So I had a whole other beer set to go for today, Stone's RuinTen. But unfortunately I'm out of town for the weekend and I left my tasting notebook at home. So I'm not entirely sure what I was going to do today. Luckily, my friend Trey came through in the clutch. He and his girlfriend, Kristian, recently returned from a huge northeast roadtrip and he was exceedingly kind enough to bring me back a ton of beer. Truly a prince among men! So, thanks to Trey, today we're taking a look at Moat Mountain's Blueberry Ale. To the beer!
I'll be honest, I was expecting this beer to be blue. I figured it would at least have a purplish bluish tint to it. I was not expecting the hazed over, practically opaque, orangey gold elixir that emerges from the bottle. There's a lot of particulates in the floating around underneath a finger of loosely bubbled white head that doesn't lace all that much.
The blueberry-ness finally makes itself known on the aroma. Subtle fresh berry notes sit alongside a bit of lemony citrus, orange rind zestiness, and a very interesting bready sweetness. The aromas intensify as the beer warms. The blueberry notes don't overwhelm, but they do contribute to an almost pie-like character, pretty interesting.
The beer is medium bodied and leads with zesty fruity notes of lemon and orange. Sweet bready crackery malt flavors follow. There's not a ton of hop flavor or bitterness going on here. It leans sweet, but is pretty solidly balanced. A subtle blueberry flavor comes out near the finish.
This one's pretty interesting. As is usually the case, when a beer is brewed with a strange ingredient like this, the brewer has to tread a very fine line between subtlety and boldness. Moat Mountain definetely erred on the side of subtlety here. It's definitely worth checking out if you're a fruit beer fan. Although, I fear my local readers will have a bit of a trek if they want to give it a try.
HD
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