Honey Bourbon Cask Wheat
Shock Top Brewing Co.

Hazy orange color, medium white head. Strong honey aroma with notes of whiskey and malt. Sweet, malty taste with honey and spices. Normal summer beer, but nothing more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appearance: Dark golden in color, with a bit of haze. A small, fine-beaded head soon fades to a dusting of foam on the surface, A thin, unbroken ring circles the glass wall. There is some suspended sediment, unusual in an Anheuser-Busch product.

Aroma: A massive wave of honey and vanilla presents, seeming almost overpowering. The effect is somewhat like that of a potpourri. When this passes, there is a fairly strong bourbon note, and some hints of wood. In all, the aroma is strange, not one I would associate with beer.

Taste: The taste begins with strong notes of honey and bourbon. As the taste progresses, conventional malt flavors appear, offering a white bread note. There is also an odd orange note in the middle of the taste, sort of like an orange Jolly Rancher hard candy; this mercifully passes. Finishes with a lingering honey and bourbon flavor that rolls on and on.

Mouth feel: Smooth and full with low, soft carbonation.

Drinkability/notes: Different is the best way I can describe this, a bit too strange for my taste, it seems too far removed from my idea of beer. Thankfully, I only have one bottle of this.

Presentation: Packaged in a twelve-ounce brown glass long-neck bottle with a twist-off crown, served in a New Belgium Brewing chalice.

 

 

 

 

 

Just as he is pulling beers out of the box that I gave him just as he headed southward for the winter, I am continuing to drink through all of the bottles that my local, in-person trader, tone77, dropped off for me. Amongst my Bottle Backlog, how do I know that this is one of his & not some single that I picked up along the way? I will drink anything, but the only time that my money & I part ways for Shock Top is a) if I am at a bar & it is the only new option or b) it is in a CAN. Neither applies here.

From the bottle: "Ale brewed with honey and spices, aged on bourbon cask staves, with natural flavor."

Being that it is a Wheat Ale/Witbier, it should exude a cloudiness, so inverted the unopened bottle just to ensure that everything was in suspension before its opening. Speaking of which, I am guessing that it is a screw-top bottle, which means no Pop!ping of the cap. Sure enough. Nothing holds my disdain like a screw-top bottle, so I retaliated with a heavy-handed pour, producing two fingers of fizzy, tawny head that quickly fizzled its way out of existence. Color was a cloudy Amber to Deep Amber/Light Copper (SRM = > 9, < 13). Nose had a honey-vanilla quality along with a metallic twang. Mouthfeel was medium-to-full, not quite creamy, but certainly highly carbonated. The taste was very sweet and mainly like vanilla ice cream, although I could get flavors of honey in there also. Finish was sweet, cloyingly so, like I was drinking dessert. I could perhaps see this as a dessert beer, but to just drink one on its own (like right now) would be too much for me. I'd be willing to revisit this if they put it in a CAN, but for now, one is plenty.

 

 

This doesn´t taste as a witbier at all. Pours light amber with a very mild white foam head. Aroma is of wood and sweet malts. Taste is strange, medicine-like and some wood. I didn´t like this beer at all.