Fahr Fetched Experiment (Amarillo)
Brauerei Fahr

 

It's awesome to have yet another small brewery in Alberta, churning out some beloved German style beers no less. It would be nice, amongst all the IPAs, etc being brewed in the province nowadays, for a few more hefeweizens and dunkelweizens to pop up. Love the little label of the province of Alberta with the German flag colours.

Pours out a hazy pineapple juice colour with a lovely fine head which sticks around and leaves sheets of pretty dense lacing stuck to the glass. Looks great, can't wait to dig into this. I always do 2 pours with hefeweizens: one without the yeast, and the latter pour with the yeast, which created an excellent topping of foam and leaving the beer dense and opaque looking, like freshly squeezed fruit juice.

Oh. Wow. That aroma. I am immediately hit with a strong yeast funk, akin more to a Belgian wit or a farmhouse ale. Compared to the regulars and most of the imported German hefeweizens, this really puts the emphasis on the "hefe" part of the beer. Bubblegum, bananas and pears, some apricot and candied peach--a veritable cornucopia of sweet light-coloured fruits, with that lovely sugary candy aroma in the background. Really, really fantastic aroma here. It reminds me a bit of Schneider Weisse's Aventinus, which is one of my all-time favourite beers. It's a little hard to coax out the malting in the aroma, granted, but I'm mostly fine with that for a hefeweizen.

Refreshing and zesty on the palate right up front--clovey and with a mild soapiness again which is much more like a Belgian wit than a hefeweizen, in my experience. Lots of funk in the flavour too, finishes medium-dry and leaves me wanting more. All the usual suspects are here: tons of banana, a little salty/bitter lemon, some apricot and granny smith apples, cloves and a touch of honey. All very well balanced.

Super stoked to have Fahr in my province, a mere hour's drive away. This is the first I've tried from the brewery, but colour me impressed. I can't wait to try the rest of their lineup.

Oddly enough, the beer reminded me of the first time I tried Hoegaarden, all those years ago, which back then was quite exotic for me.

A lovely, lovely beer. Prosit!

 

500ml bottle poured into Sam Adams pint glass.

Pours a lovely hazy gold with one finger of off-white head that leaves snowy landscape lace as it recedes.

Smells of crispy wheat malt, mixed citrus zest, melon chunks, banana chips, dusted black pepper and some thoroughly unexpected root beer herbal spicyness.

Tastes of shredded wheat cereal, faint lemon and orange, banana, faint black pepper and some gentle flowery herbal hops.

Feels soft and fluffy. Light bodied with frothy carbonation. Finishes off-sweet.

Verdict: Highly recommended. Very tasty and refreshing.

500ml bottle - a hopped wheat ale, which I suppose is the experimental part of the equation.

This beer pours a hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and creamy off-white head, which leaves some thick splotchy and loosely webbed lace around the glass as it very slowly sinks away.

It smells of bready and doughy cereal malt, a lesser grainy wheatiness, wet banana chips, some muddled earthy spice, a hint of phenolic yeastiness, and very tame leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, Wheat Thins, some mixed citrus and banana fruitiness, settled yeast, a hint of clove and black pepper spice, and more understated earthy, musty, and floral noble hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly meek in its palate-satisfying frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, with a nice airy creaminess arising as things warm up a tad at this particular juncture. It finishes off-dry, the blended malt ruling the lingering moment.

Overall - this essentially just comes across as another well-made Hefeweizen, with perhaps a few extra fruity notes. I'm not getting much in the way of the hop character that one would expect from the Amarillo varietal, but I'm guessing that more than a little old-school restraint was applied here. So, a good Hefe, but not a really good hopped Hefe.