Itaipava Light
Cervejaria Petrópolis

 

 

Very light yellow color with a thin head with low retention.
Really unpleasant aroma, notes of corn, cooked vegetables, butter, mild honey and some white bread.
Flavor gets a bit better while cold, its body is so light you can actually feel some herbal hops, notes of non-malted cereals, lemon, and big on diacetyl.
Watery body with good carbonation.
Hard to do it worse, well, being sweeter could make it worse.

Straight pour from 250ml twist-off GREEN GLASS bottle to a large wineglass, because you might as well give a beer like this a fighting chance. Freshness date of October 9, 2012 printed clearly in black ink on the shoulder of the bottle (“09/10/12 2111126 1”).

Appearance (2.0): This beer looks like sauvignon blanc with a half-centimeter of crackly bubbles sitting on top. Pale yellow, crystal clear, a head that quickly fades to patches of film on top, streams of little bubbles racing from the bottom. Couple of lazy legs of lace, though.

Smell (1.5): You know what? It kind of smells like wine, too: slightly minerally, hint of alcohol in the nose (no idea why, though—it’s 3.5% ABV), it actually does kind of smell like wine, but maybe a pinot grigio instead of sauv blanc. Faint cooked vegetables and mild skunk.

Taste (1.5): An odd mineral flavor leads the very short-lived charge, and mild skunk slinks in the backgroud—leaves an unpleasant, if incredibly mild, metallic taste through the finish. This is not good, but it’s not downright disgusting, either. Oy, vey.

Mouthfeel (2.0): Low-key foaming as it goes down, not dry or slick or anything else: it simply has the almost the exact same body and character of water, except that it kind of foams as it goes down. So, it’s quenching, I guess.

Overall (1.5): This may be the lightest beer I’ve ever had, in every regard, since I’ve paid any attention to what beer I was pouring into my mouth. It’s like the second runnings of Heineken were taken and filtered to hell. Watered down, not wholly offensive but also not good in any respect, either. Usually I write a lot in these reviews, but I’m not sure that there’s anything more to say about this beer.