F - Hopweizen Mandarina Bavaria
Brasseurs Illimités

 

 

Bottle: Poured a dirty beige color weizen with a large off-white foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of wheat malt with dry herbal hops notes. Taste is a mix of wheat malt with light bubblegum notes with quite a bit of dry herbal hoppy notes. Body is about average with good carbonation. I thought the beer was too dry for its own good and the herbal notes of the Bavaria hops are not something I would seek on a regular basis.

No bottled date (though this was just released, so some time in the past 2 weeks), poured into a weizen glass. I classified this for now as a American Pale Wheat Ale, as it is called a "Hopweizen" and does focus a bit more on the hops and malts.

A: Light golden amber, lots of lovely Hef carbonation and bubbles exploding upwards in the glass.... nice head on pour but the volume dies off more quickly than a traditional German Hef...but it does stay around in a thin layer on top, and leaves small traces of lace.

S: Straight away you get your nice wheat, banana aromas, buttery, but unlike other hef's not very spicy with almost no hints of clove. Despite being a hop focused weisse, I don't get much hops on the nose, and if anything slightly sweet malt aromas.

T: Smooth with nothing largely standing out, not a lot of spice or tartness, with perhaps a very light amount of the wheat flavoured bubblegum. Light amount of fruitiness, pretty malty and slightly sweet overall, with a nice light blast of bitterness on the finish.

M: Fair amount of carbonation, a nice Hef amount, though overall quite smooth, balanced and more buttery than dry I find, even with the hop focus.

O: Overall you can always count on B. Illimites to make good quality beers, and this is no exception. The problem is that while this "Letter" series are attempts to slightly modify your standard recipes, this one fails a bit in that it doesn't go far enough. It's all very neat and tidy, but nothing stands out, it's neither a more complex but well done German Weisse style, nor is it a really interesting hopped American wheat ale.... it just is a nice wheat ale with some slight hop and wheat/banana undertones. Decent enough for sitting on the patio on a hot Montreal day, but I probably wouldn't buy it again at the price of 10$ for a 750ml bottle when I can get a good German one for cheaper...