6.6

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

2006 bottle aged for quite some time in my refrigerator, and finally consumed on 3/17/07
Well first of all, I must admit to quite the stupid mistake of assuming this would be unfiltered. It’s not, but I should have looked at the bottom of the bottle instead of assuming. Pretty sad that’s it’s filtered. Even Otter Creek didn’t filter their recent weizenbock. Oh well. Fortunately I age 99% of my lagers in a fridge, so this one shouldnt have suffered from the filtration/aging too much.
Head is small, buttery-beige colored and sits atop an amber-caramel body with strong strawberry blonde hues. Clear, and the head retention is rather poor, as is the lacing.
Strong fruity/grainy malts in the nose seem to be mostly a product of the Canadian two-row (reminds me a lot of Cambridge’s Spring Training IPA, actually. I guess that malt is pretty distinctive). Munich malt neither produces much breadiness nor bittersweet/sourness. Hops are soft and mildly herbal by this point, only adding a touch of aroma. Lightly creamy sugars sit on the back, with a lightly crisp yeastiness balancing things on the end. No flaws or alcohol noted, obviously they werent lying about the proper lagering time. Props for that, but why the hell did they go and filter it. Arg.
Sweet, bready malts, with light strawberry-raspberry fruitiness (light melanoidins) and a lingering bready-sourness on the finish. Plenty of caramel notes emerge as it warms (munich malt) with a clean, crisp, modestly sweet aftertaste and some light hop bitterness and herbal notes retronasal. Again, no alcohol or flaws in the flavor. Munich malt gives a fair amount of body, so despite the filtration, it’s still somewhat substantial on the mouth, but the carbonation is very loose, of course and provides glimpses of thinning as the beer warms. Filtration really affects the wheat aspects, I think, pulling off the typical smoothness/creaminess that that imparts, but then (on the positive side?) it also removes the nutty/dry-blandness that wheat adds. Thus the beer turns out much more lively/fruity than you’d expect for the style.
3.3 seems like a pretty appropriate score ;)