Pale Snail
Brewery Ommegang

I got a bottle of this from the brewery reps after the beer summit when we volunteers were making trades. I saved it for a warm summer day in expectation of a great wit beer from my favorite domestic belge brewers. I am sad to say I was disappointed.

the beer was a limited edition batch for the slow food festival held several months ago. While at a tasting hosted by the owners over the winter, they mentioned that they were going to try a wit beer but the trouble with them is that the yeast is too different from their stock yeast and would be a burden on their limited capacity brewery. A very good point.

This Snail Pale was an effort at least at tackling the sytle. It looks like a wit, smells like a wit and tastes like one too but cannot compare to other wits, expecially belgian originals. The taste is thin and lacking in that clovey yeast kick that makes the style so special. A lack of yeast sediment indicated that maybe they simply used their house strain of yeast instead of using a wit strain. The odor had that medecine vapor to it but not the warmth of malt or spice of coriander.

While it was a decent beer, If given the choice between it and a hoegaarden or even and old school celis, I'd go with the latter selections.