I had to wait a week or so longer than expected to try this beer because the pineapple I bought seemed to take forever to ripen well enough for a good photo and more importantly some good eating. Yeah, I totally panicked at the grocery store and bought the first one I saw and it was way too green to eat. When I can get it whole, I absolutely love pineapple. I put it on pizza (yeah I went there), burgers, eat it fresh, grill it, wrap it in bacon, pair it with pork chops and much more. Still, despite this professed passion, I’ve always been a little iffy about pineapple beers. I’ve never really found one that I can say I enjoyed. So the thought of a free sample to try out was perfect for my endeavor to finally find a pineapple beer I can appreciate.
Returning to summer 2017, Moody Ales has once again brewed the Sublime Pineapple Hefeweizen. It’s brewed to a strength of 4.8% alcohol by volume and is available in 650mL bombers in liquor stores and of course at the brewery and is described as a “beer that reminded them of the beach when they weren’t there” by co founder Adam Crandall. Their goal was to create a balanced beer with pineapple flavour, not a sweet beer, but a thirst quenching one that was perfect for the patio. With the word sublime, I could only hope that this would elevate my palate to appreciate pineapple and beer together at last.
Aroma and Appearance: It pours a cloudy gold colour with two fingers of white, lacing foam, small bubbles and minimal carbonation. The aroma is orange citrus fruit, pineapple, very ripe bananas and spicy cloves.
Flavour: Up front there’s nuances of freshly sliced pineapple chunks with mango and creamy wheat. Mid palate it’s quite yeasty (especially on the second pour) and it makes a perfect impression of those marshmallow banana flavoured candies you get at the convenience store. The finish has bunches of ripe banana, pineapple juice, Double Bubble bubblegum and a sensuous spicy clove aftertaste.
Overall Impression: I think I finally found a pineapple beer I enjoy and it is nicely balanced. All the one’s I’ve disliked tend to taste like stale pineapple, but this one doesn’t.
Rating: If you see it here it means I’m pretty happy with it because I think it’s worth writing about, but I still won’t give a number rating because I feel it’s way too hard to remove bias in a free sample to give a true numbered rating.
Food Pairing: Pair with a Teriyaki burger, Hawaii Pork or a lightly flavoured cheese.
They had some pretty sweet looking merchandise for this one, I should have hit them up for that hat! And yes, I put pineapple on pizza and so should you!
West Coast Beer Geek 