New Beer Weekend #298

Formula - Touch of Chaos British Imperial stout @11.5%

 

Happy NBW all! It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon out here in the Northwest—the new beers in my beer fridge are starting to dwindle as I have gradually worked my stockpile down to about 30 bottles total. But here is one I’ve never had before, Midnight Frost from the Bruery, and at 18.7% I’ll be sipping on this for a while. Initial impressions (subject to minor revision) below. Cheers!
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4.45/5 rDev +0.5%
look: 4 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
750mL (2024) into a tulip. Pours an oily, opaque black with minimal head.

Aroma is a dense, powerful blend of black licorice, orange peel, cinnamon/clove up front, followed by maple syrup, heavy booze, and dark roasty malt. There’s a lot going on here and it’s intriguing, makes me want to take my first sip, so in that respect the aroma has achieved its primary objective.

Taste is about what I might have expected from the aroma—just a kind of wild mix of flavors, some contrasting, others complementing each other. The black licorice/star anise is unapologetically present—not my favorite ingredient in anything—along with the spices and juicy, acidic orange peel. Maple syrup lends a sticky sweetness that binds everything together. Barrel character is present but not dominant. The wine barrel manifests as more of a red/blue berry flavor, both sweet and sour. Works well with the dark roasted malt.

Mouthfeel is heavy, sticky, chewy, lingering. This beer lets you know it’s big and strong.

Overall this is a bold, assertive imperial stout. Too many ingredients? Not necessarily. But there is a lot going on here and I’ll be interested to see if it holds my attention for the full 750.

 

It's all good we're not writing the Magna Carta here except for @snaotheus

 

Cool Kolsch glass!

 

Glad everyone survived

 

Cool can art!

 

Bentonville Brewing Swamp Chicken APA w/unmalted Barley & & Rye, 5.3% ABV; 3.62 overall

Pours an ever so slightly hazed gold with2 fingers of cream-colored head. Very good head retention & lacing

S: Piney, a little sweet grain & breadyness

T: Piney, spicy grain, a little tangerine & dryness up front. Faint caramel notes, some toasty gain, a little grassy, more pine & citrus at the fringes once this beer is warmer. Finishes a little bready/grainy with pine & lesser amounts of citrus

MF: Medium body dialed back carbonation. Body thins a bit once warm, decent balance

Drinks easy enough, a bit too middle of the road for my liking, this would've impressed me way more in the mid 1990s

 

OK, I was wrong about having another new beer today. The label looked familiar but it's a different Mortalis Brewing beer with a somewhat similar name than the one I had before:

As Above So Below | Mortalis Brewing Co. | BeerAdvocate





Close enough in name to the Whams Above Whams Below I had before, and a similar label too from what I remember so no wonder I was confused. Have to say I liked this one a lot, maybe the best way to describe it would be to call it an imperial coffee pastry stout with nuts. Cheers again and happy NBW!

 

We like these kind of white lies...

 

Part of my SW Mizzou haul, also included a stop at Social Project Brewing on the way back.

4Hands Tropical Octohaze Imperial Hazy IPA, 8.3% ABV; 3.83 overall

My can is 8.3% ABV; canned Mid-December

Pours a hazed gold with a thumb+ of eggshell colored head. Below average head retention & lacing

S: Loads of mango & peach

T: Follows the nose, a little dryness, guava & oranges up front, some coconut notes too. Peaches, mangoes, pineapple green melon & dryness as this beer warms up, some coconut too. Finishes very sweet with some acidic pineapple, coconut & crap ton of mango ( not my fave )

MF: Medium body, slight carbonation, skews a little sweet, some acidity too, sticky on the teeth

Drinks easy for the ABV, found the flavors a bit forced, no synergy. I will really need to be jonesing for sweetness to finish the other 3

 

Happy holiday NBW all. Thanks to @jonphisher for starting us off this week. I have been up since around 9AM, we had Cookout for dinner at 1AM and then I passed out. I am reading the second half of Five Families by Selwyn Raab: 6/5 stars. Easily one of the best true crime books I've ever read. It has even more interesting facts about the mafia and their assassinations. If they had to kill a "squealer" for blabbing in court, they murdered them and shoved a canary in their mouth as a warning. I am buying a hard copy for sure.

The babies are over 4 weeks old and now are adventurous as hell, they were previously afraid to come out from under the bed, now they are out in the room all the time, even walking into the hallway/stairs. They like the space under the dresser now, but they come out to meet us when we open the door. Roxie is a good mama.


Sycamore Honeysuckle Summer Ale. Canned 02/04/2025. foamy opening. Lasting fluffy head and a lot of streaming carbonation on the glass. Aromas of lemongrass, pear, red apple, honey, flowers, herbal, grass, yeast earthiness. Clean but muted aromas. Taste of lemongrass, pear, red apple, honey, flowers, white bread, pepper, pine, wood, herbal, grass, yeast earthiness. Light-medium pine, herbal, woody, spicy bitterness on the finish. Medium-high carbonation, light body, crisp/clean/refreshing finishing. Light grain and hop stickiness in the mouthfeel, finishing nearly bone dry surprisingly quickly. Very drinkable American Blonde ale, and not overly yeasty; very clean hop/spice flavors. Spot on style. 3.98/5


Cheers

 

I'm certainly not ... more like hacking away at weeds, metaphorically speaking. Case in point, I've got a humble new beer in my glass:

Victoria • Vienna lager • 4% ABV • best by date July 31, 2026

Long story short: not bad, not world class, probably works best paired with food (Tex-Mex, Mexican, BBQ in particular).

I picked up a 6-pack of this on a whim, and while I'm very happy I did, I'm also not rushing back to the store for another sixer. It's got some nice toasted grain notes and a mouthfeel that's almost perfect for a simple, humble drinker. But it lacks the malt sweetness that can turn this style into sublime, and instead, it has a bit of the copper penny metallic note I often find in the lesser versions of this style. Still, for a 4% ABV brew from AB In Bev, it's better than many in that category.

Official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/75/6508/?ba=Premo88#review
3.73 (+24.3% rDev)

Cheers!

 

Our daughter dropped by for a couple days late birthday get together. Her request? Burgers on the grill. We picked up pub burgers and they were freakin' HUGE (almost too thick) and the Weber gas grill did them justice. She and my grandson are a riot when they get together. No exception today but I can't believe the 9 year old scarfed down an entire massive burger, a pile of raw veggies, a slice of cake and tall glass of milk. I looked for the bulge in his belly but it must have all landed in the hollow leg!

So I found a lurker - apparently a mystery brew since it isn't on our site nor Untappd. I just added a ton of CT beers to the database and this one still isn't there unless its misnamed. Unintelligible date code on the can but it's been hiding here a minute or two...ok..
maybe a year...



Black Hog Brewing Company Cold Brew Stout, 5.5%. The label proudly proclaims no milk, no sugar coffee stout. Maybe it's listed as Coffee Stout here - one thing I've seen while adding beers is we are our own worst enemy when it comes to accurately copying a beer name.

Anyhow... typical stout-ish pour. Very dark brown so it looks black in the glass. Good two fingers of brownish soapy bubbles that fall to a nice ring and hefty island. Pretty strong lacing.

Pretty much coffee on the nose. Lots of coffee and some charred notes. A very faint scent of chocolate and a little dark bready malt. Seems a little one-dimensional.

The taste follows but there's more of the stout base in the aftertaste. It's decidedly bitter, but the coffee is pretty bright. A bit of chocolate sneaks into the show. Fair amount of char but not to the obnoxious point.

The feel is on the lighter side. What's odd is its slightly warming at "only" 5.5%. Dry finish, carryover charred notes and a little lingering bitterness.

It's actually pretty good but it is pretty much dominated by the coffee. If it was hot in a mug, I'd be hard pressed to say it isn't just coffee. I'll add it as named or see if I can figure out if it's already here and suggest the update. It's good, not remarkable - 3.6 or so.

 

A for effort

 

Boulevard Irish-Style Imperial Stout ( Barrel Aged ) 2026, 10.0% ABV; 3.84 overall

Pours an effervescent mahogany/chestnut with 2 fingers of tan head. Stays effervescent, some viscosity. Below average head retention & lacing

S: Some oak barrel, & red grapes, iron. A little bit of figs late

T: Dark chocolate, raw barrel, a bit of Red Wine, faint woody hops up front. More barrel skewing to red wine; not picking up any Whisky which was what I anticipated once this beer warms up. Also, faint Dark Cherry Tobacco notes. Finishes with faint dark cherry, red grapes & raw oak just a bit of booze bite

MF: Medium body, restrained carbonation, some warming sticking to the teeth. Carbonation picks up once warm, but not really pushing any flavors along

Decent, but just not up to Boulevard BA snuff, I would just as happy with their Nitro Irish Cream offering if not more so. drinks alright, will bury the other bottle & hope for better results in a year or so???

 

Well, after just finishing up watching my Fighting Illini lose in the Final Four...time for a new beer.

Tynt Meadow "English Trappist Blond Ale" at 5% ABV.



Pours a slightly cloudy golden/yellow color. A white head rises to two fingers with good retention and lace left behind.
Yeast and doughy aromas, with esters and cereal grains. The fruity esters go from light pear to banana.
Taste wise, like the nose, yeast and doughy flavors...that are also cereal/grainy and dry cracker like. There is more of a banana like ester character for me at least, which also balances with a little bit more sweetness. With a light earthy bitterness lingering.
A light to medium body that has moderate carbonation. An enjoyable Blond Ale to drink.

If going just by the Banana like esters, I can see how people would consider this a cross/hybrid between a Belgian Pale Ale and English Pale Ale. Its enjoyable for sure, if a bit muddled style wise...witch isn't a detriment for me, and nothing really wrong here. Though it is expensive and while very different, I do prefer their Strong Ale to this, especially if I'm going to spend upwards of about $10 a bottle.

Overall score is a 3.77, another one of those that is right on the boarder of a B and B+ for me.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/53152/681457/?ba=champ103#lists

Ancillary vice (as @beergoot says ) is Ballechin 10 Year Old Scotch...which you can ignore or not, if you can humor me

Also, spinning Cecil Taylor...my "angry" free jazz after the loss ha.