David Brockington's Tasting Notebook

Blue Ridge Wheat Beer

I posted two reviews of Blue Ridge beers back in 1995: the Porter and the Amber Lager. Neither review was positive, and one of the beers was clearly infected. I discussed this with several beer geek friends in the mid-Atlantic region prior to posting the reviews, and I was informed that these results were typical of a brewery that at the time had some serious quality control problems. I posted the reviews.

Several months ago, the head brewer of Blue Ridge contacted me by email, and acknowledged some (unspecific) problems in the past. Blue Ridge has a new plant of which he is quite proud, and encouraged me to give Blue Ridge beers a fresh sampling. To facilitate this, the brewery shipped samples from eight different beers straight from the brewery. I agreed to post several new reviews to the web page. The new reviews basically replace the old reviews, but the old notes are still available to read, accessible only through the new reviews.

Initial Impressions:

I did not know whether to interpret this as a Bavarian weizen or as an American wheat. The bottle indicates the use of a "special yeast", so I went with the former. This turned out to be the correct choice.

In the glass, the beer is on the darker side of golden. Clearly unfiltered (and bottle conditioned) the beer throws off considerable haze even prior to the recommended 'bottle roll yeast addition'. I do not know if the yeast is a bottling strain or the "special yeast" used for fermentation. Head retention is excellent, of course, with a nice rocky foam capping the beer.

Nose:

The nose featured wheaty tartness coupled with a nice clovey phenolic note, indicating that the "special yeast" is indeed special.

Flavor:

The body is a bit on the thin side. I doubt that Frederick decocts this beer, so I was not looking for evidence of a chunky maltiness often found in good decocted weizens, but the body seemed a bit thinner than I typically like. The beer is not insipid, however, and the lightness in the body could be a function of conditioning bordering of effervescence.

The flavor profile features a mild offering of enjoyable W68 fermentation byproducts. A light combination of banana esters and clovey phenolics is featured in the flavor, which finishes with a nice, subtle wheaty maltiness. A very refreshing beer.

Final Analysis:

A good, if conservative interpretation of Bavarian weizen. This beer certainly deserves the "hefe-weizen" moniker; I am a little perplexed why the beer is soberly named "Blue Ridge Wheat Beer". That name leads me to expect a typical, dullish American wheat fermented with a clean yeast strain; this beer is more interesting. While I would consider Tabernash Weiss or Victory Sunrise Weisbier as more exciting weizens, lending support to the argument that decoction makes a big difference, this beer is a keeper.

Rating: ***

(5-star scale)

Copyright 1998 by David Brockington, all rights reserved.
Seattle, USA
 Comments? Fire off some email: dbrock@u.washington.edu

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Review #64