The Bar Towel

Craig wrote:

Blasphomet wrote:

Blasphomet wrote:Pretty sure I still see Cuvee on shelves... have all year. Need to drink my '12 bottle.

So I drank my '12 NB Cuvee tonight. Wow... totally different then I remember. Even from the '13. Much more funky and sour. Still some of the barrel, but mostly a sour. Weird.

No kidding? It went sour?

I had a 13 maybe a week ago and it wasn't sour at all. Different from fresh, but not sour. I guess I'll have to hold on to at least one bottle and see what it's like with another year on it.

The Cuvee isn't the best beer in the world, but I really like it as a different treat to pull from the cellar every now and then. It's pretty unique.

Some of my favourite beers were unintentional sours. I hope my 3 cellared Cuvee's all go sour

midlife crisis wrote:

liamt07 wrote:Nickelbrook is consistently underwhelming across the board.

Disagree. Equilibrium ESB, Immodest IIPA, the recently released Wet Hop are all excellent. Naughty Neighbour a very good standard quaffer. Bolshevik Bastard and Headstock are good too. What do you want? Perhaps some of their barrel aged efforts haven't been consistently great, but they are one of our better brewers IMO.

I have to agree with this - The first year of Old Kentucky and Winey, they were knock outs! I suspect they haven't replenished their barrel stores, but hopefully that changes - be nice to get some relatively still wet barrels for aging, rather than using the same ones over and over.

I agree that the Cuvee is pretty "Meh". But their other one-offs are generally quite excellent and consistent. My only regret is I miss the old (red) version of headstock.

Nicklebrook strikes me as one of our top notch brewers that tend to fly under the radar.

boney wrote:

Craig wrote:

Blasphomet wrote: So I drank my '12 NB Cuvee tonight. Wow... totally different then I remember. Even from the '13. Much more funky and sour. Still some of the barrel, but mostly a sour. Weird.

No kidding? It went sour?

I had a 13 maybe a week ago and it wasn't sour at all. Different from fresh, but not sour. I guess I'll have to hold on to at least one bottle and see what it's like with another year on it.

The Cuvee isn't the best beer in the world, but I really like it as a different treat to pull from the cellar every now and then. It's pretty unique.

Some of my favourite beers were unintentional sours. I hope my 3 cellared Cuvee's all go sour

Make sure you guys keep in touch when you drink your aged Cuvee. I will definitely be olding onto my 13 now for another year. I enjoyed it fresh, but with two years, a complete about-face. I'm curious if it is common for the beer.

JeffPorter wrote:

midlife crisis wrote:

liamt07 wrote:Nickelbrook is consistently underwhelming across the board.

Disagree. Equilibrium ESB, Immodest IIPA, the recently released Wet Hop are all excellent. Naughty Neighbour a very good standard quaffer. Bolshevik Bastard and Headstock are good too. What do you want? Perhaps some of their barrel aged efforts haven't been consistently great, but they are one of our better brewers IMO.

I have to agree with this - The first year of Old Kentucky and Winey, they were knock outs! I suspect they haven't replenished their barrel stores, but hopefully that changes - be nice to get some relatively still wet barrels for aging, rather than using the same ones over and over.

I agree that the Cuvee is pretty "Meh". But their other one-offs are generally quite excellent and consistent. My only regret is I miss the old (red) version of headstock.

Nicklebrook strikes me as one of our top notch brewers that tend to fly under the radar.

I hope that they start to not fly under the radar. Avoided by the ignorant. Nickel Brook do important things. Always an instant buy.

Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

liamt07 wrote:Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

Good call, it was a bitter mess when I had it about a month ago.

liamt07 wrote:Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

I admit I don't really know what a rice IPA should look like, but I picked a bottle off the shelves at RBC Plaza a couple weeks ago, and the amount of stuff floating at the bottom almost turned my stomach, so I wanted nothing to do with it.

GreatCop wrote:

liamt07 wrote:Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

I admit I don't really know what a rice IPA should look like, but I picked a bottle off the shelves at RBC Plaza a couple weeks ago, and the amount of stuff floating at the bottom almost turned my stomach, so I wanted nothing to do with it.

Rice is just an adjunct, like corn sugar, table sugar, etc.. It's used to boost the gravity and lighten the body and malt flavour. Both of those things are desirable in a DIPA so rice makes sense. They could easily have just used simple sugar like every other DIPA brewer out there.

ercousin wrote:

GreatCop wrote:

liamt07 wrote:Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

I admit I don't really know what a rice IPA should look like, but I picked a bottle off the shelves at RBC Plaza a couple weeks ago, and the amount of stuff floating at the bottom almost turned my stomach, so I wanted nothing to do with it.

Rice is just an adjunct, like corn sugar, table sugar, etc.. It's used to boost the gravity and lighten the body and malt flavour. Both of those things are desirable in a DIPA so rice makes sense. They could easily have just used simple sugar like every other DIPA brewer out there.

And lose all that novelty value?!

I assume it might have been bottle conditioned with the amount of sediment. Nothing wrong or scary about that.

It being several month old when it hit the shelves in June, that's a little bit more of a problem. And the age it is now, I cannot imagine it's keeping well at store temps!

as an aside, there are many LCBO stores where I will not buy spirits from.
they have them on shelves against windows. windows that let in UV and warm, warm sunbeams.
you think these morons would know how to run a proper liquor store....

atomeyes wrote:as an aside, there are many LCBO stores where I will not buy spirits from.
they have them on shelves against windows. windows that let in UV and warm, warm sunbeams.
you think these morons would know how to run a proper liquor store....

You mean the green bottles of Saison Dupont shouldn't be in that giant window box at Summerhill?! I thought the heat and light just quick aged the beer! It's like a 3 year old bottle!! They should charge extra!

Blasphomet wrote:

Blasphomet wrote:Pretty sure I still see Cuvee on shelves... have all year. Need to drink my '12 bottle.

So I drank my '12 NB Cuvee tonight. Wow... totally different then I remember. Even from the '13. Much more funky and sour. Still some of the barrel, but mostly a sour. Weird.

Same experience here. Had a 12 and 13 vertical and the 12 definitely went sour but no traces of the same happening in the 13. I liked the unintentional sour way more. The 12 also went all Krakatoa on me.

ercousin wrote:

liamt07 wrote:Parallel 49 Snap Crackle Pop Imperial Rice IPA showed up at my local this week. Case was dated Exx14, (can't remember what the xx's were, but they were in the 10-20 range), indicating that they were bottled back in May.

Avoiding like the plague.

Good call, it was a bitter mess when I had it about a month ago.

I wish I'd checked for a date code... I bought one of these and it was bloody awful. I almost never ( like less than five in history ) condemn a beer as a drain pour but this gets that title. I didn't finish the glass I poured. I had had a few others that night and just left it sitting on the counter. When I looked in the morning there was close to an inch of sludge at the bottom of my cup. I don't mind some sediment, left over yeast can sometimes add a nice dimension but this was just nasty.

JeffPorter wrote: have to agree with this - The first year of Old Kentucky and Winey, they were knock outs! I suspect NB haven't replenished their barrel stores, but hopefully that changes - be nice to get some relatively still-wet barrels for aging, rather than using the same ones over and over.

Right, just old used up wood doesn't really impart favor, and I do remember the first barrel releases -they tasted like bourbon or wine was directly added, almost over the top like it was meant to be for a 50:50 blend but instead they kept it pure and ferocious. A top Toronto exbeerience!

Belgian wrote:

JeffPorter wrote: have to agree with this - The first year of Old Kentucky and Winey, they were knock outs! I suspect NB haven't replenished their barrel stores, but hopefully that changes - be nice to get some relatively still-wet barrels for aging, rather than using the same ones over and over.

Right, just old used up wood doesn't really impart favor, and I do remember the first barrel releases -they tasted like bourbon or wine was directly added, almost over the top like it was meant to be for a 50:50 blend but instead they kept it pure and ferocious. A top Toronto exbeerience!

Yeah, agree, the barrel was really forward on both the Kentucky and Winey in the first year and more subdued in year 2. I love aggressive, wine barrel forward beers, so I preferred the first year of WB. In terms of bourbon, I like a little more of a subtle approach where the bourbon is a complementary note rather than a unmistakable central focus, so I actually liked last years KB a little better. I'll be interested to see what this years versions are like.