Hi-Wire Loves CLT (Summer Crush)
Hi-Wire Brewing

Not much nose or overall taste.

 

16 oz can poured into a tulip glass, a clear gold with just a thin rim of lace. Aroma of grains, salt, and peppery spice. Taste is crisp saltiness, moderately sour, with a grain/yeast finish with perhaps some grassy ness to it. Feel is light, carbonation medium though a touch smooth, making this eminently drinkable in the heat. Glad to see these two doing a collaboration. Collabrioplasty!

 

Teaming up with Ole Mecklenberg, the breweries look to local malts and a teamwork mindset for a jam session for the tastebuds. Their Berlinerweiss is its own love fest.

Pale straw and caught in a cloudy haze, Hi-Wire Loves CLT crushes the summer heat with a classic tart scent of sourdough, citrus, berry, green fruit and a musty wheat germ character that hovers gently over a brief white foam. Light sweetness of sourdough, taffy and powdered sugar graces the early palate briefly before dissolving.

That leaves the middle palate tart, dry and refreshing, starting with the citrusy taste of lime, lemon, gooseberry and apple. Quite cidery with a pep of white wine, the flavors trend crisply acidic with a bready balance. A light salinity plays out much more like Gose than Berliner-styled sour ale, and its fuller sourdough linger suggests much the same.

Medium bodied and moderately sour, the ale is crisp, refreshing and playfully acidic while finishing sour and semi-dry with a brief echo of sourdough and burlap. Its a nice sour ale that falls short of the classic acidity or dryness of traditional Berlinerweisse ale.