StarGazer Chamomile Wheat
Canuck Empire Brewing

Poured from 473mL can into a dimpled mug. This can is listed at 6.5% ABV.

Appearance: medium golden hue with a moderate haze and a thick finger of frothy ivory foam atop.

Smell: sweet, wheaty, and with a bit of a black pepper quality. The honey definitely comes through, and the chamomile is thick, enough to come through as a more generic spicy/wildflower/peppery type aroma. It feels a bit heavy, but it's not bad.

Taste: sweet malt with a kind of tart-apple cideriness going on. The chamomile is thick here, too, but it doesn't really play too successfully with the sharper qualities of the beer. It's not coming together entirely for me.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a big carbonation and a pretty good creaminess.

Overall: I think this beer has potential, and looking at earlier reviews, it appears that previous incarnations of this beer might have been more successfully crafted. It's not terrible, but it lacks finesse.

Poured into a Celebrator pokal. Pours a hazy orange amber with a fine, half finger white head with great retention and lacing. Aroma of bready, lightly caramel malt, light stone fruit, banana with a hint of wheat; close to a Belgian pale ale profile. Flavor is lightly floral wheat, honey, mild light stone fruit, a light earthy spiciness from the chamomile. Medium bodied with a pleasant light creaminess. An interesting wheat beer with a bit more body than expected from the style. The honey is quite evident, with a light, non-cloying sweetness and chamomile herbal flavor is light, but perhaps adds the light floral aroma and taste. The aroma is quite Belgian, but the taste exhibits the wheat nicely. Perhaps a tad on the sweet side, but I liked it a lot. I'd get this again given the opportunity.

A- Interesting artwork on the label.....the beer pours with a lovely, but not dense, soapy white head that retains very well over the beer! The color is a very nice golden/yellow color that is very hazy that looks robust and the lacing is very well done too, with sticky patches of foam clinging to the glass!....it looks thick and syrupy all at the same time.

S- Heavy aromas of caramel, bready yeast, honeyed qualities, fried dough, wheat/barley malts and perhaps very mild hints of baking spice. Banana fruit that is has just crossed into the heavier side of ripening is another smell I am getting with maybe some hints of other tropical fruits....the finish lingers on the nostrils!

T- Big time honey and the chamomile is very pleasant on the palate....very smooth, creamy, and of brewers yeast...everything is very round and soft in general....I am really digging the flavor and floral tea warmth....it is a very relaxed profile and balances nicely with the caramel sweet malts, and the banana-esque wheat malt character.

M/O- Simply a delight to enjoy and highly drinkable....the booze just shows a hint but otherwise stays in the background well. Creamy carbonation and a solid medium body make this something to enjoy with a bite of pineapple chocolate as a nightcap, but I'll tell you this....it would make an excellent summer Ale and I'll most definitely get this again to enjoy with good company and more than one at that!!

 

650ml bottle, a seasonal wheat ale made with dried chamomile flowers and raspberry blossom honey - sounds nice and summery to me, but I wonder what the Mill Street brewery thinks about the name, eh?

This beer pours a fairly hazy, yet bright pale yellowed copper hue, with one fat finger of puffy, bubbly, and slightly creamy dirty white head, which leaves some eroded grotto lace around the glass as it quickly subsides.

It smells of mushy bananas, semi-sweet wheat malt, a faint red fruitiness, mild white pepper, a weird soapy character (I never liked chamomile tea in the least), and some subtle earthy honey. The taste is bready, doughy wheat, bananas foster, ethereal overripe orchard pit fruit, still understated table pepper shaker spice, an indistinct floral bitterness, and a further cold, chunky honey sweetness.

The bubbles are quite soft and innocuous in their low-key frothiness, the body a solid medium-heavy weight for the general style, and mostly smooth, with a small airy creaminess arising as things warm up a bit. It finishes on the sweet side, as the malt, shy fruit, and honey coalesce into some form of palatal agreement.

Not a bad wheat beer, with lots of gateway hefeweizen attributes, rather than the flavours they were obviously going for with their guest ingredients. I'm kind of glad, actually, that the titular floral essence fades so quickly, and I can at least enjoy the rest of this bomber in peace.