It's a cavalcade of familiar names, now it's Hoegaarden. This witbier has been found at taps all around town, usually as a sort of representative of the Belgians styles not in the bottle. Cloudy and light orange, a fruit basket in scent dispersion, but without the throat grabbing aftertaste that so many Belgian beers, and some non-Belgian wheat beers I might add, tend to show me. Although it should be a little spicey, not hot but a complex ball of flavors, it's not quite a winter beer for me. I think of it as a light and gentle summer kind of beer, but maybe the bottle will add some weight to it.
While it looks just like I remember, there is a surprising sourness to the aroma, and even a little something like pear. The flavor is immediately wheat beerish, a little sweet and tangy, crisp and light. I keep waiting for some bitterness to kick in, but it it's a while before it becomes barely detectable. There's kind of a grapefruit sensation, like a soda in fact. I'm a little disappointed in this bottle version, though, the flavor is not as strong as I recall the tap beer being. It takes until the very end for a little banana bread to make its appearance, smoothing out the citrus sharpness. It would be nice to have a little cheese plate or something, since the acidity would cut through any lingering dairy in the mouth.
Halfway through the calendar, halfway to Beermas!
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