Haandbrygerriet Bavarian Weizen

Unfortunate dark photo. These beers cost money y'know so it's the power that has to go.

This beer is Haand's effort at producing a Bavarian Weissbier with a wheat yeast, yielding in their words less banana, and more tartness than usual. Sounds like a nice approach to me with the potential to combine the strengths, and assuage the weaknesses of a couple of promising styles.

This bottle while in code was not the freshest, but the pour performed nicely with an opaque body and lemon / citrus / coriander head. It may be the age but I found a really pleasant malty quality to this beer, slightly unexpected from a weizen. The wheat yeast does its job too to keep it crisp and clean but still characterful.

Carbonation got in the way a little bit here, too strong front of mouth before the comparatively heavy body arrives, but again could be a symptom of the less than fresh bottle. Regardless, this is not your typical sort of Weizen perhaps but I find I kind of like it. 7.5

McAuslan St Ambroise Apricot Wheat Ale

Darkish pour for a 5% beer, and no real head to speak of. Both easily enough explained by the way this is, well, an apricot wheat ale of all things.

For me at least buying a beer like this is an interesting experience, as expectations are set kind of low for the most part, but matched against a thin ray of hope it may be a flavour sensation. In this case, you first encounter a nose reminiscent an alcoholic apricot marmalade, thick, heavy, syrupy and sweet. Taste is definitely apricot, with a welcome spicy citrus finish. Sort of like a liquid apricot danish in places.

I'm not sure if this is brewed with fruit - or more correctly, how the fruit is used to achieve this effect, but it's reasonably heavy to me particularly for the 5%.

Overall, not my favourite beer but hey - I didn't really expect it to be. This does exactly what it says it would, and there's no point getting upset about that. Nice work, interesting idea well executed. 7.0

Weihenstephaner Kristal Weissbier

Back to that oldest of old breweries Weihenstephaner for another of their wheat beers.

This one is a little different however as it counts as a Kristalweizen - essentially a filtered clear Hefeweizen variant. It certainly pours - literally, there's no other word I can think of - crystal clear up front, with a pretty enthusiastic head. Careful you don't just dump it in there, or you might end up drowning. Or looking like Santa Claus.

I got lemon more than banana from this on both aroma and taste, along with the standard wheat beer mouthfeel and fizzy refreshing delivery. It's tasty enough in its way and a genuine contender, but I just found it a bit boring compared to something with a bit more presence and flavour.

Maybe a style thing more than anything, but just a bit uninspiring overall. 6.5

Haandbryggeriet Dark Force

A nice quiet introduction to this Norwegian brewer with a double imperial wheat stout.

Wait, what?

For a beer so removed from the norm, this doesn't really show it with a lovely mocha coloured vortex-like head atop a solid black body. The aroma likewise is largely in line with typical imperial stout characteristics though there is an element of clean, non-fruity booze and a slight edge of what could possibly be the wheat in there also.

First reaction on sipping is a bit of soy that keeps on through the mouthful. There's sufficient malt backing and imperial malt fruit there too, but it all seems a bit more 'front of mouth' than the norm for the more rounded (.. or maybe just non-wheat) examples of this style.

After the initial shock it's more or less a regulation imperial stout, just perhaps a bit cleaner, a bit lighter, and a bit .. well, less good. In saying that though I fully approve of this effort to do something different and it's far from a failure, delivering a solid body and some nice roasty flavours in there along the way. Interesting - a good effort. 7.5

Moon Dog Melon Gibson

Well this was a bit of a surprise.

Fresh from the berserk triumph that was their brown ale I came into this one fully expecting a crazed approach to melon beer. Instead .. well the aroma is reasonably tame wheat beer territory, with just a hint of melon on the end. OK, said I, it's a hidden watermelon dagger they be wielding, surely the taste will be Cucurbitaceariffic.

This too however is pretty damn tame, pretty much a relatively plain seeming wheat beer through and through. There are vague hints of melon around the edges, yes - but I feel like I would have preferred them to make a less drinkable beer that was some sort of a statement, rather than this halfway there effort. As it is, this is neither progressive gimmick nor taste sensation, and I can't much see the point. 4.0

Blanche de Namur

Finally trying this stalwart classic.

Smells delicious out of the bottle I must say, fruity and spicy, resinous. Big foamy head soon crashes in on itself. It's pretty opaque and cloudy, filled with particles. Maybe odd filtering?

Interesting to drink - sharp and tart to begin with, then develops fruits and malts as it goes. Banana's probably the main message but it's controlled. Controlled banana is better than rampant uncontrolled banana that's for sure. Ask anyone.

This banana has lemon for a friend too. Nice finish leaves you wanting more. Just 4.5% means it's pretty drinkable too. I enjoyed this. 7.5

8 Wired Haywired

Hooray, 8 Wired finally on tap. Our bartender at Sail and Anchor says he specifically lined up his holidays so he could come in (to work) to get blasted while they had 8 Wired. Sensible bloke.

All sorts of fruits here throughout the aroma and the beer itself, a veritable medley of plum, peach, melno, passionfruit, pineapple at turns. Very unlike any wheat based effort I've tried before. There's not much malt in the mid body, but it's all replaced by a nice uncompromisingly bitter finish that prevents it all from cloying.

I suppose it's a little heavy in the mouth for its ABV. But when it's so flavoursome it's hard to really care. Lovely stuff. 8.0