Boulevard Brewing Co. Harvest Dance Wheat Wine Style Ale
Doherty: I am a fan of slightly larger-than-life wheat ales (weizenbocks, hopfen weizens, dunkel weisses) so when the trusted Jed at Baltimore's best beer store (The Wine Source) recommended this beer, it went straight into the trolley. The name put me off a bit - "wheat wine" put me in mind of a sickly barley wine. However, Boulevard Brewing Co. was familiar to me through their excellent Unfiltered Wheat Beer and the spanking quadrupel The Sixth Glass.
It poured a warm amber with a full and sturdy head (which stuck around until I had consumed about a third of the beer). The aroma was light: some spice, mainly ginger and some pepper with a fruit background. The initial taste opened up a great deal more fruit flavors, though more hop-related than traditional wheat beer fruits and spices (banana, clove etc). I tasted some gooseberry, citrus, and tropical fruit. The initial mouthfeel was champagne-y like a Belgian tripel, though it didn't maintain this carbonation to the bottom of the glass. Though it is a high alcohol ale (9.5%), the alcohol was pleasantly warming rather than spirit-y.
Overall, it was a potable and potent tipple, but I was disappointed not to enjoy more of the malt flavors I expected from a sturdy wheat ale: the aforementioned banana and cloves, but also brown bread, caramel, and perhaps a little nutty.
I believe my Ginger colleague also enjoyed this ale, though I think he trapped some of the head in his beard.
Clearly, Her Indoors did not like this beer as it has fewer than 65 IBUs ("hop head" does not begin to describe her.)
My grade: 86
Schools: While this beer would not have found its way into my "trolley", I am glad that my friend from the Old Country picked it up and shared it with me. He claims to have tasted gooseberry. That may well be, but you could shove a gooseberry down my throat, and I still wouldn't know that it tasted of gooseberry. What the deuce is a gooseberry?! In any case, I am not a huge fan of the Belgian style yeast strains, but this one was not overly fruity or flowery. It had a nice smooth finish for a beer of 9.5% ABV and I enjoyed it more than I would have suspected (frothy ginger beard notwithstanding). My grade will be slightly lower than my colleague's but that is mostly due to this not being my favorite style. It was clearly brewed with care and was well crafted. If you like a Belgian style wheat and want a fairly smooth drinking beer with a rich flavor profile that is not overpowering, give this one a go.
My grade: 82
Doc: For the edification of my bearded colonial colleague, below is a picture of a gooseberry. My mother used to make me pick them for her baking needs when I was a boy. She was savvy enough to have me do this as the gooseberry bush has sharp and sturdy prickles. Never mind my hands: it made me look tougher carrying my violin case every day to my public high school. The berries themselves are quite hairy, so I wouldn't advise eating them raw. However, they are quite tasty when baked in a gooseberry fool or pie with generous amounts of cream and sugar. They are tart and a little citrusy.
Stats (according to the brewery's website):
| Color (EBC) | 23 |
| Bitterness (IBUs) | 42 |
| Original Gravity (Plato) | 19.0 |
| Terminal Gravity (Plato) | 4.2 |
| Alcohol (ABV) | 9.5% |
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