$5.99 from Green’s on Buford Highway, Atlanta, GA, USA. It appears as though people are paying a LOT more for this beer around the country. It had LITERALLY been just entered into the Green’s system, so perhaps it will be adjusted upward in time. I certainly wouldn’t want to pay more than I did, though.
Poured into the Southampton Weizen glass, the beer gives a nice head initially but to be honest it fades rather quickly and delivers very little lace. Requisite clouded butterscotch color in the body.
The nose yields mainly what one would expect considering the beer that this is supposed to be. Slight solvent alcohol with those tell-tale, non-descript spices.
The beer “dies” in the glass really quickly with the initial, short lived, vibrant feel lost to a syrupy, hot alcohol unbalanced feel much too soon. It gets edgy, a touch rough (as in, “malt liquor/homeless rough”) and generally gets a little classless at an alarming rate. Wits really don’t need to be amped up, and at the best of times American craft brewers tend to butcher subtle styles with excess alcohol and big notes, so when left to one of the big boys things go downhill much faster.
Solvent alcohol increases quickly and the spices are lost in the mix. The banana and clove notes become barely relevant as the beer starts to resemble a cross between Steel Reserve and rubbing alcohol.
I dunno, things started well, and I don’t dislike Blue Moon, but getting American brewers involved with subtle styles can be a big mistake and coupling the BMC angle the whole thing drops off rapidly. Shame.
Bandwagon jumping by Coors and it shows.