Today’s visit for the testing was met with a musical ensemble from Washington jamming amongst brewing equipment and back-dropped by towering stainless steel beer appliances. Kind of a cool background for the barley and hops based voyage I was about to embark on. That’s right, a magically malted carpet ride dancing over clouds of hops and barley. If you haven’t been to Madtree Brewery ...stop whatever you are doing and go now! A very cool tasting room that overlooks the brewing and canning operation equipped with the seemingly mandatory corn-hole apparatus’ that must come as a required part of orders for brewing equipment that is ordered for only Cincinnati breweries.
BTW, Madtree is the first brewery in Ohio in a very long
time to be canning their beer.
I chose to review Madtree’s “Pleasant Wheat”. Even if you are not a fan of wheat beer, you must
not discount this beer. This is not a
traditional wheat beer. This is a VERY
refreshing summer beer that successfully accomplishes a lot simultaneously, yet
the beer still comes off has a very focused and simple beer presentation. The folks at Madtree simple produce great
beer consistently.
I am fortunate enough to have been to the English Gardens in
Munich and have had the long tall glasses of German wheat beer frothed to the
point that it often proves impossible to drink without saturating your moustache
(if you come so equipped) so that you can enjoy that taste for days to
come! However that type of wheat beer
might struggle in the U.S. to find a broad appeal, so some American craft breweries
are taking a hybrid approach to their wheats.
The result is a very light and likeable, crisp and calculating, seasonal
yet sessionable, drinks fine and lasts a long time, beer.
The color of this beer is a great, bright summer color that
beckons to be held up to the sun for review.
The nose on this beer is decidedly but in a tricky way, a zesty whiff. I picked up both grapefruit and lemon on the
nose, more lemon than grapefruit which was interesting. But don’t confuse this for a fruity beer, much
less a lemon beer because it is nothing of the sort. 
Quickly moving from eyes to nose then to mouth it presents a
great first drink that beckons for a quick repeat (which I of course chose to oblige
gladly). This beer has a dry and semi -short
finish. The zest hits you up front with the first taste then with a slight
after taste of an undecidedly tiny yet sweet taste which is undoubtedly from
the malted wheat.
After the first beer, the palate adjusts a bit and the beer
presents a different side which is less on the zest and more on the ale side of
the house. For this reviewer, this is what I find to be one of the most
interesting aspects of this beer. One can
easily lose sight of the fact that they are drinking a wheat beer. This beer would be great with any sort of seafood, particularly grilled seafood. It would also go great with grilled chicken or any sort of breaded entrees like pork chops (schnitzel).
This is not only great summer beer, but also would be a
great beer in the winter months after a hard day of skiing!
5 RANDOM COOL BREW CLUES- MadTree: Pleasant Wheat
(Things to talk about and impress with whoever will listen
with while partaking…)
1.
Hop
haters have no fear, this beer only sports an IBU of 29.
2.
ABV is only 4.7%
3.
Malts 2-row, wheat, carapils, Munich 10L and Hops
: galena, fuggle, falconers flight, zythos
4.
The folks at MadTree source their water for
their brewery from their well! Plus they have a water recipe for each beer that
they brew.
5.
Today they took delivery of two
60 barrel which will increase capacity to 210 barrels! Good news for Madtree
fans!!!
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