New Beer Weekend #70

Was starting to type my introduction after completing my review, but nice to see an OG opener this morning, thank you @cjgiant , you picked a beer I hope to hunt down soon.

I try to have a theme when it's not a Beer Tasting weekend. The theme this weekend is St. Bernardus Wit beers. I found their standard Wit in my cellar with several other (properly aged) St. Bernardus beers, but should have never cellared this beer obviously and down the drain it went. My Sunday choice is a beer reviewed by @FBarber I believe in the late Summer, which I wasn't able to hunt down at Monk's Pub (Chicago), but happily picked up with a few beers for the Brown Ale tasting.

St. Bernardus Wit



Can Notes: Purchased 11/7/21 @ Beer on the Wall ($2.99), 11.2 oz can, marked L1189 15:13, BB 08/01/23. I take the code to mean canned on 7/8/21 (189th day of 2021). 5.0% ABV, Serve at 36 F to 42 F. Brewed and canned by Brewery St. Bernard NV, Trappistenweg 23, 8978 Watou Belgium. Imported by D & V International, Inc. Juniper Florida.

Appearance: Single aggressive pour into a large tulip. Nice light golden slightly cloudy base, creamy white head lingers for a few minutes before leaving a creamy cover across the base and generous lacing in its wake. Looks great. 4.5

Aroma: Loved the smell from the instant I opened the can. Wonderful citrus, banana and clove back the wheat very well. Bold in strength, so inviting. 4.75

Taste: Mostly consistent with the aroma, with a nice added twist of spicy pepper to bring added enjoyment. This all blends well, the wheat provides a nice backbone with the banana and clove coming in next behind the pepper, and the citrus hops presence balances this all superbly. Just a pleasure with each and every sip. 5.0

Mouthfeel: Nice creamy body, light carbonation, balanced very well. Drinks light and easy as expected, delicate, clean finish. 4.75

Overall: This is an outstanding beer, not sure how it could improve beyond. Very delicate, everything works great. Running out of superlatives beyond why haven't I had this before, and where can I get more. The lone disappointment is the smaller can, wish I had more in my glass. Exceptional, meets or even exceeds St. Bernardus' world class standards. Best in class 5.0

So glad I grabbed this with the brown ales, and really looking forward to the Tokyo version. I also want to do a side by side with Allagash White, which I scored very high, but not at this level (4.25 / 4.25 / 4.0 / 4.0 / 4.25) Wishing you an equally enjoyable New Beer Weekend!

Cues The Four Tops

 

Good day BAs! Thanks @cjgiant for throwing out the first beer of this weekend's game! I don't think I've ever had a bad FW brew - most of them have been excellent. Around here, they're rarer than hens' teeth. @ChicagoJ, my experience with St. Bernardus has been similar - consistently good examples of Belgian styles. Unfortunately, they're even rarer than Firestone Walker brews. So for this preternatural early NBS, I'm going to add an example of my personal rare Saturday review:




Rye BORIS Batch 400 from Hoppin’ Frog. 22 oz bottle purchased at the brewery. $10.66 (including tax) ($0.485/oz). Stored at room temperature in store and at 40 degrees after purchase. Reviewed 20/11/21. Note that I use DD/MM/YY protocol.
Undated bottle. Served at 51.9 degrees in a hand washed and dried glass coffee cup. Final temperature 58.2 degrees.
Appearance – 4.25
First pour – Amber Brown (SRM 18), clear.
Body – Black (SRM 40), opaque. When rear-lite, reddish around the edges but otherwise opaque.
Head – Tiny (Maximum two mm, aggressive center pour), brown sugar, fizzy with short retention, diminishing to a zero to two mm crown and no cap. Second pour produces a transitory 0.5 cm head before ending existence as a ring of minute bubbles.
Lacing – Tall, very thin Roman aqueduct lacing if Dali was a Roman architect.
Aroma – 3.5 – No hops, no yeast. Weak malt and chocolate, very weak rye spiciness.
Flavor – 4.25 – Taste follows the nose but slightly sweet with a bit of coffee and char, no malt, no hops, no yeast. Sweetness builds in the aftertaste. No ethanol (9.4 % ABV, as marked on container) taste or aroma. Moderate gastric glow. No dimethylsulfide or diacetyl.
Palate – 4.5 – Full, creamy, soft carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4 After deducting 0.25 points off the top for an undated bottle. Overall, a very smooth and silky version of a RIS – another winner from Hoppin’ Frog. For me, this is the penultimate combination of goodness – oatmeal RIS with rye – it only needs to be bourbon barrel aged (Wild Turkey, preferably) to achieve perfection.
Rating 4.05, rDev -4.7%

 

3 Firsts on BA + Augie Carton’s 51st Bday Craft
Fifty-One Years Later | Carton | Kettle Sour | 9.5% | NJ
4.53/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 5
1st review of 51 years in the making. Celebrating Augie Carton’s 51st birthday with this brew.
a) Bronze, slashing Jackson Pollack lacing head.
s) Cherry, wood, shellac, Marine, old boats, malt.
t) Follows the smell with a tart not sweet cherry backbone on malty bright core.
f) Creamy, tarty, classic Farm.
o) John Updike or Jackson Pollack or the Boss would be proud of this craft.

Super Sluice | Bent Water | NEIPA | 6.7% | Ma.
4.28/5 rDev +6.7%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25
1st review on BA. 2nd of brewer, both good.
a) Cloudy apricot body, sports dense lacing head.
s) juicy, fleshy fruit salad juice, apple/pear nectar.
t) More apple/pear nectar notes, coupled with melon, strawberry, and cleans up with pine. Complex.
f) Chewy, juicy, exceptional.
o) NEIPA done right.
Deadly Combination: Galaxy and Vic Secret| Barrier | NEIPA | 7.4% | LI NY
4.26/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5
1st Review. At WFM Red Bank NJ 07701. Love brewer, often in combination with homie Carton.
a) Galaxies of lace over lasting head and apricot haze bomb body.
s) Melon, Peach, fruit puree.
t) Vic & Galaxy rare and similar, offer more fruit in the puree / passionfruit, melon, pear, and grapes, and a peppery pine finale.
f) Creamy like puree.
o) If you like them thick and fruity, this is fine example.

 

I believe this is the 3rd installment in this series. This time they took MI6 and one of my top 3 Voice Of Reason and combined the two recipes. Pours a very hazy yellow orange with a 2 finger sticky white head that leaves a bunch of thick streaks of lace with excellent retention. 4.75

Aroma is cantaloupe, mandarin, mango, a hint of peach, and apricot. 4.5

Taste follows mandarin, cantal, mango, a little peach, a hint of vanilla, and apricot really low on bitterness. 4.5

Mouthfeel is big, soft gentle carbonation, not dry or sticky, and at 8% it is big and balanced in flavor but really easy going down. 5

Overall this is excellent, better than MI6 alone and could actually rival Voice Of Reason. Really love this one. Thanks @cjgiant Craig for opening this week. Always appreciated what you and Doc did for all those years. 4.5 Cheers all.

 

Well, according to the label, "sweet malted rye and spicy non-malted rye" are added "to add variety". It may very well be aged in some kind of barrels, but the website is kind of lean on info. I've been drinking BORIS/DORIS/TORIS variants for a decade or so and I really don't know about each variant.

 

November/Thanksgiving Beers

Well, Thanksgiving is still a few days away but I figured now would be a good time to discuss a Thanksgiving ‘themed’ beer style: Pumpkin Ale.



For some reason I ‘lost track’ of a bottle of Schlafly Pumpkin Ale that has been in the back of the refrigerator from last year/season. The ‘good news’ is that this beer has been continuously stored cold for over a year. The ‘bad news’ is that it is over a year old.

I discussed the fact I ‘lost track’ of this bottle in a past thread and Chris (@zid) replied that this fact presented me with the opportunity to conduct a vertical tasting. I was able to find a single bottle of Schlafly Pumpkin Ale in my local Wegmans Supermarket last month in the singles section so here we go for another one of my ‘famous’ side-by-side tastings.

From the Schlafly website:

“Pumpkin Ale

ABV: 8.0% | IBU: 16

Hailed as one of the best beers of its kind, it’s the reason why fall is your favorite season. Schlafly’s Special Release Pumpkin Ale is well-balanced from start to finish, with notes of caramel and ginger throughout. Fermented in pounds of fresh pumpkin squash and a brewer’s wort and sugar mix before being filtered through a spiced infusion of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, it turns out exactly how we intend it to taste: like a slice of pie in a bottle.”

Will a bottle of Schlafly Pumpkin Ale that has been in my refrigerator for over a year still drink nicely as compared to a fresh(er) bottle? As the wise owl says: “Let’s find out”.



Beers served in small tulip glasses:

Appearance

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2020: An orangeish/amber color with an off-white head. In comparison a smaller head with lesser head retention. Unfortunately, the beer glass is not very clean (too many bubbles).

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2021: An orangeish/amber color with an off-white head.

Aroma

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2020: It smelled of pumpkin, very noticeable nutmeg and some cinnamon. Quite similar to the 2021 beer for my nose (read more below).

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2021: It smelled of pumpkin, very noticeable nutmeg and some cinnamon.

Taste:

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2020: A very pleasing blend of pumpkin and nutmeg. The cinnamon flavor was subdued but good. It has a low bitterness. The flavor intensity level is a bit lower than the 2020 beer.

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2021: Same

Mouthfeel

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2020: A thinner mouthfeel in comparison to the 2021 beer.

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2021: A rounder, smoother mouthfeel in comparison to the 2020 beer.

Overall

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2020: This beer is good – very good. The flavor aspects of the pumpkin and spices are well balanced and play very, very nicely together.

Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 2021: This beer is better in comparison with a small yet noticeable increased flavor intensity and a much-improved mouthfeel aspect.

I was a little surprised that the 2020 beer tasted as good as it did but I chalk this up to the fact the beer was continually stored cold over the year+ duration. Storing beer continuously cold did assist beer flavor stability for this beer.



My wife watched me as I was conducting my side-by-side tasting but she was not cognizant of the specifics (i.e., same beer but different vintages). She took a few sips blind and was a little perplexed since the beers were quite similar (she was expecting two different brands). She did comment that for her the aroma was diminished in the 2020 beer (which was different from my perception) but overall she stated the beers tasted very similar. When I provided the BIG reveal that the beers were the same brand but differed by age she stated “Ah!?!”. Since I had two beers, I offered one to her; she requested a make her a blended beer she calls Chocolate Pumpkin using one of the Pumpkin Ales and a bottle of Yuengling Hershey’s Chocolate Porter.

I used the 2020 to make the blended beer and I noted there was quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Below you can see how murky the bottom ½ - 1 ounces of the beer looked (I decanted that bottle):



And here is a photo of the blended beer in her favorite beer glass, which she calls the Bear Glass (depictions of bears and pine trees etched on the glass).



Cheers!

@rotsaruch @RobH

 

If you ever find Tokyo on your local retailer(s) shelves please let me know. I was only successful in finding this beer once on the shelves of my 'local' Total Wine & More in the singles section.

I discussed Tokyo in a past NBW thread:



https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-weekend-27.654137/#post-7158579

Cheers to St. Bernardus!!

 

The Brewery's distributor (Glunz here) and or Sales Rep had a special event at my local Beer Shop, four cans remain for sale, perhaps I'll run and grab them tomorrow after I my tasting. I don't believe there will be ongoing stocking of this. The bastards at Binny's (our version of Total Wine) don't even have this sku in their system.

As noted earlier, they dropped at least one keg in late Summer and then had these cans, but hoping they have other stock including accessible to you. Looking forward to comparing your review as well, and the two offerings (Wit vs. Tokyo).

@FBarber may have more info, as he tipped us off regarding the keg.

Cheers!

 

Poured into a 16 oz Nordic pint glass canned it looks like 10/20/21. Pours a hazy yellow with a solid finger sticky white head that leaves thick streaks of lace with nice retention. 4.5

Aroma tangerine, vanilla, ripe melon, papaya, and apricot really inviting. 4.5

Taste follows tangerine, cantaloupe, papaya, a hint of vanilla, and apricot really nice stuff. 4.5

Mouthfeel is bigger than average, soft creamy carbonation, not sticky or dry, and at 9% big and balanced flavor but easy going down. 4.75

Overall I am glad I took the risk on this one. Really well made Finback. 4.5

 

Maybe a side-by-side taste test?

Cheers!

 

Craig, thanks for taking me down memory lane with your opening. I enjoyed "hosting" with you. Our son is away for a few days, so my wife and I have the house to ourselves this weekend. Nothing wild or crazy planned.
My new beer for today is Contents Under Fresher, from Lagunitas.
A hazy gold color with a tiny white head. Just a little lace.
Aroma mostly pine, with some citrus.
Pine-forward. Grapefruit and orange later.
Medium-bodied.

 

I've always tried to hide a few Pumpkin beers from these guys in the back of the fridge, I think they do alright with some age on them

 

Found a new True Anomaly beer, which I always pick up when I see it. One of my favorite breweries in Houston. This is the second batch they have done for this one...

Densified Propellant. Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout (for 16 months wow). Its also bottle conditioned. This batch is 13.7% ABV. Last years was only 11.2% ABV



Pours an inky jet black, nearly opaque color. A bubbly tan head tries to form, but immediately fizzles away to nothing. This looks flat.
Aroma...oh my, boozy alcohol, that is almost ethanol/fusel alcohol like. Malts, roast, dark fruits of raisins and prunes.
Taste wise, yeah, that big boozy, fusel alcohol character carries over. Malts make there way to the forefront eventually. Roasted, charred, dark fruits. Some cookie batter like density.
A syrupy, thick and sticky body. Oily, inky, and yep basically no carbonation. The more I drink this, the less I like it.

I love True Anomaly, but this isn't a particularly good barrel aged imperial stout. I don't get any wood or vanilla one would expect from barrel aging. The alcohol is just too much for me, and its basically flat. I'm being generous with my score, probably cause I like the brewery to much, and hoping this is an off bottle. Though, not impressed with this one.

Overall score 3.1, a very generous C
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/55586/476249/?ba=champ103#review

 

Schell's Cave-Aged, Barrel-Aged Dark Lager. best by 031422 ABV?
I bought a 6 pack of 12oz bottles last night.
Nice tall lite tan head that lasts forever leaving plenty of lacing.
Tastes good: roast, caramel, vanilla, oak, brandy, hint of red wine and rye.
Rather smooth, plenty of alcohol but not overbearing.
I might have to do a full review after a few more bottles in the future.
Unsure what style the base beer is.

 

Great start to the thread so far. I've consistently enjoyed the FW Anniversary beers over the years. Unfortunately they stopped distributing to CT about a year ago, but I'm hopeful I'll be able to spot one somewhere in my travels. @ChicagoJ that Wit sounds fantastic. If I'm ever fortunate enough to see it on the shelves, I will absolutely pick it up.

Anyway, my first new beer of the weekend comes from @2beerdogs. This seemed like a nice beer to enjoy as I watch Arsenal take on Liverpool.

This is QuiQuiRiQui from Henhouse Brewing. It's a "Kolsch-style ale" with guava & ceylon cinnamon.

Added to database / first review. If I can ever figure out how to save a picture in the exact right size, I'll add it to the database as well.

3.74/5 rDev 0%
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Very nice looking beer. Pours a mostly clear golden color with loads of dense white head, excellent retention and excellent lacing. Aroma is very heavy on the guava (yes, there's guava in this "Kolsch-style ale". There's nothing wrong with the aroma, I'm just struggling with the whole "guava / Kolsch" thing. Taste is interesting. The guava is present, albeit not as strongly as on the nose. The can notes that there is ceylon cinnamon used as well, and I can detect it here, but thankfully it was used with a deft touch that adds to the experience vs. dominating the palate. The underlying "Kolsch" notes are there, but play a secondary role to the guava. Medium bodied / carbonated.

Overall, it's an interesting beer for a great cause (benefits a Napa Valley non-profit that helps out high school students facing "extraordinary challenges"

 

Feeling like making it a big supper weekend, starting to Bottle Logic Darkstar November.
4.64/5 rDev +3.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.75 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.75

500 ml bottle, 2020, poured into a tulip

A- Black with a two finger mocha head.

S- Rye, oak, dark chocolate, whiskey, oak, molasses, some vanilla, hints of berries

T- Dark chocolate, rye, whiskey, touch of caramel, some vanilla, molasses, oak, hints of berries.

M- Smooth, full body.

O- A well done barrel aged stout, good balance just a touch heavy on the barrel.

Cheers!