New Beer Weekend #26

Your driveway description reminded me of my years in Maine. My driveway went downhill from the street and curved left. Treacherous as hell! I certainly don't miss that.

 

@cjgiant & @russpowell : Deschutes is just one of those breweries that I find OK, but my scores are consistently much lower. Lil' Squeezy is their only offering I have really liked at this point, but their owner/founder was very nice in the Q & A posted here last year, so I'll keep trying a single when I come across, and hope to find more that click.

@ovaltine : I'm still relatively new (nearing my 6th anniversary) both here and to craft beer in general. I buy more local than not, and so there are many common beers that I have yet to try. I bought a second Porter with even more BA ratings than Black Butte in my refrigerator you'll be seeing in NBW within the next few weeks.

All - Please post the brewer and name of beer, there are a few beers this weekend I could not identify based on the picture.

My second beer this weekend, and one and only planed for New Beer Sunday #829 pre-gaming for thee football game of the week and possibly the year. Liverpool reclaims the top spot in the League Table with a win today. This beer was also canned in July. It's a hyped local Imperial Stout I picked up based on the hype surrounding the release in the Great Lakes Forum.

Maplewood Brewing Co.'s Cuppa Neapolitan



Can Notes: 16 ounces canned 7/29/20 @ 8:50:06 AM. 11% ABV, Ale brewed with Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Lactose and Metric Coffee.

Appearance: Dark Black pour with light brown peeking through, momentary tan head fades quickly' leaving a light tan ring of fine bubbles clinging to the rim of the glass. 3.75

Aroma: Bold and pleasant Neapolitan aroma, strawberry leads and is superb, vanilla pleasant. light roast malt and coffee back. All flavors natural, quite excellent. 4.75

Taste: As bold and pleasant as the aroma. Chocolate fudge and strawberry lead, vanilla and milk back well. Taste is well balanced with a bitter roast coffee beans, unidentified hops well incorporated. Pastry stouts are hit and miss with me depending on the balance, and this one is very well balanced. Flavors consistent throughout the warming process. Strawberry is one of my favorite fruits, and this is the best incorporation of strawberry in any stout I've had. 4.75

Mouthfeel: Medium to full body, rich, creamy and decadent. Light fizzy carbonation lingers throughout. Sweetness well balanced with roast coffee bitterness. Slightly dry and chalky, ABV felt after a few sips. 4.25

Overall: This is an excellent and well balanced imperial stouts. All added flavors are well incorporated and very pleasant. Very well done, glad I followed the hype and picked up a pair. Beer held up well refrigerated since the Summer release. 4.5

Cheers!

 

Getting ready for some football and drinking this absolutely fantastic beer, bourbon barrel aged Weekend from Prairie. It's been a while since I've enjoyed a beer as much as this one.
Black color, small tan head that receded quickly, leaving a rim of head.
Chocolate, marshmallow, coconut aroma. Some booze.
What a taste! Chocolate fudge, marshmallow up first, then some coconut and vanilla. There is a bourbon presence, but not an overwhelming one.
Sweet, filling. Great dessert beer!

 

What the, thats got to be new, I have been drinking Ola Dubh since I first saw it about 10 years ago on the shelf, never seen these baby cans before ha. Anyway, been a favorite of mine for a long time now. Then after drinking my weight in cask Bitter & Twisted when I worked in Aberdeen, they have become a favorite brewery of mine all together.

 

Saint Arnold Cognac Barrel Aged French Press...what is this...

An Imperial Porter with coffee aged in Cognac Barrels. Interesting, I have always enjoyed regular French Press as one of the more balanced coffee stouts/porters out there, even with the high abv. The Bourbon Barrel edition is pretty damn good as well.

This is a modest 9.3% ABV



Pours a near opaque black color. A two finger dark beige head rises with good retention and plenty of lace left behind.
Toasted malts, baked bread, and wonderful wood aromas bellowing out of the glass. Vanilla, toffee, and coffee shows up in the back end but builds as this warms and creates a great layered aroma.
Up front taste wise, is all the barrel character you would want. Wood, vanilla, sweetness, toffee, a bit of char. As this warms dark fruits come out, with plums and even grapes. Coffee of coarse, and milk chocolate. Lots going on here, and it all works really well together.
A full body with high carbonation, which is kind of a staple for Saint Arnold Barrel Aged beers. They usually are much more effervescent than a lot of others stouts around with the same gravity. A bit tannin like as well, then smooths out as this breaths. A wonderful sipper, with just enough alcohol presents to be noticeable and warming, and I'm going to enjoy this.

Everything is so well balanced here, which is to be expected from Saint Arnold. Glad I found a bottle of this and will need to pick some more up when I see it again. Well done all around.

Overall score is 4.29, solid A from me.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/337/523845/?ba=champ103#review

 

Made a coconut chocolate cake to pair with this new beerWeldwerks coconut coffee stout
..solid black appearance
.. medium light carbonation with an above average body. Has a thick, creamy, slick feel to it
.. aroma is fresh raw coconut and toasted coconut upfront. Theres low acid black coffee,coffee beans, sweet malt, dark honey and milk sugar.
Taste is raw fresh and toasted coconut upfront followed by sweet malt,dark honey and milk sugar. Not as strong as the aroma but black coffee and coffee beans.
..overall its got a great feel and the way the coconut came off so fresh and raw was different and original

 

Happy Sunday everyone. Today I'm drinking a new Trillium & Horus collab imperial stout with hazelnuts and Geisha coffee called Northern Goshawk.

Pours black with dark brown edges and a creamy tan light brown foam cap on top with decent retention and lacing.

Smells like fresh chopped hazelnuts, earthy, woody, nutty, lightly toasted, roasty coffee, dark chocolates, dark roasted malts, dark caramel, lightly sweet, some brownie, good balance of hazelnuts, coffee and chocolatey stout notes.

Tastes incredible, so rich, dense and concentrated, great balance of flavors, it doesn't seem too sweet, roasty roasty rich coffee, fresh chopped toasty hazelnuts, marzipan, caramel ribbon, mochaccino, rich dark chocolates, charred brownie edges, toasted brown sugar, molasses, dark toffee, roasted malts, hint of dark dried fruit, with mild earthy herbal hop notes. The hazelnut in here isn't overly sweet or artificial tasting, it is real fresh hazelnuts and rich Geisha coffee added separately, really nice. I haven't had the original Horus Goshawk's Grasp, I imagine it is equally great though. The aftertaste is immense roasted dark coffee and lightly toasted hazelnuts.

Feels thick, dense, creamy, medium-full bodied with smooth moderate low carbonation.

Overall a really great imperial stout with hazelnut and Geisha coffee. It is big, rich, kinda sweet, nearly on the verge of dessert pastry style, still with some balance though and really great fresh natural flavors. The particular coffee used in here works extremely well and the hazelnuts are exemplary, very distinct, noticeable and prominent. While the hazelnuts taste very real and natural, I would probably still not recommend this to someone who doesn't like typical hazelnut coffee. It isn't sweet or artificial hazelnut taste at all, still very present though in it's nuttiness and marzipan-like flavors blended with the coffee. Great stout imo, glad I was able to get this and I will thoroughly enjoy it throughout the day. Cheers everyone, and happy New Beer Weekend!

 

Threes - The World is Flat

Hey everybody. I more or less stopped posting beers in these NBW threads, but I decided to pop back in today on a lark after chatting about this beer with some other folks.

Threes categorizes this beer in their "Hoppy American Ale" family and cheekily claims that it is in the style of an "English Extra." Sites like this one have it listed as an English pale ale. The ingredients are: UK Fuggle, Cascade, English Maris Otter Malt, English Caramalt, English Aromatic Malt.

Just to make my head go numb, Threes also claims that "this beer sits squarely between a crisp lager and juicy IPA." I knew going into it that the beer was quite hazy. They've also said that it's something between an ESB and a dark mild. There's clearly a whole lotta odd marketing talk going on in an attempt to describe an oddball.

To top it all off, Threes chose to call it "The World is Flat" because flat earthers have been banned from Twitter. (Relax, I totally made that part up.)

Sitting "squarely between a crisp lager and juicy IPA" isn't exactly a very helpful description.

In related news, Ommegang's taproom menu describes the fries below as "sitting squarely between a pale ale and amber ale." I feel like I can taste those fries by just reading that description! (Once again, for the sarcasm-challenged, I am making the Ommegang part up.)



So with that in mind, what's the beer actually like?

It's an extremely hazy copper colored beer. Decent-ish head. Smells like an apricot jam filled cookie like my mom used to make for Christmas. Remember things like family and Christmas? They kind of skipped a year.

The first taste is a nice and solid hop bitterness followed by a touch of caramel, marmalade and crusty bread. I'm making this beer sound like a dessert, but it doesn't resemble one. It's more dry than sweet. The body is a bit prickly.

I enjoyed the beer a lot and went straight to another can. Second verse, same as the first.

Cheers everyone. Enjoy your weekend.

 

I should add that Threes clearly messed up because this beer really sits squarely between a Roggenbier and a steam beer.

But honestly, it felt something like a bitter refracted through the lens of an American craft brewer... which is probably what they were actually going for.

 

Happy Sunday, NBW! Watching the Caps duke it out with their rivals from Pittsburgh and decided to have a beer. I was hoping my grocery store would have some StereoHopic since I bypassed in my large purchase at my local bottle shop, but they did not. Oh, well.

The backup plan is to go with an out-of-state new-to-me brewer and see what they are doing. The general uniformity (in style and quality) of new offerings being delivered to the area hasn't really excited me. It's not that the beers are bad - their just not better than what is already being delivered here.

Anyhow, I haven't completely given up, so today I have the most rated beer from Marlowe Artisanal Ales, called Eager to Share that I am... well let's say "going to share" with you:


I didn't expect this beer to be a more traditional pale ale (read: clear), and the murky to cloudy bruised white peach didn't surprise me. The high-rising foamy white head was nice, as was the lacing.

And so was the nose. So now here is a fun little debate to have internally - should a pale ale burst with hop aromas? This beer's classic duo of hops, Citra and Mosaic, come through quite well. A creamy malt/oat sweetness is evident as well, but the nose is fruity hop-driven, to me.

The taste fell back into a more balanced pale ale form. The beer's carbonation poked through what seemed like it might be a soft beer without it. Honeydew and orange are adrift in husky to earthy malt notes, with some nectarine and white grapefruit added as it warms. A bit of Citra-leaning citrus peel brings bitterness.

So this basically fit expectations. Some interest notes and I'm not going to shy away from the rest of the 4pack. But also, as expected, really nothing new that the saturated market isn't already offering me.

 

Looks like your model approved of the cake!

 

My post was directed at your level of participation in this thread for a while now, as well as your prowess as a beer nerd - you drink good beers and write good reviews. I was just surprised, given those data points that you hadn't danced with Black Butte before - just as I was surprised when I realized back in October that I'd never had Celebrator from Ayinger!!!!!

PS: ISO that Maplewood beer - everything I've had from them has been very good, and I'm a sucker for big, flavorful stouts.

 

Decided not to do all three beers I was gonna do today. Think I've been drinking perhaps a little too much (nothing bad happened, just realizing maybe I should cut back slightly for now), so I chose one and that'll be it from me for a bit. Hope it's a good one!



Break the System is a DDH Citra/Mosaic DIPA from Adroit Theory Brewing. I've reviewed probably five or so of their beers before, both for NBW and for the site itself. This clocks in at 8.2% ABV and was canned on 12/23/20.

The pour initially looks quite nice to me: it builds up as a solid orange juice color with an essentially-opaque body and a nice, well-defined, creamy head with great legs and some decent soapy lacing. However, once I took a closer look, I noticed the truth... the ugly truth. Tons of gross-looking pulpy floaties in the body... like, early 2011 batches of Heady levels of floaties. Hope this is good because I'm not sure about it right off the bat. Like I said, I've had plenty of AT IPAs at this point and most of them are better looking and don't have this kind of thing going on.

As a quick aside before I delve into this... if anyone was around in this thread last night when I was reviewing one of the new Definitive IPAs and finding it oddly unsatisfying (especially compared to their other recent hoppy offerings), I did mention that perhaps I just need an IPA break because a lot of IPAs have just felt "meh" to me recently.

The nose is not really giving me the best vibes. Man, it really might be time for a break from hoppy stuff. I doubt all of these IPAs I've had lately have actually been below par. This doesn't smell like too much. Maybe some pulpy grapefruit, pine, and candied orange but I am just utterly underwhelmed. A hint of soapiness and vegetal qualities, too. A great Citra/Mosaic experience this is not. It's not even four weeks old, and, yeah, that appearance is definitely not right, so maybe this just a bad batch, but I'm not into it at all so far.

Flavor profile is, again, not really anything at all. I get a hint of pink grapefruit, strong stale yeasty cardboard-like flavors (not good), notes of pine and earthiness, and a grassy, astringent bitterness in the finish, though even that doesn't linger much at all. Yeah, I honestly don't think this came out the way they wanted it to. Even the "less-good" AT IPAs I've had have at least been good in some way, but nothing about this is even homebrew quality. At this point, even if I had other stuff in the fridge, I think this experience (along with my post predicting this event last night) might be a sign that I should pause for a bit. Maybe I'll be back in a few days. I do have a lot of new, intriguing sounding stuff to write about, but, man, beer is kinda bumming me out right now for some reason. Think I need to look forward to Spring when we'll be getting Kölsch, Maibock, etc. instead of all the same styles and maximalist stuff everyone's peddling. Am I being a curmudgeon? Maybe, but I know all of you have felt this way here and there (and I'm sure some of you feel this way all the damn time ).

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One more thing before I go, since I'm already in a mood ... breweries really need to make more sense with naming conventions. If you look up "Break The System" by Adroit Theory on BA, you'll find a beer that looks exactly like this one, but it's a different ABV (7.9%), and uses different hops (Azacca, Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic). Why would you do this? Just make a different beer. Oh, but they have different GHOST numbers, because that's what AT does. That's still dumb! Maybe even worse. It's like a band coming out with two albums with the same name and a similar but slightly-different tracklist a year apart from one another. No one does that, because it would be really confusing and pointless.

...okay, Boris (a great Japanese band) has done that, and both of the albums in question (Heavy Rocks and Heavy Rocks) are great in their own ways, but... still. This is a dumb practice in general, and the reusing of art/beer names is annoying as hell because it makes cataloging things very difficult.

 

Me too!

 

3 Fonteinen Zenne y Frontera Blend 92


Pours a clear amber color with a smaller, soon vanishing head, which leaves the drink entirely.


Smells of old, cherry infused oak, together with wet mushrooms and dusty leather. A glimpse of citrus adds a refreshing fruitiness to the aromas, complimented by a stale nuttiness and matured cheese.


Has a refreshing, well carbonated carbonation with a lighter, easy drinking body.


Drinks with a certain sherry smokiness, hints of matured, higher octane alcohol and an opposing lemony tartness among rich honey and smoky salami. Turns heavier on the oak then, with a fruity cherry spiciness and wet basement to it, subtle earth and lighter blue cheese. Finishes a little greener, heavier on the tartness with lemon zest and apple peel, which blend into truly old cherries and a lighter grape tartness, resulting in a long going, dry aftertaste.


Incredibly complex and well put together beer, with the barrel complimenting the Lambic by a unique sweet- and richness which is hard to come by.