Birkenhead Honey Blonde Ale

Brewed by Birkenhead Brewery
Style: Wheat Ale
Western Cape: Stanford, South Africa

Serve in Shaker, Weizen

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Liqourice taste...quite sweet...hazy colour...small head, strange aftertaste

UPDATED: OCT 29, 2011 Ontap at the Tokai market. An unclear, light yellow colour with a white head. A light aroma of malt and fruit. The taste is sweet. A light body and avarage carbonation. It did not taste that much and that makes it difficult to rate. Not really my kind of beer.4-2-4-2-13 Bottle 340 ml. A cloudy light golden colour with a short lasting white head. An aroma of malt and fruit. The taste is medium sweet and light bitter. A medium body, watery to oily texture, soft carbonation and a short light sweet finish.

So, a weiss styled beer that has none of the traditional weiss characters; no clove, no banana peel and no doughy yeast. Really it’s just a honey-heavy pilsener style and as such is not terrible. But it’s overly simplistic and far too sweet, lacking any malt backbone or hop bitterness. Fizzy forced carbonation only serves to push this towards alco-pop territory. Better drunk chilled, but best not drunk at all.

courtesy of Per Forsgren - pale lactic-orange colour without foam; aroma of herbs and honey; lot of carbonation, sour and acidic, moderate malt body; acidic honeyish aftertaste - weird

The only wheat beer in South Africa" ...it half way fits that title...has a dusty smell..alittle lack-luster...is smooth as heck though...some lacing...nice wheat aftertaste...a good wheat (golden ale) for a sunny hot afternoon.good alcohol masking and strength

Pale and lightly cloudy gold with a generous but short lasting head. Slight honey notes in the aroma, with some cidery notes. On tasting it was sour, but not sharply so. It was quite weak and had a strange aftertaste like when you eat a half eaten apple after it’s been left aside for a while. A little overcarbonated, and the best thing that can be said about it is that it carries its abv quite easily.

Another very queer fish from South Africa’s Birkenhead Brewery. God knows what the flight to Australia does to these beers but it’s hard to believe that the end result is what the brewer intended. This one was around six months old, but it’s surprising how far it had deteriorated. It poured a dirty lemon colour with a 1cm head that was gone in 60 seconds, leaving a slender ring around the glass. The aroma was sweet and piercing, showing canned pear juice, faint honey and a rusty metallic note. In the mouth, it was dead and undercarbonated. The flavour mix showed pear juice again with a ghastly green olive taint. There was no hint of the 6% abv but plenty of sugary sweetness in the finish. It tasted much like a cheap cider loaded with pear concentrate. (340ml bottle, brewed on 3/11/05, thanks to Bridge and Omhper for this one)

SA’s own Weissbier! This is a great beer from a micro brewery in the South-western Cape. The hint of honey also gives this beer something else. Very drinkable when ice-cold.

UPDATED: JAN 22, 2008 Draught at the brewpub. Hazy pale yellow. Medium sweet with clean mouthfeel. The honey flavour is very slight, only adding a hint of flavour and no sweetness. Wheat flavour is evident. The low hop rate and bitterness along with clean malt character makes it perhaps quite a neutral beer.