Blue Moon Honey Moon Summer Ale

I picked this up to review because I just love Blue Moon more and more every time I try it. I wanted to like this beer, I really did…..but I just didn’t love it. Let me tell you about the brew. According to the bottle, this is an ale brewed with honey and orange peel. It also says it has the “fresh flavor of orange peel and real honey with pale malt and malted white wheat”. This beer was the winner of the Specialty Honey Lager or Ale at the Great American Beer Festival: 2006.  Here’s what I thought…

The Pour
This poured with a nice medium thickness head. It seemed quite pillowy and creamy. The beer looks quite carbonated, with plenty of bubbles rising quickly to the surface for a long period of time. The color matches the color of the honey in the beer. A rich golden honey color.

The Nose
Smells promising…something like a regular Blue Moon but with a touch of honey. Nice wheat and spice in the aroma.

The Taste
The first thing I noticed is that this is quite a carbonated brew. In fact, this may be the  beer’s downfall. The honey is noticeable and definitely present in the finish, but I didn’t notice any orange flavor, or really much of anything else. I think the overcarbonation just hid the flavor profiles. There should have been so much more to this beer, but there just wasn’t. The carbonation hid everything.

Overall
Overall, I thought this tasted more like Coors brewed it than the regular Blue Moon does. I was surprised when I first learned Coors brews Blue Moon because I think it’s a darn fine beer. This, however, is just an ordinary beer, brewed by a big beer brewery/factory with the tastes of the lowest common denominator in mind. No adventure or risk-taking in the brewing of this beer.

Recommended: Don’t waste your money on this
Price: $7.49 for a 6-pack
ABV: Unknown

Flying Dog’s Woody Creek White Belgian Style Wit Beer

This is a recently released Summer seasonal offering from Flying Dog, based out of Denver, CO. They sent me a sample bottle to try and review, so that is what I am doing.

Here is what they say on their Web site about this beer:

Woody Creek White is a traditional Belgian-style Wit Beer, brewed with unique ingredients like orange peel and coriander, resulting in a refreshing and slightly citrus flavor…

I cracked the bottle open and poured it into one of my pint glasses. It was a nice golden yellow color and was quite cloudy, showing off its unfiltered goodness. One whiff and you know you’re drinking a Belgian-style white. The wheat, citrus and spice notes in the nose bring to mind Blue Moon, just a bit.

Taking the first taste, you know you’re drinking a solid white. The citrus and spice notes are present in the mouth as well as the nose, and it’s got a good wheatiness. This brew is medium to full bodied and is almost like drinking a glass of wheat bread, but it still manages to stay crisp and clean on the finish, not thick and heavy.

That finish makes it a good Summer seasonal indeed. Overall this is a good solid witbier. I still prefer my Blue Moon, though!

Recommended: I’m not a huge witbier guy but if you like wheat in your glass, this is a good example of a Belgian style wit beer
Price: Unknown, it was a free sample
ABV: 4.7%

Blue Moon

Being a beer snob, I generally turn my nose up at anything put out by the major brewers: Coors, Miller, Bud, etc. But before I was fully entrenched in my snobbery, I tried Blue Moon, not realizing it was a Coors product. I tried it on my beer buddy Mobelly’s recommendation, and I have to say it earned a soft, wheaty spot in my heart.

Blue Moon is a belgian-style white beer. The beer poured to a cloudy orange-copper color. The cloudiness comes from the unfiltered nature of this ale. The color can only be called extremely appropriate, as I smelled orange before my nose even neared the glass.

On the pour I notice a medium head that seems to last a good long while.

The nose, once I got past the orange, also had a nice wheat bread dough aroma to it. I thought it had a very smooth mouthfeel to it, with mild carbonation, though I did think it could have been fuller bodied. I tasted wheat bread dough and orange in the beer. Some people like this accompanied by a slice of orange. I tried it once, but I much prefer it standing alone. I think this is a great introduction to wheat as an ingredient in beer.

There are other spice notes in the beer, but spices are my weak point….I have a hard time identifying distinct spices in beers or foods, for some reason.

This beer says it is bottled by Blue Moon Brewing Co., but this is really a Coors product. I think it is, overall, a nice change of pace from the usual, and a great summertime, or even springtime, beer. Very refreshing and light. I think it’s a good introduction to wheat-type beers. It’s subtle enough to get you used to the idea without being so overpoweringly wheaty as to turn you off of them forever.

Recommended: Definitely
Price: I paid $6.79 for a six-pack
ABV: 5.4%

Awards:

• 1996 World Beer Championship silver medalist, White Beer category
• 1997 World Beer Championship silver medalist, White Beer category
• 1995 World Beer Championship gold medalist, White Beer category