White Space Wheat
Mill Street Brew Pub

What a great couple/few days the opening of July 2019 has been for The CANQuest (tm)! M, 01 July was CANada Day & I CANebrated by drinking, reviewing & rating (in that order) a whole buncha CANadian beers. These were part of a big box dropped off for me by my local, in-person trader, @tone77 , following his foray into The Great White North. His generosity is boundless & although I CAN't quite keep up, my CANvalesence following prostate removal surgery is providing me an opportunity to really clear the backlog. Here comes CANother CANned beer from CANada!

From the CAN: "White Space. Calm in a busy world. Brewed with camomile flowers, coriander and Mediterranean blood orange, this beer is very, very mellow. Intentionally cloudy due to our use of wheat in the recipe, this unfiltered beer has a creamy texture and a lightly dry and softly bittersweet orange finish. Relax, we’ve got this."

A Crack! o' the CAN to @Pmicdee for the CANprehensive Notes/CANmercial Description! This is exemplary work that saved me the time of having to send an update, which I would have since it is a "Year-'Round" flagship of theirs & therefore NOT "Retired". Oh well, it is a simple fix.

A shout-out also to @biboergosum for inspiring me to more silliness. His review put me in mind of Jimmy Cagney in "White Heat", Don DeLillo's "White Noise" & the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat", which provides me with the soundtrack for this review. Yer right, brother, it's all just white noise in the form of word salad!

I Crack!ed the vent & beCAN a heavy-handed Glug into the awaiting glass to ensure adequate suspension of any flocculate. Why? It was a Witbier, silly! I had already done some in-CAN aCANgitation, but better safe & cloudy than sorry. I was rewarded with the formation of just under two fingers of fizzy, foamy, rocky, bone-white head that quickly faded to wisps. Bye! Color was a hazy Golden-Amber (SRM = > 5, < 7). Nose had the usual spiciness of coriander, but now it was joined by a light herbal quality (I could not have identified chamomile on my own) and a definite orange citrusiness. Mmm. Mouthfeel was medium, on par for the style. The taste was more mild & muted than I usually find in the style. I especially wanted it to be spicier & that may have been a result of the addition of chamomile. Dunno. I still got the orange citrusiness, but the spice was not really assertive enough. Finish was dry, as any beer that includes spice(s) as adjunct(s) should be expected to evince. Not bad, but not an exemplar of the style, either, IMHO. YMMV.

Poured from a 16 oz. can. Has a hazy golden color with a 1 inch head. Smell is mild, some oranges. Taste is of wheat, light oranges, refreshing but a bit bland. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a pretty good beer, but seems to be missing some of the spices I expect from this style,

 

473ml can - huh, reading marketing descriptions of late is just a bunch of white noise to me.

This beer pours a hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly bubbly off-white head, which leaves a few instances of cannonball splash aftermath lace around the glass as it quickly sinks away.

It smells of bready and doughy cereal malt, juicy orange peel, slightly sweet coriander spice, and some estery floral character that must be the chamomile. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, a lesser edgy wheatiness, muddled domestic citrus rind, a faded coriander/black peppercorn spiciness, dead flowers, and some ethereal earthy, musty, and herbal green hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite tame in its milquetoast frothiness, the body a so-so middleweight, and mostly smooth, with a hint of spice perhaps portraying the role of the proverbial pea here. It finishes off-dry, the mixed malt and weak orange essences seeing us gently out the side door.

Overall - this is an adequate version of the style, I'm just thankful that they applied the chamomile with a soft touch, as I am not particularly fond of the tea variant. Simple, easy enough to drink, but par for the course for this brewery, in my experience, anyway.

 

 

 

 

Very slightly hazed yellow gold, no real head of lace. Subdued nose, but what there is, is pleasant enough. Mostly quiet grain. Breach and fruity to taste, thin bodied. Overall an easy drinking brew, wheaty with nice fruit notes. Light summer type stuff I'm thinking.

473 mL can from the LCBO; dated Apr 5 2018 and served well chilled. I'm wondering if this is meant to replace their existing Wit recipe, which I cannot recall spotting on shelves within the last several years or so.

Pours a hazy, translucent golden-blonde colour, sporting a half-inch cap of frothy white foam that dissipates within the next two minutes; a creamy-looking collar and cap stick around, with a fair amount of lace also having been deposited. The aroma is typical of the style, with wheat grain and bready pale malt sweetness coming through alongside notes of orange peel, coriander spice and flower blossom, the last of which is presumably courtesy of the chamomile.

Decent stuff; there's a bit more citrus flavour than I tend to expect from this style, but I'm not complaining. Blood orange flesh flavours come through alongside the usual wheaty bread, grain husk and crackery sweetness that comes with this style, while the zesty orange peel oiliness begins to assert itself by mid-sip, continuing through to the finish. Coriander and flowery chamomile tisane notes carry on into an herbal, yeasty, slightly peppery aftertaste with some light bitterness. Medium-light in body, with moderately low carbonation levels that gently prickle the surfaces of the palate, resulting in a mouthfeel that is mostly soft and smooth. I prefer a bit more crispness/bite from my witbiers, but this one still went down the hatch without much resistance.

Final Grade: 3.69, a B grade. Mill Street's White Space Wheat is serviceable enough, though I wouldn't say it's all that much better than their original Wit, which can probably be considered a more traditional example of the style. The blood orange does give it (slightly) more of a citrus presence than expected, while the chamomile works nicely as an accoutrement for the coriander. Give it a shot to see for yourself, but as for me? I didn't purchase their old Wit very often, and I don't think I'll be returning to this one with a whole lot more frequency.

 

 

 

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. LCBo purchase for $3.15 CDN or so.

Appearance -Cloudy light golden color with plenty of haze. A finger of fluffy white head that recedes fairly quickly.

Smell - Orange and coriander mostly, didn't really get any blood orange or other flavors as advertised.

Taste - Wheat, orange coriander and a touch of clove. Standard fare here and pretty tasty without being remarkable. A solid amount of bitterness.

Mouthfeel - Fairly soft body, with above average carbonation, almost being too fizzy but doesn't quite get to that level.

Overall - A solid if unspectacular hefe. Worth a try if love Mill Street in general, or if looking to try a new wheat beer as the temperature rises and we move to spring / summer, otherwise money could probably be better spent elsewhere. But certainly glad I tried it.

No Blood Orange or Camomile taste, but otherwise a good tasting beer.