not have a new beer tomorrow too, if I don't I will be lingering all day enjoying vicariously. Mrs. Phisher is working so dad has the Brothers Phish, always fun days for me. Have a great evening everyone.

 

Is NBS carrying over into Monday?
If so I may save mine for tomorrow.
Just got in from the Mrs family cookout.....a tad boring and I had 2 1/2 MGDs.

 

I believe that is the case my friend

 

Fair State/Bottle Logic Lobster Stuffed With Tacos BBA Imperial Pastry Stout, 14% ABV. Pours moderately thick and black, with a half-finger of light-brown head that left no lacing. Aroma is light chocolate, bourbon, and coconut. Taste is strong chocolate and coconut, vanilla, roast malt and some bourbon, quite sweet, faintly bitter. Incredible flavor, no sign of lobster or tacos. Excellent mouthfeel, overall world-class.

4.51/5 rDev +2.3%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.75

First time I've bought a growlette in over three years, used to buy a lot of them, sometimes 3 or 4 at a time. Glad I did in this case, incredible beer despite the unfortunate name. Should have taken a picture while we were grilling shrimp/chicken/veggie kabobs.

 

Cool

 

Curieux is one favorite beer the missus and I would call a must have. I do agree it can be on the harsh side when fresh, but it absolutely ages gracefully. While still clearly bourbon forward, it becomes just superbly integrated, but that's like my opinion, man. I can't say when the magic happens, but it's definitely a beer that can be aged to good benefit.

A few years ago, I gifted a "cellared" large format bottle to a friend - no thought of a warning on my end - and he sipped through the whole bottle in one porch sitting while smoking a Cohiba...when he woke up, I got a WTF text... but he's been buying it on the regular ever since!

 

Another great day here. We got thru flower and herb plantings today - culinary herb. Put 15-ish pounds of pork shoulder (peach nectar injected with a sweet pork rub) on the smoker at 1 a.m. and just let it roll at 225 degrees until about three this afternoon. Wrapped in foil, stuck in the cooler with towels for a couple hours. I can and did embarrass myself with pulled pork (and I wasnt alone), but what makes it for me is the Eastern NC vinegar BBQ sauce. A super-simple and definitely authentic recipe I had to literally pry out of a colleague on a project in the state - I sure ate enough of it at his house! I think the elder gent just got tired of feeding me.

Anyway...tonight's volunteer:



Into the Kaleidoscope from Belleflower - so some Maine goodness while impatiently awaiting vacation... This is an NEIPA, that says it is dry hopped with insane amounts of Citra and Amarillo.

Sure looks purty...it's a lot lighter looking live than the picture. It looks like a pulpy lemonade, maybe a little bit more golden. Some white foamy head that falls fast but clings nicely.

The smell opens with a combination of pear, citrus/tropical, and peach. There is a faint but discernable earthy dankness that I'll call light weed. Floral overtones.

Yummy. The fruit salad resolves itself a little. Pear sweetness, passionfruit kicks in a little tart tropical, peach kind of in the background. The citrus amps up some and I get grapefruit and some orange, maybe tangerine. As in the nose, a very slight but noticeable earthy pot taste. Then there is a surprise of a nice peppery note on the finish. Mild bitter and the peppery note keeps the sweetness checked.

Feels light, silky smooth, mildly carbonated. Small, but welcome, bitter hit mid-taste. A little lip stickiness.

Overall, I am really enjoying this beer from the visual to the swallow and its going down insanely easy at 8%. I'd drink this one again for sure. Just a question of how far over the 4.0 this one lands, probably 4.3 or so. Outstanding clean, balanced flavors at work here.

 

Hoppin frog Bavarian bliss
...dark cloudy ruby brown appearance
...medium light carbonation with about a medium body.
....aroma is whiskey, rye,rye bread, malty, some wood and boozy.
....taste is boozy,malty,whiskey,rye grain,rye bread,sweet sticky brown sugar.
...overall this is an excellent over the top beer that makes for an excellent end of the day sipper

 

Good evening, New Beer folks. No bike ride for me today, even though the weather was perfect for it. Even on a holiday weekend the errands must be run and the chores must be finished.

And what's a good reward for all the errands and chores? A new beer!



(Haven't posted a review yet. Still working on the numbers.)

Chuckanut Bavarian IPA
12-ounce can purchased at Chuckanut's P-Nut Beer Hall in Portland, OR. No date stamp, but likely canned around May 8. Poured in a 10-ounce Becher glass.

Look:
The body is a gleaming yellow gold with spectacular clarity. A careful pour raises a finger of rich white foam. Good head retention, and leaves opulent lacing.

Smell:
Bready and biscuity malt, balanced by floral hops tinged with lemon and grapefruit.

Taste:
Starts with the bready malt expressed by the nose, with a bit of luscious Munich malt character and a touch of honey. The middle is sweet and mildly fruity (orange peel, white grape). The sweetness is tempered by a bracing, cumulative bitterness which seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of beer left in the glass. The drying finish is a graceful duet of toasty, semi-sweet malt and citrus/floral hops.

Feel:
Light-bodied with lively carbonation. Crisp and eminently quaffable.

Overall:
Starts like a Pilsner, finishes like an IPA. At times I found myself wishing it leaned a little more decisively towards one or the other. That said, this is a tasty and supremely easy-drinking beer. Another winner from Chuckanut.

 

SpindleTap Brewery Stereochemistry DIPA Vol. 3 with Cryopop, Sabro, Citra & Motueka hops, 8.0% ABV; 3.68 overall

Pours a very hazy gold with one finger of cream colored head. Average head retention & lacing

S: Papaya, green melon, some citrus & nectarine once warm

T: Tart orange, green melon, papaya up front. Pomelo & pineapple as this beer warms up, a little more green melon and dryness. Finishes a little dry with pineapple & pomelo

MF: Medium body, restrained carbonation, okay balance, fairly acidic

Drinks fairly easy, but the flavors don't come together to really impress me. I don't believe I would ever pull the trigger on this one again, needed to be sweeter or more juicy or something to hold my interest

 

Tasting is slowing down if am doing back to back beers

Gotahold Brewing's Screaming Bock, 6.2% ABV; 3.84 overall

Pours a chill hazed brown/chestnut with 2 fingers of tan head. Zero head retention & lacing

S: Brown bread, figs, brown sugar

T: Follows the nose, some trace of brown sugar & woody hops, plus dryness up front. Woody hops, dryness & a touch of brown sugar & toffee as this beer warms through, Finishes with a little dryness, brown sugar & woody hops

MF: Medium body, slight carbonation

A solid Bock, needed more body for sure

 

Community - Commonwealth Hazy IPA, with Riwaka, Motueka, and Citra. Got it from @MrSandman101.

16oz can served in a WABL sample glass. Can is dated 4/12/23.

Pours moderately hazy with a smallish, dense head that settles into a creamy skin. Light amber in color. Don't see much carbonation. Smell is bright citrus pith, vague flowers, a hint of booziness.

Taste is a bit more on the grainy side -- not too much, just noticeable. Hop characteristics from the nose are also present in the taste, with a strong melon rind bitterness coming late to round things out.

Mouthfeel is kind of interesting -- there's a roughness ("coarse" was the first name that came to mind) to it, big but not heavy, dry finish. Overall, very nice and very interesting beer.

 

It saddens me to hear that this is your experience with that beer! That was one that was pretty much my go to when I lived in Austin, and which I still think about from time to time with fondness today. I wonder if the recipe has changed in the intervening decade or so since that time, or if my tastes were just less developed, or if we just have very different flavour preferences or what! Ah, well, more for me the next time I go to Texas!

 

Left Hand - Key Lime Pie Nitro



BB 9.18.23

Poured at fridge temp into a willi glass

Pours a fairly dark and cloudy gold with a lovely and persistent creamy foam top. Lacing is nearly a solid and dense sheet. 4

Key Lime is very present and clear on the nose. Slight biscuit/graham cracker sweetness as well. Aroma is spot as advertised. 4

Not really sour, though lime juice does come though with a very soft tartness. Mostly lime and a touch of biscuit/cookie if I really stretch it. 3.75

Soft and milky body, thin, slight alcohol warmth in the throat, but it disappears quickly. 3.75

Overall a pleasant and atypical desert beer, this is much lighter body-wise than I was expecting for the 7.3%. would get again, though not regularly. 3.75

 

So I've had this long-term project I've been pseudo-planning for about a decade now. The truth is, that it's as much just an excuse to hoard trash as anything, but I've saved every single can I've drank for almost ten years. It is a testament to my wife's... I don't know what, but it speaks well to how much she loves me that she agreed to marry me knowing full well that I have boxes upon boxes of empty cans that I've been hauling from apartment to apartment to house! But anyway, my plan has long been to cut them up and build a suit of armour out of them. I've *sort of* got a couple of leads on blueprints to make this happen, but the longer I've thought about it, the more I've realized that they don't REALLY apply to what I'm trying to do, so I'm kind of nervous about trying to put it all together. Anyway, I've been trying, off and on, during my paternity leave to get around to finally cutting the cans down. The Mrs. makes a good point, that it will be a lot easier and spacially efficient to store two boxes of aluminum sheet, than dozens of boxes of cans. I've been having a really hard time getting my equipment set up properly (largely because I'm relying heavily on a homemade/jerry-rigged can cutting station thing I've built and rebuilt a half dozen times trying to work out various kinks), but I think today I finally cracked the code and got a useful contraption built (I'm sure there's something I could buy that would make it a cinch, but I'm stubborn, and am committed to building this machine out of whatever happens to be around and about the house).
What I'm trying to say here, is that I intended to crack into something light and refreshing while I sat out in the sun on the back deck and tried not to cut my hands open on sharp metal edges. But I didn't. That wasn't a very good story, it turns out.



(the pictures are the inspiration for my armour, and are taken from the pseudo-blueprints I've found. Mine is still mostly actual cans)

But what I did end up cracking into, once we finally got the little cannibal -- I mean baby -- to bed turned out to be worth the wait (though it was not 'light and refreshing' by any means).

This is a blend of barleywine and stout, aged in bourbon and sherry barrels for longer than my daughter has been alive. It's a collaboration between Stillwater and a newer semi-local brewery that I've been pretty curious about since I first saw cans of their pilsner show up sometime last year, Talking Cedar (I fully admit that this one is mostly a marketing curiosity from my standpoint: I love their aesthetic, and cedar plays a hugely important role in my family/growing up). There's also indication that it was brewed by Oude Northwest, which I don't know if that's like a contract brewery who owned the facilities, or if Talking Cedar is another one of those fake-craft setups, or... what.
Well, on to the review:

Oude Northwest/Stillwater + Talking Cedar - Starcleaners



The pour is a viscous/oily black-adjacaent liquid, who's head starts off as a fuzz of khaki foam, then dissipates pretty quickly to a spiral galaxy, then a thin ring, then nothing. No lacing.

Nose is immediately quite intriguing. Sweet, with elements of syrupy chocolate and boozy dark fruits. There's oaky wood, some vanilla, the sherry, a bit of tobacco... it's rich and dark and complex. My attention is at full.

Flavour follows the same blueprint, but manages to execute it even better than the nose. Rich, dark, complex. Decadent. These are descriptors that keep coming to mind.
Leads in sweet, with again strong contributions from the barrels -- vanilla and oak from the bourbon, and sweety sherry from the... sherry -- and then a bit of tobacco and dark chocolate dipped boozy cherries. Some bitter coffee and alcohol and it just all comes together really nicely.
The finish is back to the barrels, and while it doesn't shy away from its ABV, it folds it in appropriately in an impressive manner. It doesn't taste 'hot' in any way, just... spicy, with a bit of that ghost of alcohol after everything else. The body is oily and thick, but not chewy. Little nips of carbonation pierce the oily cloud, and while I've used 'sweet' as a descriptor several times, it manages to pull that off without ever becoming cloying or overdone. I'm one of teh cranky old-folks who doesn't like the current (ok, ten years old by now, but still) trend of pastry stouts and just overly sweet/overly amped up everything just for the sake of triggering those chemicals on the tongue/in the brain. The point is I don't like sweet beers, and this one manages to pull off decidedly sweet notes in a way that I find myself admiring rather than finding offputting.
I'm gushing.

Suffice it to say that I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It might actually be the best beer I've had in quite a while. Not bad for one I picked up kind of on a whim while at Bottleworks!

Anyway, thanks for sitting through my whole novel of a post here, and cheers!!