Sunshower Maibock
Royal Oak Brewery

No head with a golden orange color. Smell of rotten vegetables and fruit, stings the nose, and potatoes. Taste is light mouth feel, smooth, minor minor crispness, fruity taste, minor bitter, earthy hops, banana some raisin and dried fruit.

 

Appearance: a light orange color, perfectly clear and with a bubbly white head.

Smell: sweet lager and earthy hops

Taste: a well balanced bitter and sweet taste. nicely balanced

Mouthfeel: a little bit odd. but overall drinkable and lighter

Overall: one of the better maibocks i have had. definitely well done and balanced

This brew was served from the tap at Royal Oak Brewery in Royal Oak, Michigan. It arrived in a generic pint glass, showing the lightest copper coloring. It held a half finger tall head of creamy eggshell colored bubbles. This showed poor retention, leaving chunky sheets of lacing as it went. No haze or sediment was noted, and clarity was high. Carbonation appeared to be light. The aroma gave apricot sweetness, dried floral hop petals, soft caramel grain, metallic adjuncts, white flour, whole milk sweetness, honeydew melon, and concord grape sugars. With warmth came more syrupy caramels, spicy boozy, and phenolic chemical bite. Our first impression was that the flavoring was nice to style, with great bittering spice on the back to balance the inherent sweetness of the grain. As we sipped, the taste opened with light banana esters, chalky Pez candy sweetness, fizzy lime soda sugars, bittered grassy malts, and faint citric hops. The middle came to a peak with chemical bite, toasty pales, light buttery caramel malts, iced water wash, and light wheatiness. Washing through the finish was that aromatic grapey sweetness, caramel and amber maltiness, metallic yeast bitterness, strawberry fruitiness, and faint citric and floral hops. The aftertaste breathed of ripe banana peel, soured lemon rind, mild floral hops, penicillin twang, bittered poppy seed, metallic adjuncts, tin, fusel booze, and sunflower stems. The body was medium, and the carbonation was medium, but with bubbly prickle. Each sip gave soft slurp, cream, froth, smack, and finishing pop. The mouth was left crisply dried, with eventual pucker from the bitterness, all following the initial dripping wet coating. The abv was appropriate, and the beer drank easily.

Overall, what we liked best about this beer was its flavoring. While the ultimate blend was not as smooth as you might expect for a Maibock, the flavoring was robust enough to wake you up. The sweetness was there, but the blend played a bit far to the bitter side, making it less cloying and easier drinking. The aroma showed a bit more fruit than we would like, especially with warmth, and again, the malts never quite met to blend. This was a good shot for the style, and very seasonable, but the final picture just wasn’t cohesive enough to bump it to the next level.