Barons Lemon Myrtle Witbier

Barons Brewing Company
Brewed at Australian Independent Brewers
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Woollahra, NSW, Australia

Serve in Lager glass, Tumbler

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Bottle 330ml from K&G. Too much like a soft drink. Aromas of citrus and bubblegum. Taste is sweet. a bit tart, and short-lived. Carbonation is high, and the body is oily. Yellow, bubbly, with a thin head.

Tasting from 2009, from notes alone.
Pours with little enthusiasm, a cloudy, straw yellow liquor with intermittent carbonation and no head. Well pronounced smell of the Aussie bush. Lemon myrtle, musk, tree bark and eucalyptus with just a little pear drop. Musky, overpowering lemon myrtle flavour on the palate, a little sherbet and citrus. Feather weight in body, a little watery and oddly tingling for carbonation. Faint wheat malt mid-palate before becoming sour and a little puckering. The notes don’t say it but it is actually really refreshing. Finish is crisp, drawn and very, very short. If they could ramp up the body on it it might be a decent quaffer. (33cL, no date stamp, Cellarbrations Guildford)

Bottle from Keg N Bottle #2:Created a thick and fluffy head that fizzed out in a matter of minutes while the liquid was a golden blonde color and appeared as if this were a pale lager instead of a witbier. My nose is instantly gratified by a lemon zest with a minor presence of green plant and coriander. The flavor has a lot of citrus and has a strong lime flavor and a note of lemon peel shavings.

Hazy gold pour with a foamy head. Aroma and flavor is grain, lemon, and light spice. A bit sweet, but not much going on here.

One of the brews shipped by Susan Tapper from Australia – thank you – this is a mid-range beer that’s drinkable, with an alcoholic content suitable for sessioning. If it can be found in quantity. Similar to many Belgian white ales (exemplars would be Blue Moon or the older Celis White), this pours a cloudy pale gold, with a herby, yeasty nose that has just a touch of that lemon myrtle noted on the label. Slightly muddy taste of citrus and spice, mildly sweet.

Gold with a big white head. Lagerish aroma with some light lemon and metal notes. Flavor is plastic, rubbery, lightly spicy and NASTY.

Pours cloudy gold with very active head formation; foamy, fizzy white with lacing. Pleasant notes of wheat and lemon; makes one think of a summer day. Well balanced taste; hint of lemon rind instead of strong lemon presence. Crisp, refreshing, sessionable.

330mL. Pour is near hazy yellow with a temporary, thin, white head. Decent retention and lace. Aroma is perfumey, rich, perfume oils, lemon, pomelo, citrus rind. Taste is fizzy, spritzy, perfume oils, suddy, potpourri, light dough and malt. Pretty refreshing, interesting.

The weirdest thing happened with this beer. Everybody’s talking about a fizzy head that quickly dissipates to nothing. That didn’t happen to me. The first one of these I tried to drink straight out of the bottle, but it would fizz up so much in my mouth that I was swallowing foam. So weird. So I tried pouring it in a pint glass. It started superfoaming right away. I hadn’t poured more than an inch and the foam had expanded all the way up to the top. And it took a while to go down so I could pour more in. I’ve never seen this with any beer. It’s like it was turbocharged. After it had foamed itself out and dissipated, it was fine. As for its other qualities, it doesn’t have a whole lot going on. Mild and forgettable.

Pour is cloudy gold with a white head. Aroma is grainy, with notes of cardboard, lemongrass, and yeast. Flavor shows the same. Maybe a touch of coriander on the finish, maybe. Overall body is light to moderate and finish is dry.