2017 SEQ Christmas Case Swap - Tasting thread

[benken25]

17. Zorco multi strain Belgian. Pours lively but the head sits a good 3mm the whole glass and laces nicely. Carbed perfectly for a Belgian. I get a hint of spice,pepper sweet bready malt and a hint of brett? From the aroma and flavour is much the same. Really enjoyed this beer i wonder how a bit of age would treat it

 

[pcqypcqy]

Yeah, worked out it needed to be decanted straight away upon opening mate...and thanks, it's a pretty nice beer without the carb issues. Will be playing this one again.

I'm glad I saw this advice first, we went straight into a jug and it was then OK. It fairly jumped out of the bottle. I agree with what you say, it tasted very clean without any hint of infection issues, so just a simple case of too much sugar or ferment not quite done?

 

[pcqypcqy]

1- pcgypcgys Julebryg
Yuge malty spicey nose, flavour, same, boozey, chewy and nice spice mix - I'd prefer it a bit drier since it seemed under attenuated, but pretty enjoyable even in this heat

Don't have my notes in front of me but from memory I mashed fairly high intentionally to get some residual sweetness to it.

Glad it's holding up in the heat, I tried some on xmas day but had bumped the keg and this tends to resuspend all the spice mud at the bottom of the keg, making it quite undrinkable for a bit. I had transfered between kegs a few times in the months leading up to the swap, and then discarded quite a few jugs prior to bottling for the swap to try to get those bottles as clean as possible.

After tasting a commercial julebryg the other day (Red Hill Christmas Ale), I think next time I will probably dial the spices back a little and tweak the balance.

 

[pcqypcqy]

I've added a tab to the spreadsheet so everyone can give their 3/2/1 points for their top 3 beers.

Find your name across the top, then fill in your points against the relevant beers in the orange section.

 

[pcqypcqy]

Shared these with the missus and a friend:

3 madpierre red rye saison

Did gush, but with forewarning we poured into a jug first. Quite nice, some nice malt sweetness balanced with some good saison character. I was expecting this to be bad due to the gushing but it’s quite clean. A very good beer.


17 Zorco Belgian Multistrain

Peppery, cloves, quite a lot of saison character there. Was Belgian farmhouse one of the strains? I did one recently with 3726 and it quite a lot of the same character. We got too drunk to really critique it but we all really enjoyed it on a warm arvo.


2 madpierre robust porter

Ticking boxes as a porter, though I dunno if I’d call it robust, getting there but not quite (on my personal scale). Still, beautiful rich flavour though, held up as it got warmer in the glass. Cracking beer.


23 winkle buckwheat

Interesting balance between the roast and the fruitiness of the buckwheat. Has a clovey/medicinal aroma going on, but it doesn’t come through in the flavour. It is a bit light on the malt backbone as mentioned previously, but it's not far off. Took me quite a while to finish it because I kept trying to dissect every sip, and couldn't work it out. This was a very interesting and well put together beer.

 

[madpierre06]

I'm glad I saw this advice first, we went straight into a jug and it was then OK. It fairly jumped out of the bottle. I agree with what you say, it tasted very clean without any hint of infection issues, so just a simple case of too much sugar or ferment not quite done?

Ta mate, yeah, I'm thinking it came down to not being fermented out fully. Going around again, what interests me is it's 8% and there's been no comments about this, from my tasting, the alcohol didn't show up overly...till I tried to get out of the chair. Mind you, there'd been a couple other biggish beers accompanying it.

 

[pcqypcqy]

Ta mate, yeah, I'm thinking it came down to not being fermented out fully. Going around again, what interests me is it's 8% and there's been no comments about this, from my tasting, the alcohol didn't show up overly...till I tried to get out of the chair. Mind you, there'd been a couple other biggish beers accompanying it.

Yeah, we didn't notice it until our fronts fell off afterwards, which is why we rushed through Zorco's beer without taking any notes.

 

[benken25]

12. Angus imperial porter. Malt bomb great colour and i want more

 

[Insensate]

12. Angus imperial porter. Malt bomb great colour and i want more

I can’t wait to try this one. Saving it for this weekend

 

[angus_grant]

Finally cracking into the swap beers. Xmas/new years has been hectic and only really relaxing now.

Had 1 & 5 julebergs before Xmas but didn't post reviews.
1 juleberg reminded me of a spicy warm dark belgian beer. Really well made and I enjoyed it.

5 Juleberg: to be honest, this was the last beer at the end of a big night. From very frazzled memory, not as much spice and "non-beer" flavours as #1 juleberg.
Apologies for the **** review.

 

[angus_grant]

#2 hoppy saison

Highly carbonated to style. The massive head was due to me picking the wrong glass. These rogue glasses really trap carbonation.

Edit:seems other people got the massive lasting head in normal glasses. Nice one

Nice peppery aroma and the foam I had to chew through had some nice hop bitterness in it.

Good presence of spicy peppery saison flavours in the up front flavour, and some solid hop flavour in after taste.

Just about the right balance of classic saison flavours to hop. If I was being really picky, I'd like a little less hops in the after taste. Really good beer.

 

[angus_grant]

#11 zombie dust clone

Enjoyed this beer. Not had the original zombie dust so can't comment on the cloning.

I kept thinking grape fruit in aroma and taste, but I know that's not right. Can't quite put my finger on the main flavour.

Great beer though.

 

[angus_grant]

#6 pepper with saison added.

Very lively carbonation and a massive head. Stuck around for a while and subsided.

Pepper flavours were a bit much when cold but the saison flavours balanced out when warmed up.

I did not get any band aid, but slight musty brett flavours. I wonder if the band aid was an off flavour from the brett fermenting in the bottle.

Really enjoyed this when warmed up.

 

[benken25]

16. Martins blueberry hefe. Hit the spot on a hot afternoon post brew. I think the fruit adds a slight tartness that works well

 

[angus_grant]

#22 belgian ale

A great beer. Some really nice belgian characteristics in aroma and flavour.

I've taken a while to drink this, and it's gotten fairly warm. Still tasting great. A sign of a well made beer.

 

[angus_grant]

For some reason the image I attached to my post is secured.

 

[pcqypcqy]

Because I'm as bored AF at work, I've taken all the reviews and recipes provided thus far and sorted them out in the spreadsheet. Additional tabs at the bottom.

So now all reviews by a person are collated down the columns, and all reviews of a beer are collated across the rows.

SPREADSHEETS!

 

[madpierre06]

Because I'm as bored AF at work, I've taken all the reviews and recipes provided thus far and sorted them out in the spreadsheet. Additional tabs at the bottom.

So now all reviews by a person are collated down the columns, and all reviews of a beer are collated across the rows.

SPREADSHEETS!

Exceellent!!! I was gonna have to go through and see which ones I'd missed putting up....don't ever let me disparage engineers again.

 

[Randai]

18 @nickxb - barrel aged something amber maybe.
Appearance: Dark brown. Almost no head. Not cloudy/murky, quite clear when held up at an angle.
Aroma: Huge barrel smell. Not sure of the wood, but its definitely that wood flavour there. Makes me think of some ciders I used to drink, that were barrel aged. Moderately sweet malt smelling after the onslaught of barrel smell is gone.
Actually an update, sweet caramel on the nose for me.
Flavour: Sweet, that sort of spirit flavour in the background (maybe because I associate it with spirits in barrels). Really not much bitterness. Not boozy. Sweetish malt. But honestly the barrel/wood does dominate.
Mouthfeel: Surprisingly dry. I think the tannic nature of wood dries it out more than you'd expect.
Overall: If you don't like wood aged beers this isn't for you. But as I do, this is great, more so than great. Probably in my top three so far. Its big, malty, barrel aged goodness in a glass.
Thanks for the top beer.

 

[pcqypcqy]

11 zombie dust

Interesting beer. Nice balance between hops and malt. Massive orange / citrus aroma and flavour that you can smell across the room.

Maybe not grapefruit as suggested earlier, but blood orange? Even like an essential oil or liqueur orange aroma/flavour? Sort of sickly sweet, and potentially overpowers the beer, but there’s no malt sweetness there so that’s more our perception of the aroma probably.

Somehow reminds us of a cooking ingredient, we just can’t put our finger on it. Was this spiced or anything?

This isn’t to say it’s not great, just trying to pin down the aroma and flavour. I quite liked it and my wife says it’s in her top three.

I think we finally settled on candied peel as he flavour/aroma.

5 roger julebryg

Quite nice, much more delicate with the spice than mine was. I need to dial mine back I think, but interesting to see the comparison between darker and lighter versions. Did you do yours as a lager or an ale?

Somehow reminds us of the zombie dust we just had, the spices are hitting the same receptors. Did you use orange peel in this?

I think overall the flavour I’m getting from both is candied peel.

9 roger Smoked porter

Pretty solid. Good level of smoke, nice porter underneath. Almost has a wood aged character to it. This is very good. So good it will get an honourable mention.

12 Angus imperial porter

Rich, winey, delicate. Hides the imperial level booze well. Also had a wood aged character to it, did you oak it at all? It’s like a beautiful big piece of home made caramels on a glass. This is ******* phenomenal and is my third top three beer. Well done.

*********************************************************************************

And that's me done.

My 3 2 1's are:

3 points: 14 crowmanz tassie saison
2 points: 18 Nickxb imperial amber ale
1 point: 12 angus imperial porter

Special mentions to a Roger for his smoked porter, Zorco for his multi strain Belgian, and Seehuusen for his blueberry hefe, which was simply outstanding.

My wife's top 3 were:

3 points: 11 insensate zombie dust
2 points: 12 angus imperial porter
1 point: 15 benken25 saison (though where's the smoke?)