New Beer Weekend #43

Drekker PassionFruit/Strawberry/Orange BRAAAAAAAAins Double Fruit Smoothie Sour, 7.4%ABV. Pours gloppy thick and opaque orange, with a one-finger off-white head that left fruit puree residue instead of lacing. Nose is strawberry, orange, and vanilla. Taste follows plus passionfruit, equally sweet and tart, with salt on the close. Mouthfeel is thick and smooth with good carbonation. Overall excellent.

4.21/5 rDev -3.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.25

 

Chenoo Brew Imperial Stout from 42 North. Stamped “12/07 Icy Heart” on the bottom. Interesting.

Color leans toward brown more than black. Still opaque and it has a bit of amber on the edges. I can pull some of the blackberry and cherry from the aroma. Otherwise we definitely have some mysterious dark fruits happening. Nothing much from the hops at all here.

Taste has some plum and other dark fruits. Maybe even a raisin character. Little to none of the added fruits show here. Maybe some of the cherry in the finish, which also has some hip bitterness.

Medium bodied and not filling. Not boozy at all either. This is a winner from the guys up north.

Thanks to my bro for sending me home with this after a visit to Buffalo last month.

 

NBS #2 comes from a trade with a non-BA beer buddy. It's my first beer from Off Color Brewing Company in Chicago: Beer for Burgers, a Helles Bock mixed with a bourbon barrel-aged Lager. This is a rather unique beer that has elements of a Märzen and a Vienna Lager but is really differentiated by the subtle bourbon barrel notes.

It pours a hazy, amber-orange color with two fingers of foamy, milk-white head and thick, sudsy lacing. The nose features caramel, vanilla, oak, earthy malt, and a whiff of nutmeg and tobacco smoke. The taste opens with oaky sweetness. The use of Munich malt gives it a Märzen quality but the use of Vienna and Pils malts lighten the feel. The Magnum and Hersbruecker hops add a mellow spiciness. What makes the brew unique is the mixing of bourbon barrel-aged lager. The barrel notes are subtle but unmistakable and they do not distract from the more delicate flavors. The best attribute of this Bock is its creamy, luxurious mouth feel and moderate 7% ABV. It's easy to drink . Overall, my first experience with Off Color Brewing is memorable. And the name is descriptive: this Bock would pair very well with a burger, cheese steak or grilled sausage.

4.07/5 rDev +1.8%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

I hope everyone is enjoying his/her new beer(s) today. As always, the reviews are informative and fun to read. Cheers, NBW!

 

Talk about nostalgia! I cannot even estimate how much Genny Cream I drank in my college days in Pennsylvania. In my fraternity, this was the beer of choice on tap until we ran low on dues at the end of the semester - we then had to make due with whatever we could afford - Old German or Yuengling. When I came home to New Jersey for vacation, I always sought it out.Sometimes I'll buy a pack for Genny Cream for old time sake. It makes me smile. And it's really not a bad Cream Ale. I think I'll enjoy it as long as I can sit up and swallow. Cheers!

 

Whilst at Tripping Animals last night, my bro-in-law (a hazy hop head) and I picked up some carry out beers. This is fantastic, IMHO.





4.42/5 rDev +9.1%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5

Pours a hazy pineapple color with a a dense white head that laces the glass beautifully, this hazy IPA sports delicious tangerine, pineapple, passion fruit, and a bit of resiny pine on the nose. Wow.

The tangerine is forward and spectabulous on the taste, and fits really well with the pineapple and especially the passion fruit and pine. Truly delicious.

The mouthfeel is medium, which fits the 7% ABV. If I had access to this, it would be my hazy fridge IPA. As it is, I’m seriously considering picking up another couple of 4-packs to mule back to Indiana.

 

What a wonderful event. I hope many dogs were adopted and that you enjoyed the beers!

 

I opened up a bottle of Farm Beer, from Plan Bee, today and didn't realize that it was new to both me and BA.

The website and bottle both say that he Farm Beer is

The bottle advises to serve chilled and warns that there is sediment.

This is nice, real nice; I'm going to have to hunt down more bottles nice. Much more refined and complex than the 4% ABV might lead you to believe.

The color of bruised apricots with no head to speak of, murky but you can see your fingers when you hold the glass to the sun.

Smooth and slightly slick with flavors of apricots, peaches, mango, straw, hay, barnyard, honey, bitter orange & lemon & grapefruit, pinot grigio wine, and clover that sweetens as it warms. A full swallow with a lemon-pepper aftertaste.


4.28/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

Howdy, NBWers!

I'm taking some time out from the whisk[e]y drinking to enjoy a regional craft legend. In fact, I wasn't even looking to buy beer when I saw this one lurking in a Kroger beer aisle in Houston a couple weeks ago. I've been out of the game long enough to not know Parish was distributing that far into Texas. Very cool!


Parish Brewing's Ghost in the Machine, American double IPA (listed here on BA.com as a New England IPA), 8.5% ABV, 3/26/21 born-on date

It's a citra-hopped brew, and that's obvious the second you open the bottle. Grapefruit aroma flies up into your face, and the grapefruit note grows and grows as you pour. In fact, the aroma is the highlight, very citrusy and sweet with a candy green onion kind of thing.

The flavor is almost disappointing compared to the nose. *Almost*. The brew is still quite enjoyable and tasty, and it's opening up a smidge as it warms, but it tastes much earthier than it smells. Grapefruit peel isn't as tasty as grapefruit juice is basically what I'm saying. Still, the mouthfeel is very nicely mixing soft with crisp giving it a cask-like effect, and while it's somewhat dry, that seems to be giving it a fairly moreish quality, especially for such a big brew.

The official review:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24822/113403/?ba=Premo88#review
4.09 (+8.7% rDev)

It's a pretty low rating, but I wouldn't read too much into it. My numbers reflect my anti-IPA score inflation bias.

If it were more bitter from the hops or more sweet from the malt, I might score it higher — instead, it's kind of stuck in a middle range of earthy but not bitter/citrusy but not sweet. But overall it's a good brew and one I'll look for again when I go hop hunting.

PERSONAL SIDENOTE: Parish Brewing is almost in the center of where my Cajun roots spring from. About 30 miles from Crowley, less than 15 from New Iberia, a stone's throw outside Lafayette? That seems wild to me. The land of crawfish and boudin brewing hoppy hipster sauce? Paw-Paw wouldn't get it, that's for sure.

Cheers!

 

Coolship Red by Allagash

4.24/5 rDev -5.4%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25





Appearance

Caged and corked bottle dated dec3.,2020 and opened May 16,2021

Fizzy pink foam immediately evaporated over a translucent ruby red liquid

Aroma
Aroma is tart raspberries

Taste
Taste is tart , raspberry , and more tart , hint of apricot , the funk is there

Mouthfeel

Very tart , fizzy sudsing , tart bone dry finish

Good beer

 

51 dogs adopted. Beer was a treat. I didn't get off Scott free I had to haul their trailers back to where they store them.

 

Nice review, but please bring me a shrubbery!

 

Hey all!

Pretty fun weekend got to admit, got a good change of scenery and much needed. Even some new beers too.

With that being said, let's have some new beer!



Poured from the can into a Libbey style pilsner glass.

Crystal clear, and bright brass yellow body with an absolute mirror like finish. Very fine carbonation, a bit fast rising in linear form but also not much of it. Head is bleach white bright, and also really soapy retention. Shampoo to weak bubble bath head appearances, but does manage a good three fingers, but weak settling retention. Clumps in big bubbles as it settles, with spit like lacing.

Herbal noble hop like notes, hits a little grass but mostly spicy green herbs on the nose very nicely. Sense of chewy malt a bit, the specialized hop qualities don't seem obvious to me though (NZ hops). Solid if straightforward pils so far, with a small sense of cleanliness on the nose too, not greatly but just ok.

Palate seems to go in some unexpected directions. A somewhat thick and nearly slick mouthfeel, luckily without the diacetyl. Hits with a bit of liquid thick malt density that comes off runny, than chewy. Good spicy hop angle, hits with real nice bitterness that manages to cut through this honey like texture, minus the sweetness luckily. Faint touches of white grape juice, unfortunately not nice wine, more like the one that comes in a plastic jug from the grocery store. Exceptionally surprising bready note that is a nice touch that cuts through a syrupy body somewhat.

Not quite I look for in a pilsner, even with the non traditional ingredients. All for that, while not by any means bad, just misses some of the clean palate and basic notes I like from a good pils. Luckily more of the good balances out some of the few minor faults.

look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.5

Cheers!

 

Broke a personal rule this morning, and grabbed a Molson-Coors product. We have an ongoing discussion in the NW forum about "Bum IPAs", our general standards are that it must be cheap, strong and in a large format(16+oz). So, for science, I grabbed this Hop Valley Stash Panda, with cryo hops and grapefruit rind. It's only 6.5%, so doesn't fit all the parameters, but it was 19.2oz for under $3 before tax.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/19378/484052/

 

Sunday morning started early as I wanted to swing by one of our favourite bakeries before picking my partner up from work at 0700. Now that I've had a solid amount of having been awake and doing a lot of planting/repotting/puttering around in the 'garden,' I feel less bad about drinking all day (just kidding, I didn't feel bad about it in the first place, and the only reason I didn't start much earlier is because the side-by-side-by-side-by-side in which I am about to partake is one that she also wanted to join in the tasting and she needed to sleep at least a LITTLE bit after work the last couple of nights).

With that preamble out of the way, I dig back into the glorious collection of midwestern treats @FBarber sent my way during the recent BIF (#13).

Temperance is a new brewery to me, as I'd never even heard of them before, and today I will be standing up for what I believe in (namely that all weather is stout weather), and engaging in said side-by-side-by-side-by-side of all four of the Might Meets Right variations Frank sent me, despite the fact that it is turning into a scorcher (by our moderate PNW standards, anyway).
The four variations being the base High West BA version, the Bramble version, the ¡La Sorpresa! version, and the Pepperming Hot Cocoa version.

Buckle up, kids, this is about to be a long one.



Pours:
All four look largely the same from a body standpoint, perhaps unsurprisingly. Slightly lighter than I would have expected, really more of a deep cola brown , and certainly not anything approaching dark/black. Where the variation does come in, though, is in the heads.
3.75.High West - Initial fizz up to maybe a finger of dark dull flan coloured foam. Settles down quickly and leaves nothing but a thin ring, and occasional little islands.
4.25.Bramble - I swear it's not just suggestion by the berry implications of the title, but the head is, aside from being richer and thicker, and lingering a little better, it's got just a little pink tinge to it, which I attribute to juice from the berries. Even after settling down, it still maintains slightly more existence to it than the High West version.
3.75.¡La Sorpresa! - Similar to the High West version, but even more fleeting. Doesn't swell as high, and disappears almost completely before long.
4.Peppermint Hot Cocoa - This one is a little more lively than the High West/¡La Sorpresa!, but not as far as the Bramble.



Aroma:
This is where I expect the divergence to really start.
4.25.High West - There's some barrel here up front, as well as some sweet chocolate. Some creaminess and a touch of black coffee. There's some nuttiness as well. I can get down.
4.25.Bramble - Sure enough, the differences are readily apparent up front on the nose. Lightly jammy berry that is both sweet and a bit tart, leaning more into the raspberry side of things. Light cocoa behind that, along with some of the oak and vanilla from the barrel, but overall, it is really berry forward. I like it.
4.25+.¡La Sorpresa! - Once again, the differences are readily appearant. This is like liquid flan in a glass. Sweet caramel, coffee liqueur, vanilla, eggy custard (not overly eggy, that's just what it reminds me of), sure enough there's a bit of that cinnamon. Custard, with heavy vanilla and a bit of coffee that's somewhere between a liqueur and like rich espresso. Again, I dig it.
4.25.Peppermint Hot Cocoa - Yeah, that's peppermint cocoa. Nobody is going to mistake these variants for one another. Big peppermint and chocolate, it smells exactly like what it says on the tin*: a package of peppermint cocoa. The sweet cocoa and the peppermint really dominate everything else.



Taste:
I fully expect the differentiation noted above to carry through to the taste as well.
4.High West - The barrel comes through up front, with the spice and vanilla leading in before giving way to some of the chocolate and a bit of coffee and maybe molasses. No, it's more burnt caramel than molasses. Actually kind of reminds me of those old riesen candies. Finish brings the various bitterness together: the sour alcohol flavour that kind of runs through the whole thing, meeting the bitterness of dark coffee and a bit of bakers chocolate.
4+.Bramble - This really works well for me. I like the tart berry presence, and it takes the sour note from the alcohol mentioned above and makes it work with the berry presence. I think the oak latches itself to this and does begin to become a little bit... cloying isn't the word I'm looking for, but it might do in a pinch. The chocolate and coffee in the base are pretty much completely subsumed by the above notes. Almost makes way for a little bit of leather, but it's mostly the berry and the sour mash of the alcohol threaded into the oak.
4.25.¡La Sorpresa! - Ooh, that pepper comes in early and kind of steals the show. Carries the roastiness of a dried chili, and definitely carries some capsaicin heat that is a fixture throughout. Sweet underneath, but not cloyingly so. Heavy vanilla again, and the cinnamon comes in to blend with the spice from the barrels, but the pepper really is the star of the show.
4.Peppermint Hot Cocoa - Similar to the aroma, the peppermint cocoa dominates. It's a little more cozy and well folded in than the aroma, though. Ultimately it's peppermint and it's cocoa. There's almost a little bit of that pepper bite here as well, though that's probably more the alcohol and the barrel spice than actual pepper. The cocoa chocolate melts into soft milk chocolate, which gives way to the sour mash noted mostly in the High West and Bramble. It's not quite as present as it is in those two, but moreso than the ¡La Sorpresa! Probably the sweetest of the three, which actually surprised me compared to the ¡La Sorpresa!



Feel:
3.75-.High West - Hot with a swell of alcohol at the beginning, and the alcohol is quite prevalent throughout. Thin and a bit oily, with fizzy carbonation that helps to accent the spice from the barrel.
3.5.Bramble - Has a bit of a dry finish, and is less fizzy than the High West. The berry>alcohol>oak similarities get to be a bit overwhelming, and end up turning a positive into a detraction, but that's really the main complaint here.
4.¡La Sorpresa! - Carbonation is still sharp, but again, kind of gets folded into the spice of the pepper. Slightly more sticky/sweet than the above two.
4.25.Peppermint Hot Cocoa - Softer and a little bit smoother than the others. This one is the easiest to drink (assuming the building mint isn't a turn off for you).



Overall, after 2+ hours of cycling through the four of them, these are all really well done, and capture what they are looking to capture quite well. They're certainly adjunct-y as all hell, which usually isn't my jam, but they're all well done with what they are emulating, and are well crafted, for the most part, and I find myself enjoying all four on their own terms. My biggest complaint is that the High West barrels lean a little more into the oaky/sour mash side of barreling for my taste, but don't let that discourage you if any of these sound appealing at all.

Thanks, Frank for sending these my direction, I'm enjoying the comparison, and enjoying them in general! They're definitely more flavoured than they are rich/decadent, so keep that in mind, but if the flavours sound appealing, they are well executed and worth checking out.

Cheers!

 

High Gravity ( Tulsa ),they were homebrew store before it was even legal... Brewing. Greybeard Old Ale aged in Tawny Port & Breckenridge Bourbon Barrels; 14.1% ABV; 3.53 overall

Pours a hazel color with some effervescence & no head

S: Bourbon notes, some jammy port notes once warm

T: Follows the nose, sourwood notes & a little brown sugar a little boozey, Leafy hops, Sourwood Bourbon, barrel dryness, a little brown sugar. Finishes with jammy & figgy port notes, boozey burn & a little honey

MF: Medium body, near zero carbonation

A good BA Old Ale not showing a lot of Port characteristics, plenty of Bourbon, has flaws with the nose, appearance & mouth feel though. They are new to the production game, so I am hoping foe onward & upward with future Barrel aged beers from them

 

Ni!