David Brockington's Tasting Notebook

Wild Goose Spring Wheat

Initial Impressions:

Due to my negative experiences with Wild Goose several months ago, my expectations for this beer were not particularly keen. However, I am always open to revising my opinion of a given brewery, or a given beer. To the latter point, I think I will have to make a distinction in my list of scores between bottled product and draft product, as the majority of the microbreweries in the northeast seem to have a brewpub which brews wonderful beer, but has their bottled beer contract brewed, with mediocre results. To the former point, I jumped at the opportunity to sample Wild Goose's Spring Wheat when Charlie G. offered to include it in a box. I actually reviewed this beer a while ago, but was so caught up in my IPA excesses that I didn't have the time to actually post this. Given that this very same beer found its way into a recent BAA shipment, I will gleefully ignore the anticipated chorus of "it doesn't travel well" responses to my review. :)

I assumed that this beer was an American Wheat prior to sampling it. It was golden, as one would expect out of a wheat, displaying a nice tannish head with well-developed lacework down the side of the glass.

Nose:

The nose was refreshingly estery, with hints of malt in the background.

Flavor:

This beer was light-bodied and refreshing. There were hints of malt in the palate, and a slight degree of the tanginess that wheat can produce, followed up by a mere smidge of hop bitterness in the brief finish. Altogether a clean product.

Final Analysis:

The first thing that struck me about this beer was what I didn't find -- the characteristic acidic note indicating some sort of nefarious biological activity that I found in the Amber, the Snow Goose, and the Pale was not present -- the Spring Wheat was a clean product. However, it was also a bland product, even by American Wheat standards. The paucity of flavor in the WG Wheat when contrasted with even, say, a Red Hook Wheathook or Pyramid Wheaten, was the sole reason for the lowish score. While I certainly couldn't call this beer a "poor" beer, I really couldn't call it "good" which is represented by three stars, either. So, it is somewhere in between fair and good, whatever that means.

**1/2

Next Up:

Tabernash Weiss
and:
a collection of brief notes on several of the beers I sampled at the recent Oregon Brewers Festival.
Copyright 1994 by David Brockington, all rights reserved

David Brockington, Seattle, USA
bronyaur@u.washington.edu