Snake River Tea Party
Loose Screw Beer Co. - Downtown Brewery Taproom

Taster at the Meridian taphouse. Pours a mildly hazy straw gold. Lots of wheaty fruit/bread character, and the tea is a very neutral but welcome component. Lots of bready, honied banana character, minor spices as well. All very complementary and enjoyable. Honestly kind of impressed.

cool take on the style here, a relatively clear and lean base hefe, but then jazzed up with a flavorful tea blend, quite summery to me, looking forward to revisiting it in nicer weather, but they did a pretty good job with this. the yeast might be slightly overdeveloped, very estery, pear and green banana are everywhere, some cotton candy too, green grape, its not unappealing, but its a little farther out in front of everything else than it really needs to be. there isnt much flavor to the wheat, just a little body, which is fine, enough comes from the tea for this to have some balance. rose petal, key lime, freeze dried raspberry, a little white pepper and even anise, surprisingly zero bitterness from the tea. its an interesting choice of a base beer for the tea addition, but it really does work well. although its not quite amazing as a hefe, its excellent with the tea, saves it, or maybe the base beer is built just for it, cool either way. nice to see some experimental and inventive stuff in the lineup here, and glad to have their new location open, these guys are moving up the local ranks pretty quick!

edit: this has improved much over the years, more of a clean green tea or even matcha style tea note to it now, bitter and herbal, mostly late, and the ferment seems more restrained and refined, still probably not passable as a hefe from the old world, but way more in line now, refreshing and good in warm weather, a neat style for an ingredient like tea, glad this has stayed in their lineup, better than ever right now here in summer 2025, new downtown meridian location is rad too!

16oz crowler from brewery. After the bad experience with their American Hefeweizen, I was braced for the worst. Pleasantly surprised. Cloudy medium golden with a wispy head. Bready weizen aroma, yeasty, bubblegum. Taste is also spot on, and the addition of the tea adds some fruity, floral notes. Finishes with a bit of a tingle. Full bodied. They do know how to make a weizen after all...