Friday, April 09, 2010

Boulevard Harvest Dance

It seems like a long time since I've picked up a brew from Kansas City brewer Boulevard, and what better way to get reacquainted then grabbing a beer from their Smokestack series. This Harvest Dance is a Wheat Wine. Now some of you may be going a what? I've heard for a barleywine, but what is this Wheat Wine you speak of? Well glad you asked.
Like a barleywine, Wheat Wines are strong ales, however they are relatively new to the beer scene where as barleywines have been around for a long time. However they also mix in the complexity of a Wheat beer with many of these wheat wines having upwards of 50% of their malt bill being wheat. I've never had a wheat wine, so this is something that I've been wanting to try for some time.
The Beer: This one weighs in at 9.10% abv and pours an orange copper with an absolutely ginormous pillowy slightly off white head. The nose is full of fruity esters, banana, cloves, bubble gum, spice, just like a great hefeweizen should. The first sips give the impression of a very full mouthfeel, alcohol, winish quality. Then those things part and you start to get the impression of a "heavier" wheat beer. Bananas, spices, cloves, then white grapes, honey suckle-ish quality. A dryness that reminds me of a trippel. Some astringency notes. As the beer warms one can get a "wheat-y" taste that's quite nice. Also much lighter in the mouthfeel than a barleywine is which is very nice. A bit boozy. If I had to sum it up in a sentence it would be like taking a Belgian Trippel mixed with a good Bavarian Hefe. An interesting beer that makes me want to delve deeper into this style. This gets a B+ from me. Here's what folks at BA had to say.

3 comments:

J Lackey said...

FYI: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9EV1BP02.html

Excited to see you guys! Have a save flight tomorrow.

Joel

Unknown said...

Where can you find this beer?

Barleyvine said...

Its usually available at Spec's with all the other Boulevard Smokestack series. It's not one of the year rounders, but I've seen it around.