Hefeweizen
Medicine Hat Brewing Company

650ml bottle, the first of its kind that I have seen from this brewery, and part of their Brewmaster series.

This beer pours a rather hazy, medium golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat fizzy eggshell white head, which leaves some decent layered streaky lace around the glass as it slowly but surely sinks away.

It smells of bready and doughy wheat malt, damp banana chips, some earthy yeastiness, very subtle spicy notes, a further toasted cereal graininess, and fairly tame leafy and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy wheat malt, wet crackers, an underripe banana and apple fruitiness, faint clove and black pepper dust, gently estery yeast, and more well understated earthy, leafy, and musty floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite robust in its aggressive frothiness, the body a genial middleweight, and mostly smooth, just a wee bit of yeast astringency only doing its job. It finishes trending dry, the malt losing some steam, while the fruity and yeasty characters consider ordering another round for the bar.

Overall, this comes across as a faithful rendition of a traditional German hefeweizen - complex, yet simple in that they didn't feel the need to spruce it up with some New World hops, which even I can appreciate. Easy-drinking, refreshing, and a pleasant sign of more good things to come.