New Beer Weekend #77

Thanks to SawDog505 for the start.

This cold MN morning calls for a pilsner, why? Why not.

Insight Avant

Appearance: Clear yellow, good head.

Smell: Mineral-rocks, grassy, kind of "dry".

Taste: Cracker malt, then grassy and floral notes. Some honey sweetness but stays crisp and clean feeling.

Overall: This double dry-hopped pilsner from a local Minneapolis brewery is nice and tasty. Nice combination of honey sweetness and grassy hops. Not over-the-top hoppy or aromatic from the dry hopping, which was a little surprising.

 

Good morning all and thanks for kicking things off today @SawDog505 !

This beer marked a milestone for me. Purchased in part from hype and high praise, I feared I made a mistake when people began commenting about it here sadly after my purchase. I hoped cellaring it would help with the noted issues with this beer, but sadly it did not.

Foreign Exchange Aliena



Bottle Notes: Brewed and packaged (on behalf of Foreign Exchange) by Church Street Brewing Company (Itasca, Illinois). 500 ml, 16.9 oz, 12% abv. Imperial Stout brewed with Madagascar Vanilla Beans. Purchased at Capones in July, 2020, intentionally (based on reviews of this beer) and properly cellared until November 17, 2021, refrigerated until today.

Appearance: Very thick pour, pitch black, no head or carbonation, black base, murky white buildup on the bottom of the snifter with close to half the bottle poured. 2.0

Aroma: 100% Vanilla beans, nothing else. Very strong, nothing necessarily wrong with the beans, just one note. 2.5

Taste: Vanilla, massive doses. Can't taste anything beyond it, 10, 20 and 30 minutes after opening. Tastes like I'm drinking a bottle of McCormack's Pure Vanilla Extract. No balance whatsoever. 1.25

Mouthfeel: Looked and felt like the crude oil pictured during the opening credits of The Beverly Hillbillies. No carbonation, just a very thick creamy body, comparable to phlegm, matched in absurdity by an inordinate amount of sweetness. Goes beyond not being in my wheelhouse, massive doses of sweet vanilla the lone flavor, leaves a very sweet aftertaste. Didn't really taste much alcohol via the 1/5 or so of the bottle I tried before aborting. 1.75

Overall: I gave this about 30 minutes to warm up and perhaps improve but it did not, so stopped the review between 3-4 oz in and drained poured the rest. This should not have been released IMO, just not an enjoyable experience. 1.25

Going to give my palate a thorough cleansing and return later today with the "vanilla" pairing I had initially planned for Sunday.

Word to your Mother

 

That's a public service announcement if ever I saw one!

 

Do you have a favorite blizzard beer?

We had our first snowfall of Winter 21-22 yesterday (but not a blizzard per se); only a couple of inches of snow fell with a quick hit storm.

But this snowy aspect brings us to today’s beer: Troegs Blizzard of Hops Winter IPA.

So whazzup with this Winter IPA?

Troegs is ‘saying’:

We created this Winter IPA to toast hop growers around the world for another successful harvest. This storm of hoppy citrus and pine notes is a bright reminder the end of the Hop Cycle is only the beginning.

ABV: 6.4%

Availability: Hop Cycle

Color: Hazy Gold

Grain: Pilsner, Unmalted Wheat, White Wheat

Hops: Centennial, Chinook, El Dorado

Yeast: Ale”

https://troegs.com/beer/blizzard-of-hops/

The bottle label is not 100% consistent with the above verbiage in that Galaxy hops are also listed.

Nothing there really proclaims “blizzard” to me but this beer does indeed read tasty.

But how does it taste for my palate?

Served in my Spiegelau IPA glass:

Appearance:

Pours a golden color with a two finger white head.

Aroma:

I am up a combination of citrus and an aspect that reminds me of juicy.

Taste:

The flavors follow the nose with a combination of citrus and juicy. There is a notable bitterness to this beer.

Mouthfeel:

A light-medium body and a dry finish.

Overall:

This IPA is very good!

Cheers!

@KOP_Beer_OUtlet @rotsaruch @RobH

 

Maybe Tom Hanks can provide a tip here?

Sorry to hear about this bad drinking experience (and after all the planning/effort you took here).

Cheers!

 

This description just did me in...

 

Thanks @SawDog505 for getting this thread started today. It's also one of my favorites.
A quiet weekend ahead, then next week we're traveling to Florida to visit our snow bird relatives. Other than Zoom, we haven't seen them in some time.
My new beer for today is Unrefined Shugga from Lagunitas, a strong ale brewed with whole cane sugar. ABV is 10%.
The beer is a clear cherry amber color. There is a small off-white head that retains well and leaves some pretty lace.
Aroma is muted. Citrus, pine, and brown sugar.
Brown sugar taste, grapefruit, pine.
A nice bitter finish.

 

Hello, NBW 77. I’ve been digging sour beers lately and today while I was at my store discussing interests with one of the guys there, he offers me a store picked 6 pack of sours. 6 pints for 23$, all the same brewery; Connecticut Valley Brewing Company out of Windsor, CT. I’ve never had anything from them before, but they have come highly regarded and reviewed well, so it was a no brainer. So, here goes the first one; Plum Crazy Ale.

From the brewer: “Introducing all new Plum Crazy Ale Sour. It’s a 5.5% kettle sour that takes you a step further down the path of tartness; slightly increasing both the acidity and the quantity of fruit to provide a more puckering, flavorful experience. A bursting plum aroma hits you from the first crack of the can, before a pleasant tart flavor greets you on the first sip, bringing with it a balancing sweetness. Perfect for day drinking and day dreaming!”

Look: Pours a beautiful ruby red tinted amber in my new Prairie glass from my buddy Rick @Hinda65. An aggressive pinkish white head, rising to the top and falling quickly to a thin ring that maintains throughout the pour. Not much lacing to speak of.

Aroma: Has a very funky, acidic, tart fruit aroma. I’m not sure the nose is going to nail down any fruit in particular here but it is a jammy, seedy, fresh fruit note on the backend.

Taste: Its tart when it hits the tongue, not off putting but the sour base is definitely present. Notes of ripe plumb, acidic funk, and sweet malt carry me through the bill.

Feel: This is a very soft beer. It definitely drinks like a fruit juice, very mild carbonation, crisp on the finish. Delightful.

Overall: I feel this was a simple flavor concept, not over done in any one way. It is one dimensional but the flavors were good and I did enjoy the beverage. I’m going to go 3.75 across the board here.

Cheers, fellas.

 

Seems like vanilla needs a brewer with an exceptionally deft hand and a sense of subtlety when using it as an adjunct. I've had some beers where it was used and it was perfectly balanced with the other flavor aspects of the beer, and then I've had beers like this that were just absolute vanilla bombs. Unfortunately, I think I encountered the latter more than the former. Granted, it sounds like there were more issues with this beer than just heavy handedness when it came to vanilla.

 

Perhaps I'm not the most formidable foodie on BA, but I don't think I've heard of Haitian vanilla before. Seems like whenever a vanilla bean's nationality is discussed, it always turns out to be from Madagascar.

 

I always wonder about the type of vanilla used as well. As in bean v.s. extract or maybe even place of origin. Just a though. Cheers.

 

"...the Trevor Lawrence of beer..." I almost shot coffee out my nose.

 

Very Sappy. Brewed by Tree House Brewing. Courtesy of @azuelke and @jrc1093. Nice white head, crowning a beautiful Ajax/Mr. Peanut yellow/orange hazy color. Perfect for a NEIPA. The smell is grapefruit, orange, tropical fruits, and pine. The flavor is freshly-sliced mango with fruit dip, grapefruit juice, piney, with a delicious slight bitterness. The mouthfeel is smooth, juicy, sparkly, with medium carbonation. Overall, this beer is another work or art by Tree House Brewing. It is incredibly juicy, but unique enough, with a pleasant bitterness, to drink after another juicy Tree House Brewing IIPA, without feeling like you are simply experiencing more of the same.

 

Hello, NBW,

Right now, it's a moderately breezy and partly cloudy 32° outside. I was motivated to start NBW on Friday, for the following:
BEGINS SKIPPABLE WEATHER RANT:
My fair city got it's biggest snowfall it's received thus far this winter on Thursday night. I had previously agreed to cover an extra shift in addition to my own at my workplace. I drove a shuttlebus through constant and increasing wet, slushy snowfall on the 1st shift, fortunately only having one "tank slapper" slide, when no one was on board and there was no oncoming traffic, but it was a long shift of stressful driving, not including the usual Karens and Kens that don't understand why we have to run things differently than, say, summer of 2019, or, indeed, during a snowstorm in any damn year. Then, the next shift, I had to climb into a couple small John Deere tractors that require something along the line of John Cleese's Silly Walk to get into if you're a somewhat tall individual and either broom or drop crystal de-icer on all the sidewalks and crosswalks. By 7pm, when I'm waiting at the bus stop for home, I'm tired, sore, and possibly a little deaf from the diesel engines of the tractor that are mounted directly behind me.

Well, said bus, scheduled to arrive at 7:05 (and usually arriving approx. 4-5 minutes later), never shows. Did I mention I'm standing in what for the last 2hrs has become freezing rain? Finally another bus comes, the one that goes from the airport, through the western suburb that contains two big tribal casinos and a prison, and then back to the airport, before finally going into downtown Spokane. Normally, this route would add about 40 minutes to my ride home. Thursday night, it was 90 minutes, with all the sights, sounds ans smells of drunk, deeply unwashed folks who, despite not having a pot to piss in, are still going out to the casinos to throw away even more money. The smell of stale booze, clothing saturated with cigarette smoke, and unwashed ass is quite pungent. It increases as we pass two other, wrecked busses, casualties to streets that by now resemble polished glass, and we take on their passengers as well. A 40 minute ride back to where I had started takes 90 minutes. I get back downtown just in time to hit Iron Goat and be told that the kitchen has just closes. I really didn't even want beer at that point, I wanted something hot to eat. So, I frustration-drink a couple mugs of Buzzsaw McThunder and proceed to gingerly step/skate through the ice around the freeway and up the hill to my place. Normally, it's about a 10 minute walk, this time it takes about 25 minutes, on feet by now screaming about the uncomfortable boots I've been wearing for 14hrs.
END RANT:
After Thursday, there was no fucking way I would go out yesterday, so last evening, I had myself an "Italian pilsner" from Icicle Brewing, called One In Eight. It was brewed in honor of breast cancer awareness, with the proceeds going to charity, and was brewed in collaboration with Seattle's Cloudburst Brewing. Brewed with Idaho Gem hops:

It was...decent. Quite drinkable, in a mildly herbal and dry way, but not terribly memorable, and a bit hazy for something marketed as a pilsner. I'd drink it on tap again, and it's definitely brewed for a great cause but it's not something I would seek out.

Back with at least one new beer today.