New Beer Weekend #2

Good afternoon NBW
I just entered this beer in the database here on BA, which is odd considering there's a 6 page thread on the release...

Bitburger Festbier - (spoiler alert) I poured a second bottle before I finished the first

11.2oz bottle bb 03 30 2021 (presumably 4 months old) poured into half liter mug at fridge temp 6.2% ABV per label. The beer pours mostly bright light honey amber in color with light khaki colored head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of tiny bubbles. The aroma is toasted malt and a hint of toffee. The taste is semisweet, nutty, rich toasted malt. Moderate earthy bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium to thin bodied with just less than medium carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Overall, very good. This is a very good version featuring toasted malt without the sweet caramel. Nice offsetting background bitterness. Recommended.

I'm really enjoying this beer right now. Tastes good cold and as it warms up. No flaws & really clean.

Cheers all and enjoy the new beer in your glass this weekend!

 

Hello again!
Back with a 2nd new beer.
TRVE Jewel Throne, a mixed culture sour beer aged on Colorado apricots, which you can taste. 5.5% - Man, I could drink this one all day, and this particular one stands out in comparison to the last one made with chokecherries (see above, TRVE as well).

4.34/5 rDev +3.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

L - Golden-yellow (apricot) look to this mixed culture sour; little head (duh), but decent lacing even at 5.5%
S - Definitely smell apricots and the sourness on the nose from the acids coming through; a little bread and yeast, but you can smell the sour before you ...
T - taste the sour! More like it; perky-acidic apricot depth to this, a New World gueuze style that satisfies. Good bite, from the acid and the bacteria. Lovely. Tastes like Heavy metal Belgium, in a good way.
F - Fantastic balance, carbonation, and palate impact; nary a place on the tongue that doesn't get the sour impact.
O - fantastic mixed culture from TRVE with CO apricots used and you can actually taste the latter. Love this; def buying again.

 

More Bearded Iris from @Buck89.
4.29/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Thank you Buck89 for this
16 oz can poured into a pint glass

A- A hazy golden straw with a two finger white head.

S- Citrus, some tropical fruits, touch of pineapple, some oranges, a little piney.

T- Citrus, orange peels, a little piney, some tropical fruits.

M- Smooth, medium body.

O- A tasty NEIPA, well done.

Cheers!

 

My first foray into Oktoberfest 2020, a Texas brew from Altstadt in Fredericksburg.
I've been impressed by their lineup to this point and saw this for the first time on Thursday.

Solid - scored it at 3.75 across the board.

12oz bottle with a best by date of 11/06/20. Opened 8/1/20.
1 finger off-white head with good retention, slowly falls and settles in at a solid 1/4".
Copper color with very good clarity. Light lacing.
Toasted grain, caramel, lightly sweet malty nose. Clean lager aromas.
Sweet malt, toasted bread, dough, grain, caramel...definitely Marzen style.
Medium body, low to medium carbonation. Malt driven with a slightly sweet but clean finish.
Quaffable.
Very Good.

 

Sounds great but I'm drooling over the canned corned beef hash in the skillet.

 

Tonight I have the pleasure of drinking Heurich Senate Beer, brewed by Right Proper as a recreation of a historical lager once popular in DC before and after Prohibition.


Pretty good, I’m never sure what to expect from Pre-Pro or mid-twentieth century beers. It’s definitely grainier and maltier than current AAL’s, with some more bittering from the Cluster hops. It takes getting used to for the modern palate, but it’s a good reminder of how beer used to taste in the United States.

 

Brewery Bhavana Jolie. Classic farmhouse ale with spices and a great dry finish. Really good choice!

 

@Roguer @snaotheus

From what I hear, the Bamberg natives say that it takes 3 half liters to fully acclimate to the Schlenkerla beers and get on board.

It's kind of like Sideshow Bob and the rakes in that respect: starts out pretty cool, then becomes annoying, and finally finishes cool again and really classic.

 

Spiral Brewery (Hastings, MN): "Ash, Not Maple" Smoked Helles Lager. 4.06% ABV. 16oz can. canned on 07/07/2020

Good looking beer, smells good too
Taste is soft malt that is slightly sweet, floral and lemon hops, maybe a touch of bread. I haven't noticed any mineral yet. The smoke is there but is light duty which is good as it doesn't overpower the base beer. The smoke flavor is good and gets stronger as the beer warms. A smooth, clean, easy drinking beer.

I like it, nice Low ABV beer. I might have to do a full review after I have a few more cans. 3 cans left.

 

Fair State Double Universe DNEIPA, 8.6% ABV. Pours yellow, with a nice four-finger white head that left decent lacing. Nose is pine, orange/tangerine, and pineapple, taste follows with moderate sweetness and slight bitterness. Excellent mouthfeel, overall world-class.

4.48/5 rDev -0.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Glad this didn't suck since I took the risk of buying a pack instead of a single. It's been a productive weekend, helping my son install a water softener in his house. I used to hate plumbing, but doing it with PEX (tubing) and the right tools is like playing with legos.

 

I made a trip to Transient today to pick this beer up, along with a couple of others, one of which will make an appearance in this thread tomorrow. The selection for tonight is delectable, IMHO.





4.33/5 rDev +5.9%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

Pours a very hazy pineapple color with a dense, foamy off-white head that tracks nicely down the glass. Grapefruit is the predominant aroma, but there’s also some tangerine, and a noticeable resiny pine aroma.

The grapefruit is up front on the taste, and there’s tangerine as well, but that resiny pine flavor is unique to the NE-style IPA/DIPA, and it works really well here. The bitterness is a nice tangent to complement the juicy.

The mouthfeel is a bit watery, but that’s probably a quibble on my part. Transient is dialed all the way in on their hop attack, IMHO. They do juicy exceptionally well, especially when they step outside the box a bit.

 

Local brewery - Boulevard - created a Championship Ale in 2014 to commemorate Sporting KC's win of the MLS Cup. In 2015, Boulevard did the same to celebrate the Royal's World Series win of 2015 with a beer named Crown Town (oddly enough, they didn't change the label description on the back of the bottle, which included a 'bitter taste' - i.e. when we lost in 2014, and the beer's first brewing. Minor oversight.) While Sporting KC has had many great seasons, it certainly was a surprise to see the Royals rise to power, but could our football team bring home a championship? A team that used to celebrate 'winning' seasons. That all changed in the 2019-20 season when the Chiefs, led by 2nd year quarterback Patrick Mahomes and coach Andy Reid, beat the San Francisco 49ers despite falling into a deficit. Unable to answer the 49ers in the third quarter, a fourth quarter rally say the Chiefs eat up the deficit and put an 11 point gap over the 49ers. With the final whistle and that victory, it was just a matter of time until local brewery, Boulevard, crafted a beer to celebrate the occasion. Only hesitation was whether Boulevard had lost their roots in Kansas City after being purchased by Duvel-Moortgat in 2017, a couple short years after the last KC sports celebration beer.

Fortunately, that hesitation was misguided. Originally slated for April 6th, but pushed back due to COVID, Boulevard released Worth the Wait. A commemorative beer to celebrate the Chief's first super bowl win since 1970 - a clean 50 years - 20 years longer than between the Royals championships.

With our brief history set aside, let's get into this beer. Forgive me, but was this beer worth the wait? We'll dive into that below.



Boulevard's Worth the Wait (2020).

This has been labeled an Imperial Red Ale and an Imperial IPA. I'll be reviewing within those confines. Pour color is a rich burgundy that holds a little more mahogany-brown to it when held against the light. Head is two fingers of lightly tan khaki that retains well. Aroma is ripe with hops, forming a notable bite right at the front. Notes are grassy, herbal, resiny lightly piney hops with caramel, bread, toffee and brown sugar mixed in behind. Mix favors the bite of the hops, as opposed to the richness of the malt behind. This favoritism changes as the beer warms slightly, landing it more in balance, although still favoring the hops. Flavor profile is more balanced, mingling the hops with the malts vs. being suspended apart something like oil on water. Hops are similar, coming by way of herbal, grassy, piney and resiny, carrying a notable stickiness. Malts are caramel, toffee, bready and lightly earthy, adding just a bit of grit to each sip. Mouth feel is medium in thickness with an unoffensive, mild, middle-of-the-road effervescence that teeters somewhere between crisp and soft. Overall, it's smooth with quality hop bite and favorable malts behind to back it up. It's not quite as smooth as the Mahomes-Tyreek connection, but not much compares there.

Score: 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | BA Score: 4 | rDev: -1.2%

Personal notes: perhaps this beer isn't 'worth the wait', but the sweet victory of the Super Bowl has been. Unfortunately, regardless of how well Boulevard did, that Super Bowl win will always taste like Saint Archer's Gold, as I was handed an unopened can by someone as we began our triumphant tour of the city that night.

 

#2, what everyone else isn’t drinking an imperial golden ale with coffee, cacao nibs, and milk sugar tonight?





4.35/5 rDev +4.3%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Perfectly clear dark golden color with a light tan head that is positively clingy after an aggressive pour. The first aroma I get - from distance - is cacao nibs. There’s little if any discernible coffee aroma.

But the coffee does appear on the nose as this warms, and is a prominent participant on the taste, pairing off quite nicely with the cacao and milk sugar.

This is like Starbucks decided to make a chocolate caramel frappe latte (please note: I am NOT a coffee drinker - maybe 10 cups in my life) and cram some alcohol in for beer nerds. I think this is absolutely magnificent.

 

Final trying my first All Together beer. If I find a fresh version from another brewery I will make sure grab as I feel the one I’m drink falls way outside the norm for this. Have to thank @Joplamp for sending me the Speciation/Rake/Transient version which is a beautiful Wild IPA.

4.46/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Thank you Plamp for this
16 oz can poured into a teku

A- A fairly hazy golden straw with a two finger white head.

S- Sour, lemons, citrus, mild funk, some tropical fruit/pineapple, touch of melons, herbal tea.

T- Sour, lemons, citrus, pineapple, some tropical fruits/melons, some earthy funk, herbal.

M- Smooth, light to medium body.

O- A very well done wild IPA, lives up to what I would hope for from a collaboration with Speciation, Rake and Transient.


Cheers NBW!

 

I saw @Roguer's post of this beer in WBAYDN and looked where it was brewed, and noticed it was the contract-brewed location as we discussed in-person, and you discussed in this forum. Then I saw his post above and immediately thought when he said Wisconsin that you would probably take exception. Sure enough, you were all over that!

 

Funny how you put Kane and Carton in the “North Jersey” category as they are both basically located in the southern half of the the state and are both, like Cape May brewing, by the Jersey shore. I would also argue that at this point Cape May brewing is no longer considered underrated as I and many of my fellow “Northern NJ” craft beer friends all agree that their beers are very well made - I’ve yet to have an IPA from them that I didn’t enjoy. In fact, a buddy of mine brought Always Ready to an outdoor party I attended last night.

 

For my one and only new beer this weekend (my 'fridge is tapped out of new beers until Monday), I present

Wild Mind Artisan Ales Into Oblivion (Stout - American Imperial)
ABV: 12.0%
IBU: 45



The brewer describes this beer thusly:

Imperial stout conditioned on roasted coconut, vanilla beans, and a touch of lavender to complement the bold, flavorful body, resulting in a smooth, rich finish.

One of those descriptions that gives me pause, dreading the possible artificial or soapy presentation. As it turns out, these dreads were completely unfounded!

However, we are not off to a good start. Hardly any carbonation being released on opening. I think the bottle was perhaps not properly capped.

Deep dark and opaque. No head, not even a meager ring. I'm expecting the beer to be flat based on the opening lack of escaping carbonation and, now, this lack of head.

Very nice aroma. Roasted malts and alcohol. But, I'm not picking up any of the flavoring additives. (This is perhaps due to the complete lack of head and carbonation.)

Taste is much better. Coconut, roasted malts, vanilla, excellent flavor. The lavender is just there in the background. Nice subtle touch. No bittering with a sweet finish. I can't emphasize enough the uncommon (unfortunately) subtle touch with the flavoring additives.

Mouth feel, as expected from the inauspicious start, is flat, but very thick and sticky. With the substantial body, the flatness in not really a detriment to the feel.

Overall, a sweet dessert beer, nicely done with an enjoyable subtle touch with the flavoring additives. Apart from the alcohol in the aroma, it is well hidden in the feel and flavor, although it does grow a bit in prominence as the beer warms.

A very enjoyable sipping beer. The alcohol does creep up on you. I only had a half this evening, and the alcohol "hit" is quite noticeable.

This could have been an excellent beer, but for the packaging error. I have one more bottle of this, so I won't be entering this review until I have that one. Hopefully, it was well capped.

L: 3.25 | S: 4.0 | T: 4.25 | F: 3.75 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.93