white summer

Gruit became known to me at the last craft beer fair, where their low-hop, high sweet brew was a little something different.  Many of the breweries were featured prominently on beer store shelves for some time after that, having done the job of impressing the owners looking for new possibilities.

It comes out with a strange, watery color.  If I didn't know it was a witbier, it would be alarming.  The collected liquid in the glass has a little more color, just a touch of yellow.  The head is white, like marshmallow fluff, and you almost expect it to come close to that sweetness.  The smell is sweetish, but extremely light.  I can just detect a whiff of flowers.  The taste is also quite mild, neither bitter nor particularly sweet.  It makes me think of watered down apple juice.  The literature likens it to dry white wine, and there is a small similarity in the color and unintrusive flavor.  I remember Gruit's Blond being much heavier on the sweet than the Wit is, which hasn't been my experience with other wits.  It doesn't have the fruitiness of Hoegaarden or Medina Blanca, although once it warms up a little there is a fleeting bit of sweet that centers on the back of the tongue.  It has that Belgian tendency to save a little taste surprise at the bottom of the bottle, but where I usually find it too sour from bigger breweries, Gruit hits with a little citrus and a little contrast that really sets off the flavor, even with most of the glass empty.