Prost! Dunkelweizen

Prost! Dunkelweizen is a dark wheat beer from the team at Toronto’s Muddy York Brewing Co. A 5.4%, 15 IBU offering, Prost! comes in 355mL cans. The beer is handsome brown, with a thin off-white head.

The modest aroma of this Ontario wheat concoction blends rich malts with apple and banana notes, and a hint of fall spices. The flavour is considerably more robust, with clove, banana bread, and warm malts in the spotlight, and a slightly smoky brown sugar subtext.

A great fall beer from Muddy York, Prost! is a solid take on the classic German style.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Up and At Them

 One of the best looking homage labels in Ontario belongs to Indie Alehouse’s Up and At Them, an American Wheat Beer with Mango & Tangerine. The label and name are nods to Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy—classic peripheral Simpsons characters. The tag line of the 5% ale is actually: “Not radioactive, man.” This Torontonian ale comes in 500mL bottles. It’s a hazy, dull gold beer that pours with an extremely sudsy white foam.

Up and At Them has a yeasty nose with a tangerine twist. The flavour has citrus and tropical elements, built atop a yeasty plinth. The mango has gotta be in there somewhere, but I didn’t track it down.

This is a tangy take on a wheat beer. The flavour is pretty solid and the branding is next level.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Town Brewery Trove--Witzig

A hefeweizen from Whitby, Ontario, Witzig comes from Town Brewery and it contains 5.2% alcohol. Witzig is sold in 473mL cans. It’s a hazy golden wheat beer that pours with considerable carbonation and a surprisingly thin layer of white head.

Witzig has a scent that sure ain’t bashful. It packs a real wallop of clove backed with some substantial banana esters. The flavour plays like the aroma, but slightly miniaturized. It has a classic banana and clove profile, and it turns gently toward bitterness at the finish. The beer possesses a mellow and smooth texture.

An agreeable, summery sipper, Witzig is a good take on the hefe style that doesn’t steer far from the traditional blueprint. It’s a well made little brew, though I wouldn’t have minded if the flavour were as aggressive as the nose.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Godspeed Goodies--Kiri Belgian Witbier

Kiri Belgian Witbier, from Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery, is a 5.1% Belgian-style wheater sold in 355mL cans. It’s an enthusiastically carbonated and slight hazy beer that pours with a crown of white suds.

Kiri has a yeasty nose, supplemented by notes of orange peel and clove—classic witbier aromatics. The flavour follows the same pattern: yeasty top note, with subtle orange rind and spice elements, as well as some banana esters. The mouthfeel benefits from ample carbonation, giving it an extra refreshing quality.

I’m not a huge witbier guy, so I approached Kiri with some trepidation; however, what I ended up with was four cans of a delightful, bright summery ale. I’d have liked it a bit more if it hit the citrus note a little louder.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Hamilton Haul--Wild Child Wheat Beer with Lemon + Flowers

My final purchase from my debut visit to Hamilton’s Grain & Grit Small Batch Beer was their Wild Child Wheat Beer with Lemon + Flowers. A 4.8%, 13 IBU ale, Wild Child is brewed with lemon zest, chamomile, and hibiscus, as well as wheat. It’s a rose gold beer with a slim layer of white head that comes in 473mL cans.

Wild Child has a really interesting scent, made up of yeast notes, lemon zing, and floral flourishes. The beer has a thin mouthfeel, but a pretty decent amount of flavour. The lemon zest is the main note in the front end, while the hibiscus and chamomile give the back end a tea-like vibe.

Wild Child might be a misnomer for a mellow, floral wheat ale, but the beer itself was certainly enjoyable. I’d have liked the body to be a bit more robust, but the flavour worked really well.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Miami Weiss White Pale Ale

Roll up your blazer sleeves! I’m reviewing Miami Weiss White Pale Ale from Toronto and Great Lakes Brewery. According to the pitch on the can, the beer isn’t a weiss and they’ve never even been to Miami—rather, the name is “just something the guys in marketing came up with.” MW is a wheat beer, though, and at 4.5%, its a pretty sessionable one. And at 35 IBUs, it has some pale ale bitterness, too.

MV is sold in 473mL cans that feature lurid pink and turquoise colour scheme and a palm tree scene. It’s a hazy, pale gold beer that pours with a hefty fluff of white suds. It has a vivid nose rich in sweet, tropical fruit notes and a whiff of yeast. The wheat ale is plenty flavourful for a low alcohol number, with fruit up front and some citrus bitterness at the back end, but it also has a mellow, smooth wheat beer mouthfeel.

I liked MV quite a bit. I’m not always warm to wheat ales (unless they’re exquisite), but the pale ale hybrid nature of this little, low-booze buddy got me pretty close to where I wanted to be.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Sublime Lime Witbier

Sublime Lime Witbier is a cheery little number from Toronto’s Saulter Street Brewery. It’s made with wheat, lime peal, and coriander, resulting in a 4.2% sessionable beer sold in 473mL cans. The beer itself is a slightly cloudy potion with a gold colour and a fluffy white head.

With a tangy aroma, Sublime is undoubtedly lime-focused. The flavour, too, is lime-oriented and a bit tart, supplemented with a quirky yeast profile and the slightly metallic clang of cilantro. The mouthfeel is a bit thin, perhaps, but not problematically so. 

A lovely low-alcohol summer afternoon beer, Sublime brings a welcome lime flavour into beer, without the cloying synthetic flavour that some of the macros have adopted.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Trifecta

From scenic Vancouver, B.C. comes Trifecta, a hopfenweisse brewed by Parallel 49 Brewing Company. The beer is a 5% number that comes in 473mL cans that feature a lady wearing a hops hat. According to the copy, the beer gets its name because it’s brewed with a trio of hop varieties; however, the identity of the three in question isn’t revealed on the can (a little research on the Parallel 49 website shows that it was Huell Melon, Meridian, and Saphir). Hazy and dull orange-gold, Trifecta pours with a thick layer of lovely white head.

To my nose, the hoppy wheat beer had notes of tropical fruit, yeast, and some banana esters at the back end. The flavour has had more weissebier qualities than I was expecting, with lots of yeast and banana staking out a strong position in the front end. More to my expectations, the back end featured dank, hoppy notes, as well as some stone fruit.

In my limited experience, some hopfenweisses (hopfenweissi?) are closer to one side of the hybrid or the other; however this little ditty seems to straddle the line between a wheat beer and a pale ale with dexterity. It’s a refreshing summer beer, though a bit more booze would have been nice. 

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Florida Cracker

Named in honour of 18th century “cracker cowboys”—a term I’d never heard that apparently refers to pioneer settlers in Florida—Florida Cracker is a 5.5% Belgian-style wheat ale brewed with coriander and orange peel. It comes (by way of brewing at Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard, NC) from Tampa, Florida’s Cigar City Brewing, and it’s sold in 16oz cans.

The beer is slightly cloudy and pours with a layer of bright white suds. It has a yeasty nose that has elements of orange and banana. The flavour is pretty much classic witbier, with big yeast, banana esters, orange zest, and some peppery spice notes. 

Refreshing and agreeable, Florida Cracker is a pretty respectable southern take on the witbier. It doesn’t offer any surprises or departures, but it also doesn’t stray from the style guideline.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Black Lab x The Sidekick Dunkelweiss

The cute comic book-y label signals that Black Lab x The Sidekick Dunkelweiss is a collaboration between the East Toronto brewpub and nearby Sidekick Comics—a dark wheat beer brewed with Sidekick’s Single Origin Kenya AA coffee. The 5.5% ale comes in 500mL bottles, which it exists with a handsome oak colour, covered up in a quickly thinning off-white head.

This coffee-ified collab really delivers on the promise of java, with a snootful of coffee notes that show up the otherwise sweet, malt and yeast of the dunkelweiss. The coffee notes are somewhat tempered through the flavour, though they never really disappear. Rather, they’re joined by sweet roasted malt, and a quick finish that is only meagrely bitter.

Unlike many of the coffee-infused beers I’ve sipped over the years, this one left me with a hankerin’ to actually seek out the featured coffee—I haven’t done so yet, but it seems like something I’d try to incorporate into my next visit to Black Lab Brewing. The result was an unusual wheat beer that would have gone nicely after a large meal (though it was still pretty good killing time on an empty stomach while waiting for a dinner reservation).

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

Whippet Wheat

A collaboration between Toronto’s Black Lab Brewing and the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies, Whippet Wheat is, appropriately, a hybrid. Specifically, it’s a hopfenweisse—a hefeweizen hopped like an IPA. In this case, the beer is a 5.5% job that has, according to the website, been double dry hopped with Azacca. Along the way, a touch of oat was also added. The result is a cloudy beer—dull yellow-gold, with a bright white head, and not a lot of sediment for a wheat beer.

Whippet Wheat has a sharp, yeasty pong, with more than a suggestion of fruity elements, particularly pineapple. While the scent suggested a hefe-dominant combo, the flavour flipped the script with a fractious hop profile leading the way, and yeasty, mellow wheat beer notes in a beta role. Again, pineapple was prominent, building to a gritty bitter finish.

On a toasty July evening, this beer left me refreshed and chilled out. The tawdry relationship between IPA and hefe was carried off admirably, resulting in a hybrid that marries significant IBUs with a smooth, wheaty mouthfeel.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Im-Peach-Ment Tart & Peachy Wit

Walking down the aisle of a Victoria, BC beer shop, I spotted a 473mL can of Im-Peach-Ment Tart & Peachy Wit and needed it to come home with me. The can was plain, but a name like that is worthy of a purchase every time. Brewed in Kamloops, BC, the 5%, 10 IBU wheat ale is made by Red Collar Brewing Co. The beer was strikingly clear, which seemed strange for a wheat bear. It had a sunny gold colour and poured with a thin layer of white suds.

Brewed using those fuzzy, juicy round guys, Im-Peach-Ment had a tangy nose that incorporated yeast, wheat and a wallop of peaches. The mouthfeel was initially thin, but picked up steam toward the peachy hind end. The flavour kicked off with the watery sweetness of a peach tea, but closed out with some unripened peach tartness.

Cute name aside, the beer was just pretty good. It was a bit short of body, and the flavour was agreeable, but a bit wispy.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

You’re My Boy Blue-Berry Wheat Beer

You’re My Boy Blue-Berry Wheat Beer is a 4.5% alcohol salute to the film Old School and its beloved character, Joseph “Blue” Pulaski. Sold in 650mL bottles, You’re My Boy comes from Picton, Ontario, where it is made by Prince Eddy’s Brewing Company. It’s brewed with local (Prince Edward County)  blueberries and lactose to create a hazy golden ale with a purplish hue, some berry skin sediment, and a thin layer of off-white suds.

You’re My Boy has a juicy blueberry nose. Its flavour is mild, with mellow wheat notes, a gentle yeast lilt, and a subtle berry charge. The mouthfeel is thin, but agreeably smooth.

A decent little flavoured beer, You’re My Boy is a summery wheat beer that is refreshing, but which lacks impactful flavour. A thirst quencher with just a whisper of blueberry, this beer is accessible, but not elite.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Pineapple Uber Sour Beer

Pineapple Uber Sour Beer is a low alcohol, ultra low IBU effort that comes from Burlington, Ontario’s Nickel Brook Brewing Co. This berlinerweisse is flavoured with piña. It’s a 3.9% brew with just 3 IBUs that comes in 500mL bottles.

Pineapple Uber is a hazy, almost milky pale yellow brew that pours with a persistent inch of white suds. The beer has a tangy and stimulating nose built around a sour pineapple vibe. The flavour moves from sour to sweet, but lingers at the former, only getting near the latter at the absolute finish. 

For a beer so low in alcohol it’d be hard pressed to ever make me stagger, there really is a staggering amount of flavour in this little sour. If you like pineapple and you dig sour beers, this quirky little wheated brew has a lot to offer.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

White Space Wheat

According to the text on its 473mL can, Mill Street Brewery’s White Space Wheat is brewed using coriander, camomile, and blood orange. The Torontonian wheat beer contains 5% alcohol. Slightly hazy and modestly carbonated, the beer pours with a thin white head and features an aroma that is both yeasty and floral.

White Space doesn’t have a strong flavour, although it does have some depth, with sweet citrus and herbal notes keeping things interesting, before a crisp yet timid finish.

I held onto my can of White Space for longer than I normally would a new beer. For some reason, I wasn’t all that keen to try it, though my intuition was off—it’s actually a pretty nice little brew made with a deft touch. It’s refreshing, but a bit too thin. Not special, but certainly pleasant.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Duggan's #18

Duggan’s Brewery in Toronto has adopted a numerical system of naming their beers (see previous posts in which I reviewed #9, #46, and #99). The #18 is billed as a raspberry weiss beer. It’s a 5.4%, 22 IBU brew that I recently picked up at the bottle shop in a bottle (volume uncertain, but it must have been between 400-500mL).

For a wheat beer, I found #18 to be notably dark in colour—closer to an auburn than the pale gold I was expecting. The beer poured with a fluffy cloud of off-white head, but it was short-lived. The beer had a tart berry nose supplemented with a waft of banana and a yeasty fug. The tartness of the raspberry elements really came through in the flavour, which is nearly sour. The mouthfeel was sturdier than many others in the style, which hurt crispness but gave the beer a bit more substance.

 

The big one-eight from Duggan’s is a pretty enjoyable little wheater; however, it is a bit wanting on the back end, which finishes short, tart, and uninspired. It’s also a bit low on the fizzy fizzy. Otherwise, the beer has a lot going for it: good strength, meaty body, and a tart raspberry vibe that tastes authentic and isn’t sweetened into jammy oblivion. Even with out a better established back end, I thought #18 was good stuff.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Kelly’s Contraption

Named in honour of the motorcar developed by John B. Kelly in Blythe, Ontario in 1883–apparently pre-dating Henry Ford’s effort by four years–the beer, styled Kelly’s Contraption, is billed as “New World Hefeweizen” and comes from Cowbell Brewing Co. aka Blyth Brewing & Distilling. Like Kelly’s antediluvian auto, the 5% alcohol, 15 IBU ale comes from Blyth, ON.

Kelly’s has a cloudy golden hue, under a thick, off-white head. There is a punchy nose, with yeasty notes, some slight clove spiciness, and a dose of banana esters. Like a classic hefe, this new world edition has yeasty profile, a flavour with banana and orange notes, and a dose of spices. The beer is thin-bodied, but refreshing. 

Really, Kelly’s Contraption is a summertime brew, but it came my way in November, via my ol’ pal LW. Despite the unseasonal quaffing, I found the beer to be a pretty convincing Ontarian imitation of the classic Teutonic style. A bit thin, sure, but clearly well-made. Like the other Cowbell offerings that I’ve enjoyed, K’sC was a quality brew that, while not exceptional, was very good.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.

La Blanche du Fjord

One of the many joys of my blessed union with the Bitter Wife is a primo set of in-laws. Great folks who'll bring you beer when they visit, my mother- and father-in-law are tops. On a recent visit, they brought me a couple of bottles, including a 660mL bomber of La Blanche du Fjord. This witbier comes from Chicoutimi, Quebec, where it's brewed by La Tour à Bières. It's a 5% alcohol brew that, if my French isn't failing me, is flavoured with citrus and coriander--sounds like a Belgian-style wit to me.

The beer imitially poured cloudy gold with a milky hue, but as I got to the bottom of the bottle, some orange-brown sediment entered the mix. The aroma was yeasty, fruity, and a touch spicy. There was a thin yet smooth mouthfeel and a mild flavour that danced between wheat, yeast, orange rind, and banana. No bitterness at all featured in La Blanche, which gave it a fine level of refreshment.

La Blanch du Fjord was a pretty tasty micro from QC. It could have been a bit less sediment-heavy, and I wouldn't have minded a bit more body, but I enjoyed it well enough. I'm certainly grateful it found its way to me.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

Burlington Funk: Nickel Brook Raspberry Über Berliner-Style Weisse

Nickel Brook Raspberry Über Berliner-Style Weisse is a 3.8% alcohol ale in the German style from Burlington, Ontario's Nickel Brook Brewing Co. The ale poured a surprisingly pink and hazy hue, topped with a short-lived light pink head. According to the label of the 375mL bottle, this pink concoction clocks a mere 3 IBUs.

Über has a punchy raspberry aroma that straddles between tart berry and cool-aid sweetness. The flavour is far leas sweet than the aroma, built around a tart raspberry vibe. Über has a tight, short taste, with a fraction of sweetness dwarfed by seriously fruity sourness. It is effervescent, but fairly thin on the mouthfeel.

Once one battles through its lurid pinkness, NB's Raspberry Über Berliner-Style Weisse has an engrossing cordial quality that makes it quite enjoyable. I'd have liked a bit more body from this wheat beer, but it tasted pretty nice all the same. The real beef for me was that the raspberry flavour really dominated the beery elements of this little ale.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

5:01 Golden Ale

5:01 Golden Ale is an homage to the end of the standard work day, or as it's described on the can, it "captures that satisfying moment when work stops and beer begins." It comes from Barrie, Ontario's Redline Brewhouse. According to the 473mL can, this brew contains a lean 4.2% alcohol and is made with a wheat.

5:01 is a cloudy orange-gold colour. It pours with a thin cover of eggshell head, through which wafts a mandarin orange aroma. The mouthfeel is disappointingly thin, though I guess that should be expected from a wheat ale with such a low percentage. Despite the uninspiring mouthfeel, the flavour left me feeling relatively impressed. It has a delicate orange blossom vibe that I like, and a subtle hops finish.

This beer is quite a bit better than I expected, as I'm often suspicious of both the amorphous "golden ale" category and any beer that has less than 5% alcohol. However, it is a refreshing and tasty low octane option. A more burly mouthfeel would have led to a stronger rating, as would a heavier hopping.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.