Billabong Blonde Gluten Free

Brewed by Billabong Brewing
Style: Specialty Grain
Myaree, Australia

Serve in Lager glass, Tumbler

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

330ml bottle. So pale it looks like a glass of water with a yellow tinge to it. No head to speak of although the aroma saves it a little. Sweet malty aroma with orange peel wafting through. Tastes more like a brewed soft drink that beer. The colourful art work on the label is the best thing about it.

bottle was a gift along with the pale ale. very highly carbonated. strong tropical aromas, with a taste that was lacking after the nose.

Sweet floral malt fruit aroma. Clear yellow colour great head and lacing. Malt hop sweet flaverou with stone fruit. Fizzy palate.

So wrong but yet was somehow alright. Ridiculous head with enormous malformed bubbles and the straw of straw colours. Pineapple is very present. Somehow it was alright.

Dammit. Must... learn... to... read... small... print... on... beer... bottles. "Low carb" and "gluten free" are two of the scariest phrases in brewing and they’re right there on the front of the label, just under the orange price sticker that reminds me how much I overpaid for a new rate. To be fair, for a gluten-free beer this has some moments but only in the way that the last rom-com your girlfriend dragged you along to wasn’t as awful as you expected. (Unless it was "Confessions of a Shopaholic". Then it was.) Blillabong Blonde looks very much as you’d expect and holds its head pretty well. The curacao grabs centre stage in an aroma with obvious orange peel, watery lime juice and faint ginger. It’s all a bit Robinson’s Barley Water. So far so good but it’s downhill from there. The carbonation is champagne spritzy, with bubbles that dance around the mouth and distract from the taste. Overall, cheap champagne is the best comparison I can summon. It’s feather-light on the tongue, which helps muddy the thin flavours of acetic acid, stale kettle water and lime juice. Minimal bitterness. Couldn’t stomach more than a few mouthfuls of this. (330ml bottle from Randwick Cellars, who saw me coming and charged $7.95 for this. Stupid is as stupid does.)

Opens with an excited hiss and begins it’s journed upwards and outwards, pouring with a massive head indicating overcarbonation, an infection or otherwise. Floral aroma suggesting acetic acid and a brett-like farmhouse funk (leather, fruity sweat) reminiscent of a lot of lambics and soured belgians I’ve encountered. It’s also reminding me a lot of the ciders of normandy, in a good way. A slightly solvent-like aroma prickles the olfactory nerves. Light on malt flavour (just a touch of caramel) with a ripe fruitiness possibly due to a brett infection. A slight acidity in the flavour and finish, but not strong or overwhelming. No best before marked, though I’m quite confident it’s an old one. A very pleasant beer, probably the most enjoyable thing I’ve had from Billabong.

Bottle (330ml). Poured pale hazy yellow with a small, fizzy white head which was average lasting. A cordial like aroma with a light fruitiness; apples, canned peaches, mango flavored iced tea and some sweet malts. Flavor was of rotten oranges with expired apple juice, lychee juice, strange notes of infection and a chalky tablet-like aftertaste. Light bodied with medium carbonation, a watery texture and a short finish. Possibly a bad bottle.

Bright, clear gold body, white head and some lacing. Butter and pine on the nose, light body, citrus, resin and some sweetness that is not pleasant for me but for a coeliac what choice do you have.

Gluten-free beer now available mainstream at a few places in and around Perth. Mine, a bottle from the Beer Store Morley.
None too impressed by this though it has its purpose being Gluten-free. Going for the drier ’Lager’ end may be it’s undoing. It pours a pale gold and bright. Head was there, then it wasn’t leaving a wafer-thin pad of white atop that managed the odd bit of leg-work. Cooked, boiled out, starchy rice nose, not much else (unsure of the grain used, it is a little claggy like ’Glutaner’). Extremely fizzed up burn of carbonic acid upsets the palate, pretty much towering over the flavour and all else. There is a little definable fruit hidden underneath, a tiny edge of sweetness. Starchy, burnt rubber flavour lingers long after the crisp swallow. Finish is gassy, making this one repeat. The body light for all I could tell. Reflux was the result of me drinking this.
I might have to try this again as my notes are void of flavour profile. A few weeks have passed since I tried this, a new rating coming. So far, not good!! (33cL, 09876)

citrus, floral, pale, clear, white foam, light sweetness, lightly bitter, light body, lively,