What beer are you drinking now? #1855

good morning!

 

Good morning BA, have a great Saturday! Pretty heavy rains last night, and we are supposed to get more today. Should be an enjoyable day as usual.

3 year revisit. Very nice English porter. Flavors of milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, toffee, toasted dark bread, and nutty malts; with lighter notes of char, raisin, plum, and herbal/grrassy hops. Light herbal/roast/char bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation/body; nice bready/grainy creaminess; light chalky roast, and hop stickiness in the mouthfeel. Lightly increasing bitter/roasted dryness. Nicely rich and complex all around. Just as tasty as I remember. No need to adjust the score. Definitely very much English influenced on both malt and yeast character. Very unique and enjoyable.


Incredible as always. Flavors of juicy grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, peach, mango, melon, passion fruit, berry, lemon/orange zest, and light pepper/pine hops; with moderate caramel, toasted biscuit malts; and herbal, floral, grassy hops earthiness. Light-moderate pine, citrus peel, grassy, spicy bitterness. Very smooth finish with balanced hop stickiness and bready creaminess in the mouthfeel. Light-moderate increasing bitter dryness, never astringent. Has all the Mosaic and Citra hop flavors I love, with balanced bready malts to make it taste super juicy. Glad I decided to revisit this beer last year, a top favorite IPA now for sure. I need to keep this around more often. I love so many Deschutes beers, it's hard to choose which one I want. They are all on rotational 6 pack buys.


Officially the easiest year to find distributed Black Note of all time. I got twice as many bottles in the last 2 weeks than I have gotten in the last 4 years combined. That being said, this is amazing this year! Flavors of huge milk/dark chocolate, cocoa, caramel, vanilla, cream, toffee, molasses, bourbon, coconut, toasted oak, and dark/brown bread; with lighter notes of coffee, licorice, raisin, plum, fig, and dates. Light roast/char bitterness and bourbon/oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Light-medium carbonation and very full body; with a very creamy, silky, velvety, and rich mouthfeel that is amazing. Slight chalky roast, oak tannins, and dryness. No acrid roast flavors. Insanely smooth, minimal warming 11.2%, zero barrel booze. Bell's has the BBA game on point as usual. While I still prefer well aged Expedition and the BBA version more, this is still definitely better than I remember. Richer and silkier mouthfeel. Perfect barrel integration and complexity. Wow.


Free beer. My friend gave this to me, because it is the infected batch. So here it goes for science. Yep definitely infected, but not horrible. Flavors of big milk chocolate, cocoa, vanilla, golden raisin, pear, green apples, white wine, caramel, honey, toffee, coconut, bourbon, and toasted oak; with lighter notes of hay, straw, white vinegar, grass, leather, and funk. Light-moderate lactic tartness and oak tannin spiciness on the finish. Medium carbonation and medium-full bodied; balanced creamy/slick malts, lactic acid, and oak tannins in the mouthfeel. Increasingly drying acidity/tannins, no pucker. Very smooth sipping, mildly warming 14.75%, no barrel booze. Honestly pretty enjoyable overall, if you look at it as a sour/wild blonde ale. It has the typical character I am accustomed to from their sours. Acidity is covering up what really made this a great beer, but you get nice solid barrel, cocoa, and vanilla notes. Half Wheatwine, half sour ale. Having no issue finishing this at all.


Cheers

 

Good Morning BAs,

Early morning hike with wife and bro in law to Shixiaguan section of the Great Wall. A good hike requires a great beer so I packed along my favorite local, Melvin 2x4! I was thinking 2x4s would have speed the building process up on this bad boy. Shixiaguan is a section of unrestored to moderately restored wall off the beaten path from the tourist infested section. We hiked back in 5 miles which felt like 20! A beautiful site to be seen and the beer wasn’t to shabby either!

Currently at Great Leap Brewing Original #6 located in the hutongs of Beijing. A killer setting for a brewery and pretty damn good beer as well! Having the Fallen General DIPA.

Sorry for picture overload in advance

Cheers BAs

 

New Holland • Dragon's Milk Reserve S’mores Bourbon Barrel Stout

My last one. I should’ve bought more of these…

 

Not sure it's a good idea to have this so early in the day but after having woken up at 3am it feels already like it should be lunchtime. I found a 4-pack of these in a beer shop in Philly, hidden away among some random beers. The owner told me not to ask questions and to not tell anyone about it. Told me it was fresh, which appears to be true. Amazing richness and an absolutely insane mouthfeel. The very definition of chewable.


The Alchemist - Crusher

 

Apparently we don’t count??

Or maybe I’ll spin it as “we aren’t just anyone” and feel special.

(j/k - nice find! )

 

That's a National Geographic worthy post! Cheers to your memorable trip.

 

@jkblr, I am making sure this amazing beer gets posted nice and early today.

 

2013 Third Coast Old Ale, worth the wait but it can definitely go further

 

Starting with a good one on a great looking morning.



Have a great weekend.

 

See what you started, @jkblr !! Good work

 

When I thought Turkey Day was going to be today, I was thinking I wouldn’t have much to offer (and wouldn’t get rid of my crap from home). Turns out we have some beers left over from our summer visit:


This isn’t that old at 5 months, nor that bad - still a piney to herbal bitterness. Can’t be too harsh on this non-Turkey.

 

KBS draft with breakfast

 

Fils de jus. Maplewood. One more round, I think. Nope...2nd to last. Cheers to you brethren and sistren, from a cool, rainy, dreary Chicago. Fine with it. Bring on the college football!

 

Bomb!