New Beer Weekend #7

My last new beer for the weekend comes from a relatively new brewery in Chicago - Is/Was brewing. Started by a former brewer at Pipeworks they are focusing on farmhouse ales with an interest in Brett conditioned beers. This is their most recent release - Good Sitter a blonde biere de garde.



Pours a cloudy, matte golden color. Huge thick velvety white head builds as the beer is poured then gradually, but never completely, dissolves. Nice sticky white lacing is left in the glass as the beer is consumed. The beer itself is pretty effervescent with visible bubbles. Aroma has notes of sweet bready malts, with fruity, slightly funky, notes of pear, apple, banana, plum, lemon and peppercorn.

Taste follows the nose with hearty notes of rustic bread, peppery yeast, light fruity notes of pear, apple, banana, and a twinge of lemony citrus. It’s mildly funky, but not overly so. As the beer warms and it’s consumed there is a slight hoppy bitterness that shows up on the back end. Overall, the flavor has Some real depth to it while remaining straightforward enough to be an easy drinking farmhouse ale. Feel is light to medium bodied, smooth with bright prickly carbonation. Rather dry on the finish.

Overall, this was lovely and might be my favorite offering from Is/Was so far. I’m really excited to see where they go from here.

 

Galaxy Brown Ale, a "Brown Ale" by German brewery Maisel & Friends (5.5%).

Pours a slightly cloudy, coppery coloration with a medium, foamy head. Smells of rather grainy, bready malt and tropical/berry hops, with notes of passion fruit and strawberry.

Taste is a decent balance of grainy, bready, slightly caramelly malt and fruity tropical and berry hops, with somewhat faint passion fruit, strawberry and gooseberry notes, as well as the merest hint of hazelnut. Finishes with a light bitterness and some berry notes lingering in the aftertaste. Thin mouthfeel with a light/medium body and medium carbonation.

While I did like this overall, it's an odd brew and I'm not sure if it really works out all that well. They were obviously going for a hoppy Brown Ale here, which is probably not a good idea in the first place, but also really overdid the hops to the point where this taste more like a Red than a Brown Ale. While there are some grainy, bready malts to this, it's sorely lacking a more distinct roasted, nutty character and those chocolate/coffee accents that I expect from the style, while the body and mouthfeel are a also a bit light and thin.

I can always appreciate some experimentation and I do think that this makes for an interesting brew, but hand it to someone in a blind tasting and not in a million years would they guess it's a Brown Ale.

 

Just so you know, the ratings are weighted in the overall score - and Appearance isn't rated very high. So I wouldn't let that hold you back.

If a beer is ugly to me, but otherwise superb, it can very easily get above a 4.00 weighted average - even 4.4 or 4.5. Here are some examples from, quite recently:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17981/506143/?ba=Roguer#review

Cigar City Charleywine. Honestly, giving it a 3.0 was generous, but it was on draught, so I'm assuming a controlled pour might yield a better result. The beer got a 4.46 overall from me.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17981/332377/?ba=Roguer#review

Cigar City Barrel-Aged Madeira Barleywine. 3.75 in appearance, and it legitimately wasn't bad-looking, but there was nothing I could say made it look "great," "outstanding," or anything else 4.0 is supposed to represent. Benchmarked against the style, it did not stand out, but it looked decent. 4.09 overall.

And then, there's the flip side of the coin:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/430/271537/?ba=Roguer#review

Alltech Kentucky Vanilla Barrel Cream Ale. An absolutely gorgeous beer (4.5). 3.82 overall.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/430/414127/?ba=Roguer#review

Alltech Kentucky Coffee Barrel Cream Ale. Another visual stunner (4.25). A wildly disappointing beer overall (3.44). That aftertaste lingered, no kidding, for three freaking hours.

So yeah - appearance isn't going to radically screw with your weighted rating.

Finally, while we all have our own personal benchmarks, I try to stick to the standards established on the site - as that's kind of the point of a rating system (everyone agrees to use it fairly and honestly). According to the Brothers' "How to Review a Beer" primer, the scale system is as follows:

4.50 - 5.00 = World-Class
4.00 - 4.49 = Outstanding
3.75 - 3.99 = Very Good
3.50 - 3.74 = Good
3.00 - 3.49 = Okay
2.00 - 2.99 = Poor
1.00 - 1.99 = Awful

Individual preferences aside, like @cjgiant , I just can't see how anyone rates any aspect of a beer (or the beer as a whole) as "Ehh, it's OK," and then slaps a World Class rating on it. Your system makes sense, using 4.0 as a point of departure (vice 3.0), if you're typically reviewing very good beers, and avoiding poor beers - which is a fair assumption! I tend to avoid beers I think are going to suck, so the vast majority of beers I review should warrant ratings above 3.5 - and they do.

But again, that's overall. If a beer is ugly as sin, I call it as it is.

 

Freistadt Plumberg and English Barleywine brewed with smoked plums in collaboration between German breweries Freigeist Bierkultur and Braukollektiv and Polish brewery Maryensztadt (10% ABV).

Pours a cloudy, deep mahogany coloration with a purple sheen and a medium, foamy head. Smells of caramel malt and a distinct smoky note, as well as some plum and hints of brown sugar.

Taste is a great balance of caramel malt, a strong, fruity plum character, distinct peat smoke and hints of licorice, brown sugar and toffee. Finishes bittersweet, with a mild sweetness and bitterness and some plum and peat smoke lingering in the aftertaste. Full mouthfeel with a medium/rich body and medium carbonation.

This makes for a rather enjoyable Barleywine with a strong plum presence, some brown sugar and hints of licorice and bitter hops, creating a great balance of sweet and bitter notes in addition to the quite fruity and moderately smoky character here. While it may not be too complex, it's rather rich and well-balanced, without becoming cloyingly sweet, with a light warming alcohol presence that never feels too boozy though, as well as a pretty nice and full mouthfeel.

 

What, NBW goes into a holiday Monday?! Well...

FiftyFifty -- Eclipse Elijah Craig (2015)



4.4/5 rDev -1.6%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

This is from a 2015 edition of the 12-year Elijah Craig...

Ink black body; relatively thin yet dense and creamy light tan head. Light aroma of whiskey; faint traces of cocoa and roasted malt. Rich, malty flavor dense with milk chocolate, oak, and bourbon; vanilla. Heavy body; dense and oily; chewy and sweet tempered with a nice whiskey warmth.

I believe the aroma may have suffered some with five years of age, but the taste and mouthfeel really shine on this beer. The boozy character adds a nice balancing quality to the thick, rich sweetness of this imperial stout. I'm sure the honey greatly adds to the feel and taste. I must admit that this has been around for a few years, but at nearly $35.00 a pop, I wasn't too keen on taking a stab at this. In this case, I probably should have sucked it up and gone for it. Chances are I'll be checking out some of their other versions, plus there are some newer versions of the Eclipse stouts that are now calling my name. Oh, the humanity...



I had a fair number of beers over this holiday weekend, but only about two new beers, and this beautiful beast is one of them.

This may be one of those occasions where the relatively high cost is justified (even for a five-year old beer). My favorite local has a fine selection of 2015 editions (and I think the smaller bottles are from 2018, but I can't say for sure). Do I plan on trying most of them? I'd like to, but no. Yet I do plan on trying at least another 2-4 of them in the near future. As a big fan of bourbon and dark beers, this single sample (if an accurate portrayal of this brewery's BA imperial stout possibilities) is any indication of the quality of their beers, well, I need to spend my hardly earned money on something...