New Beer Weekend #37

Good Sunday afternoon, New Beer Sippers and commentators. I'm taking it easy today as we have our second vaccine tomorrow morning. But it's a beautiful Easter Sunday, which calls for a good beer. In January 2020, before the world changed, Untied Brewing released a Quad called Neuhaus as part of its 1st anniversary celebration. The brewery then aged batches in Bourbon, Chardonnay, and Cabernet barrels. Today, I'm reviewing the Cabernet version. The owner told me this was his favorite of the three and I still enjoy a nice Cabernet so I was hooked.

It pours a cloudy, orange-brown color with cola hues, and over a finger of creamy, ecru-colored head and lacing. Quite a nose! The red wine is obvious but it's balanced by floral notes, brown sugar, and raisin. The effect of the Cabernet barrel is immediate. There is also a significant amount of oakiness. The other fruit is more subtle; as it warms I note raisin and plum, along with molasses. But it's not overly sweet. The mouth feel is exquisite; it's thick and creamy with moderate carbonation, and I can feel the 9.9% ABV. Overall, this is impressive. It's perfect for a mild Spring day and pairs well with sharp cheese and rye crackers.

I'm a sucker for aged Quads but this is really nice. I'm anxious to try the Bourbon variant. I'll pass on the Chardonnay as I'm not a fan.

4.43/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

I wish a joyous Easter to those who celebrate and good beer drinking to everyone. Cheers, NBS!

 

Greetings and Hoppy Zombie Jesus Day fellow NBSers! A sunny, but breezy and lightly chilly day here in the Fourth Corner. A friend of mine recently took a smol vacation to Oregon, and brought back some beers for me. Starting with a Fort George Beer Number 1 Take 3 Pale Ale. Nice beer.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/16077/540803/

yesterday, that same friend, and another and I, took the half-hour drive out of town for a visit to the North Fork Brewery, Pizzeria, Beer Shrine, and Wedding Chapel, where pizza and calzones were consumed, and where I got 3 new brews:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1606/542313/?ba=BBThunderbolt#review

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1606/542311/?ba=BBThunderbolt#review

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1606/542309/?ba=BBThunderbolt#review

Back with a couple more later.

 

Glad you enjoyed it! Tin Barn only opened last June and it's consistently brewing great NE IPAs. I love the thick, creamy mouthfeel.

FWIW, please don't wait too long to drink the D96-Fidens collaboration. It was released last Saturday and is really good. Cheers!

 

Several weeks ago I received some beer from @WunderLlama after correctly guessing a specific soccer match that he had attended many moons ago. In spite of living in the same general neck of the woods as me, he managed to find a bunch of beers I'd never had before. Included was this bottle of Westvleteren 8, which I was blown away to receive. Definitely not something I can just swing by the local bottle shop to procure.

I never bothered moving this one into the beer cellar or one of the beer fridges, as I knew my resolve would crumble before long and I'd crack it open. It's been calling my name every time I've opened our main fridge for a few weeks now, and the time has come to crack this baby open.

4.31/5 rDev -4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.75 | overall: 4.5

A relatively gentle pour into a tulip still resulted in loads and loads of fizzy, beige colored head with some decent lacing. This is a very active beer in the glass. After 5 minutes, the head is still almost an inch thick and continues to be actively reinforced by the carbonation from below. Color is dark cola brown with a nice reddish tinge. Aroma is malty and sweet with a hint of alcohol.

Taste has a wonderful balance of sweet malts but with a nice dry finish. There's a complexity to this that I just can't place, but whatever those tastes are, they're working very well together. For me, the feel really shines. Medium+ bodied, plenty of carbonation but not overdone, and smooth in a way that really hides the alcohol. Very well done beer.

Thanks again, Maynard. This was delicious!

 

So how do we get to your house again?

 

Beer of the thread for me right here, love it

 

Westbrook Four Claw tipa
Poured a pale orange with an off white head that dissipated quickly but left lace rings.
The aroma is fresh and clean and complex and speaks of Summer days and warm nights.
The taste, I get stone fruit (pineapple?) and a pleasant hop bitterness.
The feel is spot on, so smooth and full as it glides down your throat.
I was sad only in reaching the end of the pint. Thanks @Mbgreg for this!

 

Happy Easter, everyone!

(And a pox on all of you who feel the need to ridicule Christians with your "wit" on our most holy day of the year.)

Today's beer came along for the ride in the mixed pack that included the Schell's maibock I'll be tasting in a couple of weeks in the online bock tasting.

Schell’s Cream Ale
ABV: 4.7%
IBU: 20



Keller-ish haziness, golden yellow, moderately carbonated, and a tall white thick creamy head with excellent retention. One of the reasons I like the Imperial pint nonic is I can vigorously pour an entire 12 oz beer without overtopping. Attractive thick web lacing as the head recedes.

Aroma of mild fruit and bread. Hint of spice.

OK flavor of bread, a bit sweet, a little spice, indeterminate fruit, floral. There is little to no bittering. The flavors blend well and provide a beer to be enjoyed on a hot summer day, although it could be a bit drier and crisper in the finish for that. The finish is smooth, slightly sweet, and coating.

The beer has a good, moderate body, with a smooth texture.

Overall, an inoffensive summer beer that a lot of people will enjoy. I'm unlikely to buy it outside of a mixed pack, but its presence in the pack won't keep me from buying it, either, if there are other beers in there I want.

L: 4.0 | S: 3.5 | T: 3.5 | F: 3.75 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.56

 

Good afternoon NBW
Dinner is done, guests are gone and the house is clean. Time for what I thought would be a regular DIPA

Revolution DDH Galaxy Hero
16oz can FILLED 02-19-2021 poured into a Spiegelau IPA glass at fridge temp 8% ABV per label. The beer pours completely turbid in a peachy, yellow, amber color with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and few splotches of lacing. The aroma is significant with over ripe tropical fruit, melon and grapefruit/orange peel. The taste is more pungent, hop driven fruit. Orange, grapefruit, pine all over a soft, pale malt bill. Moderate bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with average carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Overall, good.

I was not expecting a murk bomb and I'm a little disappointed. I'm 0 for 2 today on expectations. Cheers all!

 

Join the next Bif, you’ll never know what beer you’ll get but I guarantee you’ll have a ton of fun

 

A Kitchen Aid is the mark of a culinary genius. Cheers

 

Well, it's been a while since I've joined you all, even since I've had a beer, which I gave up for Lent this year. I have an embarrassment of riches to choose from due to @2beerdogs's amazing BIF box, and I've had my eye on this Almanac Apricot Sournova since I first received it. The can proclaims, proudly, that "this is not a kettle sour," reminding me of the excellent Almanac sours I used to drink while in SoCal . . . some of you may remember the beautiful little brown bottles they were packaged in, with what I thought were some of the best "labels" (I think they were painted on) I'd ever seen. It looks like they've moved mostly to cans these days, which I'm fine with, but I miss those bottles . . .

At any rate, first pour is a lovely, light-suffused, well, apricot color: it really does look just like apricot flesh, with a one-finger head that dissipates within seconds. Aroma is incredibly bright apricot, with just enough mustiness to remind you that you're about to drink a real-real sour. I'm not sure the vanilla I'm detecting is subliminal, knowing that this was conditioned with vanilla in oak barrels, but maybe it's part of what's minimizing the mustiness to a level that's not off-putting. Curious as to how the relatively low ABV is going to affect the taste, I take my first sip, and . . . it's glorious, which is not a word I use lightly. The last time I would have used that word about a sour would have been Peche 'n Brett, which captures the Platonic essence of peach in much the way this captures apricot. As it warms (which is hard to allow, as I kind of want to gulp it), it becomes subtly more complex and matrixed on the tongue . . . the vanilla is definitely there, riding the first hit of sour and then calming it down. There's just the tiniest bit of funk, but doesn't approach the levels of weirdness in many sours. I handed it to my GF, thinking that it wouldn't be too challenging (she doesn't generally like real sours), but she almost spit it out, saying it was way too sour. Ah, well, more for me. Mouthfeel is pretty much what I remember from Almanac, on the heavier end of medium, pretty impressive given the ABV. Overall, just an outstanding beer, and a welcome return to drinking This has me very interested in trying Almanac's other canned sours, including their Hypernova series. Thanks again, Derek!

 

Had a good Easter with the immediate family. Discussed the new job and what's going on in my classes. Had a couple decent beers, too, but I'm not gonna be rude and write about 'em while sitting there enjoying lunch with people

I have a bevy of new beers tonight. Yay (hopefully short) period of self-chosen unemployment!



In the past, I've generally had some pretty good experiences with these guys, but some of their recent stuff has fallen sorta short of expectations set by beers like the Orbital Tilt series and a few of their Tears of Green releases. This one is, as the can states, dry-hopped with Lotus, Mosaic, and Bravo, and it clocks in at 8.5% ABV.

The pour is pretty nice. Stable haze filling out a wheaty-looking yellowish beer that is capped off with a pretty decent head of bone-white foam that leaves behind some pretty crazy, consistent lacing as it slowly fades to a half-finger ring with some solid legs. Surface haze is good-looking, too, so overall I think of this as a very acceptable pour.

Lotus is a very new hop varietal with some unique and intriguing elements. It has a very unique genetic background that includes a Japanese hop, Neomexicanus parentage, and an American open-pollinated seedling that was developed in England. Pretty cool and diverse stuff, and it comes across here with what I perceive as a tangerine/berry combination that also highlights some unusual phenols and spice. Of course, Bravo and Mosaic could be playing at least partially into my perception here (and dry-hopping with Bravo is amusing to me), since I do also associate Mosaic with berries at times. Some unusual herbal undertones and hints of papaya come out here as this acclimates to room temperature, as well. Not 100% sold, really, but we'll see how it does overall.

Creamy flavor profile with tons of orange creamsicle blending with hints of pine resin and dankness, earthy spice, and herbal/floral components. Less tropical than I thought, I think, but I do get maybe a bit of passion fruit and papaya here, which I kinda noticed in the nose. Strong undercurrent of vanilla and oat-forward maltiness here. Opens up well, too, as I got a little metallic hint at first, but it disappeared rather quickly. Tangy grapefruit and hints of woodsy berries and tannins in general in the finish. Fun stuff. Probably not a repeat buy, but since the IF series is limited and rotating anyway, I doubt I'd have a chance to even if it was my desire.

More soon. Cheers all. Happy Easter!