Sunday, August 01, 2010

Blue Enough For Any Summer

Drop a lemon or orange slice in my hefe-weizen, and a fight could result. Fruit has only one place in beer - inside the brew kettle, giving the yeast additional sugars for its feast.

After years of sticking with more straight-ahead beer styles, Boulder Beer Company has ventured into the fruit spectrum with Kinda Blue, a filtered America wheat ale (a la Big Sky Trout Slayer or Elevator's Mogabi), then added blueberries to round out the experience.

Blueberries and a dash of dry-hopping in the kettle has produced a Colorado spin on the fruit beer. Blueberry flavor immerses all facets of the ale without overwhelming it; there is ample fruit, but almost no tartness. The malt and fruit mingle excellently on the finish, each unwilling to blink in their staring contest. That stalemate is the drinker's gain, preserving the near-perfect drinkability.

A Boulder rep told me the brewery had been reticent about crossing into fruit beer; they shouldn't have been, because they show apt understanding of the fruit's role in beer. Kinda Blue floats by on a fruit current, barely revealing its wheat-malt origins, and by filtering the brew, there is no cloudiness to give it away. As Kinda Blue dances across the tongue, the roundness of the berries almost takes physical form, erasing any bitterness; any hop introduced into Kinda Blue is essentially invisible.

Much like Tommyknocker's TundraBeary, Kinda Blue lets the berry backdrop move the ale into a refreshing place. In a cold 22-oz. bomber, it couldn't be more refreshing. Do your damndest to root out this fantastic Front Range brew.

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