Author Topic: The Beer Thread  (Read 3182251 times)

Space Freely

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9255 on: April 22, 2019, 03:59:29 pm »
(Responding to Sweetcell from previous page)

I did notice Idiom and made a note of it. I think we've been to at least three other breweries in Frederick in the past, but only Monocacy merited a return visit.

I think we will be back out that way for some hiking next month, so we'll see...we could also detour to Waredeca and Brookville Beer Farm. Neither have beers worth writing home about, but they're nice if the weather is nice.



I think we had half pours of everything but the stout at Sapwood. They were all good to great, most of them closer to great.

Conference Room 11 – 4.6% ABV: A lightly-hoppy wine-influenced wheat beer. Wine and beer aren’t enemies. Vintners have been selecting cultures that enhance the naturally fruity flavors of grapes. Luckily hops contain many of the same aromatic compounds. So We tried boost the already fruity aroma of German Huell Melon hops with the small addition of wine yeast. The result is all strawberry and cantaloupe with a smooth low-bitterness base.

Lord of Light – 5.6% ABV: Our brand-new pale ale is in the mold of Rings of Light and Danger of Light, but with a more complex blend of hop aromatics from the combination of 50% Australian Galaxy, with 25% each Mosaic and Citra. The result has tropical fruit (passionfruit, papaya) with citrus and some dank herbaceous notes.

Orange Sorbet – 5.6% ABV: One of our favorite variants from 2018 was Orange Sorbet Rings, so we wanted to super-size it with a 200 gallon batch based on Lord of Light! For this one Scott zested more than 100 Cara Cara oranges and heaped in 24 Vanilla Beans from Madagascar. The combination is rich and fruity, but without being sugary sweet.

Atomic Apricot – 5.7% ABV: We took a stainless-steel-fermented pale sour beer and loaded it with apricots at a rate of 2 lbs per gallon. That’s most of what you’ll taste, but we layered in fruity complexity with a moderate dry hopping with Amarillo and Citra, plus fermentation with 12 strains of Brettanomyces. We didn’t back-sweeten or add lactose, so don’t expect it to taste like fruit juice! I also wouldn’t call it a sour IPA as the hops are a complexity rather than the star.

Hop Swirl – 6.8% ABV: : Our extra-New England-y IPA! Hopped with a swirl of Sabro and Citra. Sabro brings a unique range of vanilla, fresh coconut, and tropical aromatics. We wanted to make an almost dessert-like IPA so we boosted the sweetness, and cut the bitterness. Fermented with our house English yeast.

Western Shore – 7.1% ABV: Our East Coast take on a West Coast IPA. Cleaner, drier, and bitterer than our standard IPAs. We dry hopped this one with Simcoe and Strata for a more dank aroma without the juicy frutiness our hazy IPAs usually have. It’s a bit clearer than our usual hoppy beers, but with 3+ lbs/bbl of dry hopping it isn’t crystal.

Grapefruit Cryovolcano – 7.9% ABV: Citra and Mosaic are two of our favorite hops. Together they provide an intense aroma of green pineapple, melon, and grapefruit. 25% of our 4.4 lbs per barrel triple-dry-hopping was with Citra and Mosaic Cryo. The hops already provide grapefruit aromatics, but we wanted to reinforce that with actual grapefruit zest for this 180 gallon mega-variant of Cryovolcano! It took 58 peels to get a citrusy aroma-boost, and slightly elevated bitterness.

Boom, Roasted! – 9.2% ABV: Our second stout, this time an English-inspired Imperial Oatmeal! That means it’s rich, strong, and malty. Flavors include: chocolate, toffee, and faintly woodsy.

Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9256 on: April 22, 2019, 04:07:15 pm »
I'm not trying to call you a plagiarizer ...but I'd like to hear your review of the beers
It's nice to copy from the site for spelling, ABV and style of beer, but weak sauce to put their description too
slack

Space Freely

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9257 on: April 22, 2019, 04:26:21 pm »
I'm not trying to call you a plagiarizer ...but I'd like to hear your review of the beers
It's nice to copy from the site for spelling, ABV and style of beer, but weak sauce to put their description too

Haha.

What stood out for me was that I really liked the mouthfeel of the hoppy beers. And the one sour was just right...sour, not sweet.

That's all I got.

K8teebug

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9258 on: April 23, 2019, 07:49:14 am »
Also, took a gamble on Sapwood today... I think you may have mentioned a long time ago that was your buddy, I split the sour club with a few folks.

NICE!  please please report back on their offerings.  i'd sign up for their club in a heartbeat if i could.

i know both guys behind the project - Mike, who literally wrote the book on american sours, and Scott, AKA Mr. Hop Science.  those two have forgotten more about making good beer than most folks will ever learn.  if their commercial output is anything like their homebrews, y'all in for a treat.

Sapwood is now open: Thur & Fri 4-10 PM, Sat Noon-10 PM. 

looking forward to reading a review (Space, you need to actually visit the place first).   

for the anoraks: blog post about brewing their APA

Finally made it to Sapwood on Saturday. We had to tack on 40 minutes of driving to accommodate a stop there....and damn, it was well work it. Their beers are fire. We also hit Monocacy in Frederick...quite respectable but not in the same league as Sapwood.

Good to know! In my hood!

sweetcell

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9259 on: April 24, 2019, 02:44:14 pm »

from the book of faces:

"3 Stars Brewing Company
Dropping our newest collab we did with Ocelot Brewing Company tomorrow at 4pm. The Power of Love is a 7.5% DDH Hazy IPA with a ton of Mosaic and Simcoe hops. Big notes of melon and candied peach rings lead into a nice dry finish. We love the spirit of collaboration in this industry and always optimize the opportunity to work with some of our best buds. Super limited with only about 100 cases. Don’t miss it. #madeindc #ddh #craftbeer #acreativedc"
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sweetcell

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9260 on: April 24, 2019, 04:48:17 pm »
This also was very interesting...super light and hop smell off the charts, but not a pallet buster
FLOORED NELSON - Pen Druid Collab w/ The Veil Brewing.
Coolshipped hoppy farmhouse N/A IBU  (is that weird? definitely had zero bitterness)

nope, not weird.  zero IBUs, or single-digit IBUs, are very typical of coolship beers.  one of the reasons you normally want IBUs is that they prevent beer from going sour: lactobacillus, a souring bacteria, is inhibited by just a few IBUs. 

but in case case of a coolship beer, or any sour beer, you want lacto to provide sourness - so you cut down, or cut out, the bittering.  another approach is to use aged hops where the alpha acids (which get isomerized into bitterness) have faded.

edit: just noticed on the Wit The Funk page: IBU = 0.

forgot to mention: the sourness in sour beer replaces the bitterness in clean beers.  if you don't add bitterness, or sourness, beer ends up being really sweet (and uninteresting, IMO) so you need to cut the sweetness with something.

and in a weird twist, bitterness and sourness don't go well together.  i once made a sour with a heavily hopped base - ended up tossing the whole batch, after a year of aging and then putting it on 10 pounds of apricots.  t'was heartbreaking (and undrinkable).
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sweetcell

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9261 on: April 24, 2019, 04:52:12 pm »
if you're ever in Fredneck again, check out Idiom Brewing Co.  they just released a pineapple and mango sour which is getting rave reviews, and are about to package a barrel-aged old ale that i'd love to try.

Idiom Brewing Co.
BEER RELEASE: BARREL-AGED OLD TIMES SAKE
(OLD ALE - 8.4%)
Remember back in December when we brewed an Old Ale and had it on tap? Well, the rest of that batch went into both McClintock Distilling Rye and Bourbon barrels.
We let the Old Ale age for 4 months and tasted the resulting product. Each variant was amazing in its own rite, but blending them together allowed the Old Ale to be something truly special!
We are super proud of it as it has all of the flavor contributions of both the Bourbon (vanilla, caramel, smooth) and the Rye (spice, oak).

i'd hit that.
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walkonbyeeeeeeeee

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9262 on: April 25, 2019, 10:31:49 am »
Had a good week, so decided to buy some beer from my local beer shoppe

DFH  Dragons and YumYums. The Flaming Lips collab

Cascade mini bottles of  Valley Flora and Brunch Line

walkonbyeeeeeeeee

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9263 on: April 25, 2019, 02:35:39 pm »
Had a good week, so decided to buy some beer from my local beer shoppe

DFH  Dragons and YumYums. The Flaming Lips collab

Cascade mini bottles of  Valley Flora and Brunch Line

Flaming Lips, the band . . . god like.  Flaming Lips the beer . . . strange and not really a flavor forward liquid, which shouldn't that be a bad thing?

sweetcell

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9264 on: April 25, 2019, 07:36:24 pm »
Flaming Lips the beer . . . strange and not really a flavor forward liquid, which shouldn't that be a bad thing?

depends what you like.  if you're into easy-drinking, don't-challenge-or-even-wake-my-palette beers, then it sounds great.  i try not to judge. i often fail.

let's hop (!) on the topic of band beers: band and brewery collaborations.... in my mind, the track record isn't great. 
- the sour clutch beer was pretty awful (they also called it a "Collabeeration", so they lose even more points for that)
- avoid the AC/DC beer.
- megadeth did a beer with unibroue that was pretty good. 
- i haven't had the iron maiden beer but its reviews aren't stellar.  they have a few others, like "hallowed" - also forgettable, apparently.
- predictably enough, primus beer sucks (both of them).
- i think i tried the gwar collab beer, but can't remember for sure

(to be clear, i'm talking about beers where the band/musician actually "collaborated" in its production, for whatever that's worth... i'm not talking about beers that were named after a band with no involvement, a la Abita Purple Haze...)
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hutch

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9265 on: April 25, 2019, 08:55:44 pm »
It’s gotten hard to find Rolling Rock....few stores carry it and even fewer bars serve it

Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9266 on: April 25, 2019, 11:17:10 pm »

let's hop (!) on the topic of band beers: band and brewery collaborations.... in my mind, the track record isn't great. 
I've had a NOFX IPA released pre-vegas that was drinkable
I wanted to, but was unable to try the  Guided by Voices DFH colab:  BEER Thousand....hutch, did you try this?
The GWAR one wasn't horrible, but wouldn't buy again (so I guess it was horrible)

Hadn't heard of this, but I think Smakie would approve


This also sounds good...great can art

slack

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9267 on: April 26, 2019, 08:49:24 am »
It’s gotten hard to find Rolling Rock....few stores carry it and even fewer bars serve it

I get Rolling Rock and Yeungling confused. I had to look up with one was Trumpsters.

hutch

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9268 on: April 26, 2019, 09:03:47 am »
Easy to do as both are blue collar beers from Pennsylvania where I am from

medeski7

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Re: The Beer Thread
« Reply #9269 on: April 26, 2019, 10:01:34 am »

let's hop (!) on the topic of band beers: band and brewery collaborations.... in my mind, the track record isn't great. 
I've had a NOFX IPA released pre-vegas that was drinkable
I wanted to, but was unable to try the  Guided by Voices DFH colab:  BEER Thousand....hutch, did you try this?
The GWAR one wasn't horrible, but wouldn't buy again (so I guess it was horrible)

Hadn't heard of this, but I think Smakie would approve


This also sounds good...great can art


I had the version of Stay Gold that was done with RTJ and Burial.  I also had the one with Interboro.  Both were very good.  If they are continuing to replicate the same beer, it should be quite good.

I had the Iron Maiden Trooper English Brown.  It was pretty good as well.