Årh Hvad?! (BA Chardonnay)
Mikkeller ApS

 

 

 

 

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor in Edmonton.

This beer pours a mildly hazy, medium orange-tinted amber hue, with one finger of lazily foamy, and mostly just flatly bubbly beige head, which leaves some random amorphous blob lace around the glass as it quickly recedes.

It smells of fruity, slightly funky white wine must, grainy pale malt, faint white pepper, crisp, yet baked at the same time red apples, musty oak staves, earthy yeast, and a bit of leafy, weedy hops. The taste kicks off with a gritty, buttery woodiness, one which only slowly reels out the inherent vinous fruitiness, over a subtly funky yeast-inflected pale graininess, a bit of generic stone fruit orchard character, a touch of non-threatening alcohol, and more leafy, weedy hops.

The carbonation is pretty low-key and hard to discern at times in its benign frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and not really smooth, but not really not, if you get my drift. It finishes fairly dry, the tame funky yeast and grainy pale malt kind of sloughing off the initially pushy/endearing white wine barrel, er, 'goodness'.

While I have nothing against the Chardonnay varietal itself, I sort of treat it like I would a proper IPA - just keep yer damned dirty wood away from it, and all's well, mate! Here, that's not such a big deal, as a bit of oak can be accommodated easily enough by the complex yeast, it would seem, in its once again laid-back funkitude. Another interesting, if not altogether persisting barrel experiment, and one perhaps a lot less than worthy of the (literal, here) sticker price.