It’s the morning after the Super Bowl. Regardless of the beer and food consumed the day before, we’re all expected to be back at work this morning. The game was exciting and I ate too much greasy food, so I would have to call it a success. While stuffing my face and ultimately having my heart broken, I did manage to try a couple beers worth sharing with you.
To start, I needed something nice and sessionable, considering the game usually goes on for 4 hours. I also needed something that could appeal to the wife and mother-in-law. For this reason I went with 21st Amendment’s Hell or High Watermelon Wheat. I had tried this brew previously at the beer and cheese pairing hosted by Sheana Davis and was pleasantly surprised.
Hell or High Watermelon has the looks you would expect from a wheat beer. The first hint of the watermelon comes through in the aroma, with only a touch being present, hiding behind a nice wheaty base. The flavor is refreshing and light with watermelon mingling with the fruity esters. The full force of the fruit doesn’t reveal itself until the beers passes over the back of your mouth with a splash of noble hops that keeps the beer crisp on the palate. When I first heard about a Watermelon Wheat, I assumed it would be a cheerleader beer, but Hell or High Watermelon doesn’t go down the road to sweet and gimicky. Instead, this is a well crafted, creative brew that should find its way into many coolers, especially come BBQ season.
After a couple cans of the Watermelon, I moved on to something a little stronger. Marin’s Brewing’s Tripel Dipsea caught my eye the other day in the beer cooler. I hadn’t seen it in the bottle before, but the beer has claimedits share of medals in the last 10 years, so it i definitely not a new beer. The aroma is full of yeasty esters of clove alcohol. The flavor is malty, rich and carries that esther profile with big kicks of cloves and fruit, all sitting on top of that big alcohol punch. The finish dries out quickly, leaving a yeasty reminder of what you’ve just tried. Triepl Dipsea is a very nice beer, that is to be sure.
I finished the evening with a Moylander Double IPA. I’ve previously reviewed this beer, but did note a cake-like, butter pecan sweeness in the aroma this time around. It was so prominent that I felt I had to share.
On the sharing front, my mother-in-law was in a beer tasting mood as she put it, and made sure to sample the beers as I went along. The Watermelon Wheat didn’t get much of a response, but the tripel Dipsea appeared to be the hit of the afternoon. She commented that she prefered the Tripel over the Moylander, which I could have expected, given Moyolander’s big hop flavors and bite.
To end a perfectly good Sunday I had a couple more Watermelon wheats to go with the ups and downs of the second half of play. So much for football, thankfully baseball is right around the corner.
