Beer Review: Rock Bottom Belgian White Ale

Serving Type: Draft

ABV: 5.3 percent

Appearance: Belgian White's have been one of my favorite beer styles dating back to my early days of getting into beer. I find the look of their fluffy, white crowns fascinating as they are in contrast to the rest of the beer's body. This one has about an inch of thickness in the head and it remained atop the brew for most of the drink. The body was an attractive orange and very cloudy.

Smell: This beer had a pleasant aroma of coriander and spice. I also got hints of wheat and yeast, which is what you'd expect when drinking such a hazy beer.

Taste: This is the department in which I was slightly disappointed. It might be partially my fault because when I fall in love with a beer based on its appearance I tend to develop high expectations pertaining to the experience that's to come. The spice hits you hard, but the citrus is lacking just a tad in this Belgian White. Aside from the taste, the mouth feel was very carbonated and fizzy, which I appreciated.

Overall Rating: 

This was such a beautiful-looking beer. I was just slightly disappointed in the taste. I want to be smacked in the tongue with the citrus zest. it just wasn't in the cards for this pint.

What Will Blue Moon Brewing's Fall Seasonal Be?

Image via Wikipedia

Recently, Blue Moon Brewing has been experimenting with a few different types of beer. Most know of a Facebook poll on the company's page that gave fans the choice of beer labels/flavors. The fans voted and the final results came down to three beers:

• Caramel Apple Spiced Ale (5.8 percent ABV)
• Blackberry Tart Ale (5.8 percent ABV)
• Dark Chocolate Bacon Porter (ABV unknown)

According to the Facebook page, Blue Moon will announce in April which one of these three brews is going to be sold as a new Fall seasonal.

A little further research led me to a post on Beer Street Journal that explained that Blue Moon was also dabbling in a few other beer styles as well. The standouts for me included Raspberry Cream Ale and Farmhouse Red. Between these two beers and the three mentioned above, all but the Bacon Porter and Farmhouse Red can are available on draft, according to Beer Street's post.

From what I can gather, it looks the Blackberry Tart Ale is swirling about the Internet. This leads me to believe that it will be the new beer that Blue Moon selects as its new Fall seasonal.

Very interesting.

The Caramel Apple Spiced Ale and the Bacon Porter are more intriguing to me than the Blackberry Tart. I've had plenty of apple ciders and was enthralled with Shipyard's Applehead a while back. I've always heard that chocolate covered bacon is an amazing delicacy. I just haven't built up the gumption to actually try it. I'd definitely have a pint of this beer if I had the chance.

Two things about the possibility of Blackberry Tart being the released seasonal irk me: the taste of Blue Moon's Belgian White and an experience with Sam Adams Blackberry Witbier.

With the Belgian White, you need the help of an orange slice to make the beer just somewhat sustainable. I really can't stand to look at the beer after finding other, more tasty alternatives. The Blackberry Witbier I had was almost too sweet and not tart at all.

All of that and the fact that Blue Moon is now a subsidiary of Coors in Golden, Colo. keeps me weary about how successful Blackberry Tart might be, but I'm still willing to give it a shot if it does indeed hit the craft beer market.

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