Zombae
Refined Fool Brewing Co.

750 mL bottle fresh from the brewery; served slightly chilled. As a disaffected child of the 90s I can't help but appreciate the Cranberries reference.

Zombae's label describes itself as a cranberry hefeweizen, and the cloudy, pinkish-apricot hue backs that classification up as well as one could hope. Roughly one finger of foamy white head is produced by the pour, but it dissipates within a matter of minutes and leaves no lacing behind. I guess by fruit beer standards, it looks fine. Clean, wheaty malt and grainy-husky sweetness come through on the nose, with subtle hints of tart berry.

Straightforward in terms of flavour profile, but very approachable and absurdly easy to drink. The malts have a wheaty, bready, doughy sort of taste to them, with the only other flavour facet of note being the cranberries themselves. They provide a mild, fruity tartness on the back end, as well as some tart berry-skin astringency that ushers in the truly dry aftertaste. Light-bodied, with lively carbonation that prickles the palate - the mouthfeel is where this comes closest to being a hefe, though it's still a tad bit thinner than I'd prefer. But for a fruit beer? It's put together pretty damn well - this is a big bottle, and I still made my way through it much more quickly than I expected to.

Final Grade: 3.63, a B. Zombae is a quality pale wheat ale that I find to be more than the sum of its individual parts. It's actually a very straightforward beer - the wheat malts and cranberry are really all there is to it - but I'll be damned if this hasn't proven to be one of Refined Fool's best fruit/wheat beers to date. If the idea of a cranberry hefeweizen sounds appealing to you, then don't hesitate to pull the trigger on this one. A fine wheat ale that I intend to return to.