I tried some!
Well, the good news is that it's definately beer!
It's also definately a wheat beer lol, the taste isn't very 'full' though. It tastes 'green' in the same way that a very young wine tastes green. The flavours are there but they taste unrefined and unmatured, but boy oh boy there's a hell of a lot of flavour!
The bitterness is definately the first thing that hits your senses - it's not actually a bad taste, just a little too prevalent.
Despite the short mash times, there is a strong malty flavour which instantly reminds me of the smell of the mashing wheat - This is quite sugary but not in a 'caster sugary' way, more like the sweetness you get from fruit.
In my opinion, it's perfectly drinkable, not as a session beer though; I can imagine drinking a pint of it whilst sitting in the sun on the patio at a barbeque in the summer!
The one thing that, in my opinion, saved the brew, was the addition of the orange-bloom honey. I was skeptical as to whether it would actually make any difference to the taste of the beer but it's actually quite astounding - you can almost taste the honey as much as the hops... before the bitterness kicks in anyway!
I've put two glasses of beer in the fridge to cool - one with a sugar-free sweetener tablet in it, and one with out; both are covered in cling film with a few holes pricked in the top. I figure that I would hate the taste of warm hoegarden, so hopefully chilling this will make it improve hugely!
- H
