Butte Creek Creekside Wheat | Butte Creek Brewing Company

3.51/5  rDev +7.3%
look: 3.5 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 4.5

Cheesy lable on the bottle is kinda weird, but fun and summery (very apporopiate for the style).

Pours light golden to pale orange, with a rocky and thick pure white head. Foamy lace drapes the side of the glass nicely.

This smells, to me a bit like a macro pilsner. Very harsh and brittle, with very weak and dull hops, and some slightly foul sour lemon notes. There are some really nice scents of saltine cracker, hard crusty wheat bread, grapes? and salad croutons here too.

The taste is much better than the nose. I keep thinking of hard salty crackers when I sip this one. This tastes very brittle and crackly at first then some malty characteristics settle in. Hard crackers warm to more of a fresh from the oven warmth. A bit of lemon picks up towards the end, along with some green apple and grape. There is a faint chlorine or pool-water taste that is extremely subtle, comes out during retro-olfaction and is only evident as the beer warms. That sounds bad, but I think adds something pleasant to the summertime nature of this beer.

This, more than other (more traditional) hefes, really is very very thirst quenching. This would be great out by the pool! I dig the zesty lemon zing and the brittle saltine character, but the nose is harsh and sour and the complexity is a little lacking. A good thirst quencher and highly quaffable. I could session myself stupid with this one ...bottom line.

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3.11/5  rDev -4.9%
look: 3.5 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

Pours a very hazy orange-ish gold body capped by a lid of creamy white foam. The retention is limited, however, and it soon drops to just an average-sized collar and lacy surface covering. Some spotty lace adds to the appearance, but it's just not sticky enough to hang onto the glass and eventually dissipates. The nose delivers some thin, wheatish malt; some light fruitiness; some green-apple acetaldehyde; and a plastic-like phenolic note that's a bit too much even for a hefeweizen. It's not entirely off-putting; but I did find it distracting at points. It appears that this is coming from a high fermentation temperature, however, and it's possible that this was just an off-batch. The body is appropriately light/medium; and it's crisp in the mouth due to its very fine and lightly effervescent carbonation. The esters and phenolics return in the flavor which delivers a mildly sweet wheatish malt followed by some tart green-apple; and then some nicer, berry-like fruitiness. It's bitterness balances well, although it appears a bit harsh in the finish as it combines with some of the higher alcohols present. The aftertaste is quite dry and somewhat peppery. Certainly not the best beer I've had from Butte Creek; and I'd guess that this might simply have been from an off batch.

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3.19/5  rDev -2.4%
look: 3 | smell: 4 | taste: 3 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 3

A chill hazed yellow orange color on the pour, the head is average in size, frothy and a bright white in color, lace forms a fine sheet upon the glass. Sweet, almost apple like in aroma, light hints of wheat, fresh, crisp and clean to the senses, with the start sweet, top is light in feel. Finish is mild in acidity, the hops pleasant, dry and lingering aftertaste, drinkable, but nothing to call home about, actually rather average.

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3.25/5  rDev -0.6%