Telegraph Reserve Wheat Ale

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

When I received this bottle I thought I was getting a bottle of liquor, not beer. This is a wild wheat beer, and that in itself prevents it from falling into just any category, and it's a hard beer to judge. A cloudy pale gold pour with a tight white head. The aroma was weak light fruits, a bit of yeast, and some tart notes. Flavour was more tart than their aroma and this caught me off guard. Citrusy and wheaty. Decent.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Tasted at the Triple Rock Sour and Barrel Aged Fest on 2/13/2011. This wild/sour ale pours a hazy medium yellow gold color from the tap. Medium sized white foamy head. The aroma is citrusy, fruity and tart. A medium bodied wild ale. The malts are fruity and tart, citrusy and sweet. The hops are citrusy and tart. Nice carbonation. Good balance. Nice mild tartness throughout. Nice mild sour/wild all. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean/crisp and dry. Aftertaste is slightly tart.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Bright straw yellow with a dissipating head. Sweet and sour wheat with some floral notes and a mild lactic bite. The tartness is restrained, which I really appreciate because it brings out more of the spicy wheat flavors. There are also notes of lemon and coriander.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Bottled January 2009; Sampled April 2009
A fairly soft pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a three finger thick, pale, just off-white colored head. The beer is a pale gold color that shows a lightly hazed, straw-gold color with a white sheen to it when held up to the light. The aroma smells of grassy grain up front, this is followed by a light tartness and the finish has a sweet, lemon verbena not that is soft but distinct. Crushed whole grain cracker notes form a solid wheat signature in the aroma, though I was expecting this to smell more sour and / or funky. The herbal character is nice with its lemon focused finish.

The beer is tart, though not aggressively so, but it is enough sourness to be quite refreshing. Pretty much bone dry, but there is a perception of lemon zest towards the finish that seems to add a suggestion of sweetness. The carbonation adds quite a bit of fizzy effervescence to this brew as it dances across the tongue and it also adds a pepper-like spiciness to the finish. The beer is also quite light bodied; it is really quite refreshing, even if a little gassy at times. The grain does not play as big a role in the flavor as it does in the aroma, but there are still some flavors of hay, some saltine cracker notes in the finish and a bit of an earthy grain note.

A bit more simplistic than I was expecting, the Brettanomyces character is really quite muted at this time; this would have been a welcome boost to the complexity of this brew and perhaps this will develop a bit more with time. If the yeast character was a bit more interesting I would almost call this a great example of a Saison (though it does lean a bit more towards a clean Berliner Weiss); it is light and refreshing and the lactic character adds a nice touch but is not overwhelming.