New Beer Weekend #29

The Holy Donut is a great donut shop in Portland Maine. They are known for their Maine POTATO donuts, delicious

 

I"m also not super sensitive to it, but I don't remember picking any up either fresh or aged with this particular beer.

 

Next up is Pe'a, from Fox Farm. It's a DIPA made with Riwaka hops.

4.05/5 rDev -0.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4

Pours a dark, hazy orange with excellent head, retention and lacing. Definitely an attractive beer. Aroma is bursting with the Riwaka hops. I find Riwaka to have some citrus notes, but they are different than other hop varieties. Unique, but in a good way. Distinct piney notes on the tongue, but in a subdued enough way as to not overwhelm the palate with bitterness. Fairly pillowy and easy going down. Good beer.

Go Chiefs!

 

Not a style I would associate with Fremont, but I do love a good Vienna lager. Thanks for putting it on my radar.

 

For Day #2, I’m gonna stick with my one Super Bowl beer after an adventurous evening yesterday wading through 5 Extreme Beer Fest beers last night with Little O. He’s enjoying Gumballhead from Three Floyds as his SB beer - that’s the way to make a Beer Nerd Dad proud!





4.19/5 rDev +7.7%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Pours a nicely hazed pineapple color with a dense, foamy bone white head that provides maximal lacing. Beautiful beer.

Tropical citrus aromas dominate the nose, specifically ripe oranges, mango, and especially pineapple. The pineapple is forward on the taste, and work’s really well with the oranges and mango. The mouthfeel is on the softer side per the style.

This is an imminently crushable NEIPA at an attractive price point. I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of this beer. Really well done, IMHO.

 

Trillium plane over car over train over boat QIPA (!). One of the spoils of my first Trillium shipment, the box for which was almost laughably destroyed during shipping. Fortunately, most of the cans were relatively intact. At 12%, there's a lot of ways this beer could go wrong; in my experience, high-alcohol hazies are very tricky. Tired Hands Daily Personal Best pulls off 10.5% pretty damn well, and Trillium's own The Streets might be the best high-alcohol hazy I've ever had. Not sure why, but it seems like "clear" beers like PtY or Beachwood's Hops of Fury just seem to work better at this ABV. Anyway, on to the beer . . .

Pours an opaque, mango-colored cream with a very fine head that persists--good sign number one, as lesser high-ABV hazies always seem to lose their head within seconds. As it recedes, it leaves behind intricate lacing, also a good sign. Aroma is ripe stone fruit, mango and peach especially, with noticeable, slightly diesel-y alcohol that makes me a little nervous. I mean, how could there not be? The proof (ha) will come in the taste, where the alcohol will either (I think) seize up the tongue in astringency or provide background heat. So, here goes, and. . . wow. Definitely providing the latter, a lovely warmth that infuses the stone fruit flavors and almost takes it into peach pie territory. When it hits the tongue, there's a moment of un-integration between the fruit and some other, more complex herbal and even grassy notes, but they come together on the tongue. Not exactly seamlessly--I have a feeling a week or two in the can will invoke better integration. Alcohol remains present mostly in the heat, like a thick velvet curtain drawing everything together. Mouthfeel is unusually thick given the ABV, another mark of this kind of beast done well.

Overall, I'm not sure it's quite in the same league as The Streets, but a touch more age on it might take it to that level. At any rate, this is a stellar specimen of a subset of NEIPA that isn't easy to attempt, let alone do well.

 

This is the only brewery I know if that has named every beer after a pun. Literally hundreds of beers all are bull puns. It’s actually very impressive that it has gone on for so long. Grabbed this from my dads fridge when I was visiting with the kids this weekend. Bolero Snort Hoofa (bull pun, like I said), know for theirs ipas but happy to try their pilsner...



There labels are always gimmicky but very clever to all these jimmy hoofa articles on this can from the steer ledger (a local Nj paper is the star ledger, so another bull pun) On to the beer.

Pours a dark straw color haze a slight haze to it, head settles into a nice thing dense layer of creamy bubbles.

Smell is floral and malty, almost get a tad of sweetness from it. There is also some subtle citrus notes to it as well.

Tastes is pretty hoppy, citrus again. There is also some earthiness to it. It’s almost lemongrass like but also mixed with some malt. There is a subtle off flavor and it’s hard for me to put my finger on it because it is so subtle but I can’t help but notice it. It detracts from the beer.

Mouthfeel is full but it is surprisingly dry on the finish. The carbonation is very pleasant and well done.

Overall sort of what I was expecting from an IPA, fruited sour, pastry stout brewery. It’s not bad but it’s not great. I’m always glad to try something new and it’s neat to see a place like this try their hand at more traditional beers. It’s almost like a pilsner meets a hefty Helles

 

Industrial Devolution a collaboration from Vitamin Sea with Flying Facility
Hop profile of Citra, Strata and Nelson Sauvin 10% abv

Pours thick golden yellow about an inch foamy white head soapy lacing

Aroma of pineapple, bubble gum and mango

Taste follows nose, tropical up front to a bubble gum sweetness finishes slightly dry, Just a hint of alcohol

Big fairly creamy mouthfeel. prickly carbonation up front to a kind of sticky bubble gum finish. alcohol is fairly well hidden

Overall It's a tasty TIPA, a bit heavy but nicely layered.
4.25 4 4.25 4.5 4.25 4.22

 

Hello NBWers!
Nice milk stout features graham cracker in both the aroma and flavor with marshmallow and cocoa making themselves known after a bit of warming. I wasn’t optimistic after reading the description as I tend to prefer solid but basic stouts. Fortunately other than the graham flavor and aroma, the stout was allowed to shine with the other flavors playing in support roles.
My wife bought me two, and I will enjoy both.
Cheers all!

 

Twin lights imperial stout
...black motor oil appearance
...light carbonation with a just above average body. Has a nice slick, creamy feel
....aroma is espresso beans,black coffee and cream,roasted malt and a bit if chocolate
...taste has a very light sweetness with mocha dark bakers chocolate on the finish. Nice mocha taste throughout that really workssmall tank filter betta

 

Hella Good helles lager from Fremont.

16oz can served in a big snifter. Dated 02/04/21. Bought it at the brewery earlier today.

Pours clear light yellow with a medium to large head and medium carbonation. Smell is lager yeast, lightly floral/honey, some grain/straw, some grass.

Taste is crisply grassy with a strong honey/floral/grain body.

Mouthfeel is light and clean. Overall, nice, solid, light beer.

 

Circling back to a beer I drank last night for this week's NBW:

Monsters' Park Aged in Colombian Rum Barrels: Banana Daiquiri Edition from Modern Times Beer is an imperial stout aged in Colombian rum barrels with vanilla, wild Thai bananas, coconut, and lime essence. The middle of winter is perhaps not the easiest time to evoke the idea of sitting in a beachfront bar drinking a tropical cocktail, but it did hit 76* here in San Diego yesterday, so I suppose the timing isn't too bad. No musical accompaniment for the bottle, as I was half-assedly watching the Sharks/Ducks game. Unsurprisingly, the beer was considerably more engaging than an underachieving group of overpaid vets battling it out with a glorified AHL squad.

The beer pours a translucent black with dark ruby highlights at the absolute edges. Faint wisps of mocha-colored lacing appear ever so briefly but recede into the beer with great haste.

Rum barrels come leaping out of the glass first, revealing a profile of boozy raisins, prunes, coffee notes, molasses, and moderately caramelized sugars. There's no oak to be found - it's a safe bet the barrels had seen multiple turns by the time the distillery was done with them - but the vibrant spirit character is more than enough on its own. As it warms, a light spice note builds in the background - I was debating between allspice and nutmeg and ultimately went with the former, while a friend I was discussing the beer with mentioned the latter without me even suggesting it. Let's call it a little of both - the nuance of personal interpretation is half the fun in picking beers apart. Vanilla is the most prominent adjunct, presenting a sweet, faintly fruity note on its own, yet also weaving into the rum profile at times to help tamp down on alcohol heat, and teasing a richer cocoa profile out of the base. Coconut follows with a lightly baked hue, along with rather subtle bananas. There were a few sniffs that gave off readily identifiable ripe banana aromatics, but on the whole, they were far milder than I would've hoped. Had I tried this blind, I'm not sure they would've stood out enough for me to guess at their addition. The lime also makes a rather small contribution, coming across as nothing more than a wisp, or possibly a suggestion of a wisp of lime zest, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering how citrus and stouts tend to work together.

While the barrels dominated the nose, the adjuncts flip the script on the palate and take on a more prominent role. Coconut asserts itself right off the bat, along with a touch of bananas and vanilla that weaves its way between the foreground and background. On the mid-palate, a wave of semi-sweet baker's chocolate hits like a truck, followed quickly by rum barrel that displays a more prominent coffee note along with dark cherries. As it winds its way to the finish, the spirit character's intensity builds, while vanilla and the base's chocolate profile mingle into lightly sweet dark chocolate. Rather than a tropical drink, the beer is entirely reminiscent of baked goods. Think a chocolate and coconut tart with bananas, topped with a caramel-rum glaze and a scattering of shaved 55% dark chocolate.

Full-bodied, but certainly on the lighter end of the spectrum in the context of modern adjunct barrel-aged stouts. It has enough substance to carry the barrel profile and adjuncts, yet never feels like a chore to drink.

On the whole, the only real fault I can find is that calling it "Banana Daiquiri Edition" was a misstep, as it never comes particularly close to its target. That said, I found myself continuously sipping the beer and enjoying it every time, which is considerably more important than whether it evoked a tropical drink rather than baked goods. Admittedly, Monsters' Park is my favorite base in Modern Times' arsenal of barrel-aged stouts, so there's an element of personal enjoyment at play here - had they attempted this with a sweeter base, I suspect I would've been less enthusiastic about it, and more prone to citing the gap between how the adjunct profile was pitched and how it worked in practice.

Score: 4.4