500ml bottle of 4.5% ABV beer, that's about 1.8 standard drink units. 4.5% ABV surprised me, for no reason other than expectation I was expecting more (obviously).The head brewers mother comes from Hall in Tirol, Austria, so this top fermented, cloudy Bavarian ale is a small tribute to one of the most wonderful people in the world. True to style, it contains 50% malted wheat and uses a yeast strain imported fromWeihenstephan, Germany.
It's also unpasturized and unfiltered. So "pour with care" I'm mumbling under my breath. They promise a classic wheat beer with hints of banana and cloves.
There's nothing remarkable in the aroma, apart from the lack of an aroma. It's slightly darker than I thought it would be, and the lower carbonation means of course that it struggles with a head.
There's nothing remarkable in the taste either, mostly the fizz of bubbles masking whatever is underneath it. If you squint you could imagine a banana taste, if you really try. As for cloves, they are pretty understated to the point of absence.
Also not cloudy.
So of the three things that I think I'd like in a wheat beer, in no particular order; Golden yellow colour, cloudy in appearance and tasty of lemons or citrus, what I get in this is a glass of fizzy water.
The pdubyah-o-meter casts this a poor 4 on it's scale of things, and an indication that you'd do well to miss this, as the brewer may have given it a crack but has also missed the target, badly and awfully.
And that's never a good thing. To their credit they didn't make up that it was a hybrid brew or a special concoction they've gone balls out and called it. Disastrous.
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That's a very old bottle of beer you've used in your review. That particular label design would suggest it could be as much as three years old by the time you drank it. I think it's fair to say that it probably wasn't the best example of Martin Townshend's brewing ability.
ReplyDeleteIm not surprised. I think it would have been a fine beer if it was fresh. I'm sure most beer gets here quicker than 3 years :)
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