Review - Wild Dawg Brewing's Wild Blue
"Not suited for timid or reserved beer drinkers, Wild Blue’s defining taste characteristic is its kick of natural blueberry flavor. The Blue Dawg Brewing team carefully selected a blend of hops and barley malt to ensure they complemented and balanced Wild Blue’s dominant blueberry notes, resulting in a robust and aromatic beer with a refreshing, palate-cleansing finish. Wild Blue is brewed with a blend of German hops from the Hallertau region in Bavaria and classic Aroma hops from the Willamette Valley in the Pacific Northwest. A combination of two- and six-row barley malt also was chosen specifically for this recipe. Beer lovers will appreciate this specialty fruit-infused lager’s striking burgundy color, ripe blueberry aroma and its ability to stand up to the strongest of foods." -- Wild Dawg Brewing (Anheuser-Busch)
Faint hint when we pop the cap. Strong aroma of red wine eminates from the bottle before we begin the pour. From the bottle, it pours a clear dark cranberry juice like color with excellent clarity. Settles out in glass with essentially no carbonation, producing no head and no lacing on the glass. Sitting in the glass, it actually looks more like a fruit juice than a beer. The aroma is weak with hints of sweet sugary malts, faint blueberry notes, and the soft alcohol scent seems to overpower it all. Initial taste is a very sweet with a medicinal-like sweetness, almost like childrens cough syrup, and the sweet lingers through to the finish leaving a very heavy coating on the mouth. Medium to heavy bodied, there is a distinct syrupy quality with a short blast of carbonation, and gives the impression of drinking canned blueberry puree. Drinks more like a wine cooler than a beer. If it doesn't look like a beer and it doesn't taste like a beer, is it really a beer? This is the antithesis of the Sam Adams Utopias, which also does not look like or smell like a beer, but that was the goal in that case and the results were remarkable.
Reviewed on June 12th, 2008.
