Lucky Saint: German Weissbier (England: Low Alcohol: 0.5% ABV)
Visual: Caramel touched dark bruised banana coloured body. Very large mounded bubbled head. Medium amounts of carbonation visible.
Nose: Cloves. Mild dried banana. Coriander. Vanilla fudge. Wheat flecks. Orange zest. Shredded wheat.
Body: Granite like bitterness. Wheaty. Generic malt drinks. Muted malt loaf. Thick, wheaty mouthfeel. Light dried banana.
Finish: Dried banana. Unleaven bread. Muted malt loaf. Coriander.
Conclusion: So, most low alcohol weissbiers, even if I like them, tend to be good drinks but shit examples of a weissbier. Often there is an iced tea or isotonic drink character, which while not a bad character is nowt like a weisse.
This is a better example of a weisse but a very mediocre beer.
The aroma is a good start, very weisse, very nice. There are the expected banana, cloves, wheat, citrus. I was shocked at how good this was and started looking forwards to a good beer. There was however one slight tell of the disappointment to come. A kind of shredded wheat note, which is not too bad in itself, but an obvious first bad sign in retrospect.
The main body is a very neutral set of restrained malty notes. Kind of like unleavened bread but less. It is the same main flavor I get in their lager, so I guess must be a core part of their low alcohol brewing process. There are some mild weisse notes, mainly the banana notes, but they struggle against that neutral maltiness.
The finish picks up again, spice, banana – not as good as the aroma but it is something to work with. I prefer this to the Lucky Saint lager which is… fine … if there is nothing else low alochol. This does have the weisse mouthfeel down pat, it genuinely smells like a weisse, but it has a flavor hole in the middle that it just cannot dig itself out of.
Again, if this is your only low alcohol choice it is **sigh** ok, however if they could take this feel and aroma and add more flavour, this could be a game changer low alcohol weisse. I can but hope they put the effort in.
Background: So, despite being called a German Weissbier, this is made in England. Anyway, had other Lucky Saint beers a few times and they have been … adequate. They are in a heck of a lot of places now and, sure in a pinch they do the job but not my fave. However I do like a good weisse, and after xmas was needing to take things a bit easier, so some low alcohol beers sounded like a very good idea. Since this is not a real German beer I had to up the German quota with the music. Oh yeah, back to Rammenstein: Mutter! Darn straight! This beer was grabbed from Sainsbury’s, so should be fairly easy to get if you want it.
