With summer fading for another year, the Wheaty Brewing Corps have begun cranking out some new darker beers to warm up the crowd for another cold South Australian winter. First up is a dry Irish stout that sits at 4.2 percent ABV: nothing over the top, nothing outlandish but instead just a good, honest, wholesome stout.
Pouring deep black with a light brown head, big roast aromas come through initially with lashings of milk chocolate. It has a creamy, medium to full bodied mouthfeel that is full of toasty roasted grain balanced out by a smidgen of bitter chocolate. Drirish finishes quite dry with elements of fist-throwing leprechauns.
Also new on tap for spring is De Cider, a reminder that well as quality beer, the Wheatsheaf Hotel serves a large variety of great booze from an array of different and (largely) independent producers. Adelaide Hills based cider company Lobo is one such company to reside in the fridges and here, using the Wheaty’s house "Menace" culture and juice from Lobo’s Pink Lady apples, they collaborated to create a complex hybrid that blurs the lines, containing elements of beer, white wine and cider.
De Cider is super complex on the nose and ultra-confusing but in a good way, as a multitude of aromas present. Saison funk comes through initially seeking inspiration from the yeast followed by a freshness from the juicy Pink Lady apples. There is a dry white wine element swirling around too in a drink that pours slightly hazy and very light yellow. Again, the saison yeast characters kick off the flavours before journeying through to white wine territory and finishing in the apple orchard. Is it a cider? Is it a saison? Or is it a dry white wine? You be the decider.
Matt King
Published March 16, 2020 2020-03-16 00:00:00
