Mad Brewers Hoppy Hefe

The Hefeweizen can be a bland style of beer, often because the ingredients are for the most part the same, and the difference from one brew to the next can be subtle at best.   When it comes down to it, the Hefeweizen is the vanilla at the Gelati stand, the Corolla in the car yard, or the iPhone of beers... perhaps without the vicious lawsuits.   Once you peel away the packaging, and strip the marketing garb, the bare bones you are left with form essentially the same product as the last.   I do enjoy a good wheat beer when thoroughly parched on a hot summers day, but have yet to really embrace the genre, as there is never enough meat on the bones to justify the class as a versatile beer.   Enter Mad Brewers' Hoppy Hefe.  

A 7% Hefeweizen that comes only in a 640ml bottle, brewed by our own Malt Shovel (of James Squire fame).   The label firmly declares that 'sweet and spicy' German wheat beers could do with a lashing of hops, and be all the better for it.   I certainly can't argue with that.   I am at a point in my life where Maccas could just about put me in a diabetic clinic by releasing a McHop Burger.

The pour of the 'Hoppy Hefe' is visually striking.   The body is incredibly thick with colour.  Think shades of orange, amber, and burnt peach, all working in intertwining circular layers as if it were brewed by an intergalactic crop artist.   You can actually swirl the liquid around in your glass, and watch the different shades and pigments glide around.   Compared to your average beer, this belongs in the Louvre.   A thin fluffy head sits perfectly atop the body in a crowning fashion.   The nose is pleasant, and smells like a resinous pine tree that has been genetically modified to bear fruit.   Monsanto would be incredibly jealous.

The tone of the beer is as much a Hefe, as Chris Farley was an inspiration for anorexia.   The feel is weighted, and moderately heavy like a good American Pale Ale.   There is a mild oily slickness to it, but the delicacy is something that I have rarely encountered.   It's akin to being brutally socked in the jaw... by a feather bat.   Being swung by a fluffy cloud.   The addition of hops have wrought havoc upon the light carbonated sting that normally accompanies a wheat beer.   The flavours are complex, but balanced, with passion fruit and nectarine-like fruits vying for supremacy amongst sweetened wheat, and bitter hops.   Nothing is truly allowed to dominate, and where a dead heat might normally leave a crowd feeling numb and unfulfilled, this is full of life and breeds nothing but contentment.

This is one of the best Hefeweizens I've ever drunk.   The truth is though, had the word 'Hefe' not been printed on the label I likely would not have considered it to be so.   This is really an American Wheat Ale, for want of a more accurate term.   But lets not descend into genre arguments, for that is why God invented YouTube.


8.5/10

Red Duck White Garden

I had been wanting to keep reviewing beers on a more regular basis, but alas, life has gotten in the way.  After weeks of drinking cases of the same beer, over and over, I decided the funk must be broken.  There were a few random stowaway beers at the back of the fridge, and the first one I picked up was Red Duck's White Garden.  Red Duck are a very small brewery based in Victoria, whose wares I have sampled before.  In general, they are an above average brewer so I wasn't intimidated by the chances of this one being a dud.

It's hard to imagine what one might be doing when entering 'White Garden'.  You could simply be walking in to a large collection of daisies, or perhaps the ceremonial grounds of the Ku Klux Klan.  The write up on the label describes the ale as a mixture of various malts, combined with Raspberry and Rhubarb Jam.  Boy, that escalated quickly.  I wasn't expecting

'White Garden' to be the moniker of a beer brewed with condiments that are, for the most part, red.  The name is all in the appearance.  The ale pours a very light whitish/yellow, and hardly even looks like a beer.  The body is not translucent however, and has a serious murkiness to it.  It is littered with 'floaters', and resembles the Atlantic Ocean amidst the aftermath  of the Titanic.  Much like the disastrous event, the majority of these floaters perilously sink to the bottom.  We all know there was room for two people on that piece of wood Kate Winslet, you selfish bitch. 

If you've followed my reviews you'll know that I don't often pay much to credence to the appearance and 'nose' of a beer, unlike many other wankfest beer writers, but Jesus Christ the smell that eminates from this beer is something horrific.  The aroma is confoundedly tart, almost to the point of being rotten.  Basically, it smells like Madonna.  I know you probably think I'm being comedic here, but I honestly would not be surprised if Madonna smelt like this beer.

Just when you think you may have some sort of a grasp over this concoction, you end up taking a sip.  It doesn't taste like raspberry, or rhubarb.  The sweetness you might have been expecting has been brutally beaten to death by what can only be described as a sour mess.  The feel of the beer is flimsy and watery, and adds nothing to the overall experience whatsoever.  I cannot think of any circumstance that anyone would 'want' to drink this.  Then just to add insult to injury

as you approach the final third of the drink, which is a considerable amount, you are confronted with a naval minefield of floating crap that not even the Red October could navigate it's way through.

The overall 'taste' of the beer is not bad, it's drinkable, but the entire package as a whole is unrefined, unnecessary, and essentially useless.  Avoid.

3.5/10