New Beer Friday 3/22/24

First off: Congrats to Red Rock Brewing Company for 30 damn years of excellent beers. It's one of the state's most awarded breweries and we're so lucky to still have them around. To celebrate they've brewed a special Rum Barrel-aged Baltic Porter. There's a wide array of other new beers  as well, Happy New New Beer Friday.

Today's Beer Nerd Radio features a deep dive on Barrel-aged beers. Six different beer styles in six different barrels. Our Guinea pigs... errr guest annalists, Elle Alva and Craig Folkman will need to have their constitutions in order. The chaos begins at 2pm on 99.9FM KUAA.

Red Rock - Swan Lake: This rum barrel-aged Baltic Porter was brewed to celebrate Red Rock's 30th Anniversary. Nose of deeply roasted malts, light coffee, dark bakers chocolate, light vanilla, and sweet dark brown sugars. Flavors exceed the nose with rich deeply roasted malts on all sides, subtle char, dark bakers chocolate, and hints of raisins. Middle to rear of the palate features dark coffee and light vanilla blending nicely with brown sugars and very light rum notes that are easily taken for brown sugars. Finish is deeply roasted bitter malts with a lightly carbonated and lightly slick mouth feel that goes down very nicely. 7.8% - Available Saturday at all RR locations.

Shades - Razstachio Sour: This is Shades' Kveik base enhanced with raspberries and pistachios. There's a medium amount of raspberry jam with a complimentary nuttiness. It comes across as a raspberries and pistachio ice cream or sorbet. Good stuff. 6.5% - Available at Shades.

Bewilder - Big Crispy: A transparent pale golden body with faintly tropical, grassy, and mildly spicy hops aroma. Mildly sweet, crackery malt backdrop. Taste is pretty nice too, with a bit more malt mid-palate before yielding to moderate bitterness. Heavy on the lemon and grapefruit, with a bit of grass in there too. Crisp, clean, dry, lager. Higher carbonation, with lingering hop oils and resins on the palate. No obvious alcohol. A really solid, drinkable, hoppy lager. 6.0% - Available at Bewilder today.

RoHa - The Great White Buffalo: This new White Stout has a moderate body with the help of lactose sugar. This light colored stout gets its flavor from resting on coffee beans, cacao nibs and vanilla. The additions of these flavors give the perceived roasty flavor while keeping the beer light in color. 5.0% - Available at RoHa today.

Beer Zombies - Dead Balls: Aroma was a bit pappery with some mosaic hops mixed in. Nothing like that flavor-wise: stone fruit big-time with citrus and mango. Sweet-ish (not Swedish) finish. Solid. Glad Beer Zombies hasn’t forgotten about SLC. 8.5% - Only at Beer Zombies

Beer Zombies - Crowns, Hammers and Zombies: Smells like It’s on the edge of its, best by date. Flavor has a nice hop profile with a good dose of bittering hops combined with citrus zest, herbal hops spruce & berries. Like this one better than Dead Balls. It’s got some hop bite for balance. 8.5% - Only at Beer Zombies

Beer Zombies - Return of the Living Haze: Two of my fav hops in one IPA (Citra Mosaic). It’s simple and reliable. It has the tangerine peel, mango, melon that I like. Tasty stuff. 8.5% - Only at Beer Zombies.

Here are this week's Small Batch Beers from Hopkins Brewing.

Cheers!