Spring Break
Brews Clues: This week's Ale: Ephemere
Dennis Mongello
Issue date: 10/19/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
- Page 1 of 1
Despite my love of pumpkin ale, I have a general disdain for fruit beers. Some, like Festina Peche, are too tart and end up tasting like low end champagne. Others, like Abita Purple Haze are just too sweet and leave your mouth feeling all sugary. It's tough to find a balance between the two. Unibroue does its best with balancing these extremes with their apple flavored Éphémère. It does a great job of mixing the crisp acidity of a green apple while still accentuating its natural sweetness to create a refreshing beer with a taste as fleeting as its name suggests.
The beer pours beautifully. It features a gradient starting as light straw at the bottom and goes up to a rich golden hue at the top. Green tinges can be seen throughout the body, which is broken up by a fluffy cloud of white head that dissipates quickly, but leaves behind a thin lacing. The beer is nearly opaque and is really a marvel to look at, much like an apple tree in full bloom. The smell starts off sweet with coriander, then finishes with tart notes of granny smith apples. The smell is pleasant but a little weak overall. It is a lighter beer though, so that is to be expected.
The taste is mellow. It's not too sweet, and it's not too tart. There's almost no hoppiness and the malt count is equally low. The coriander spiciness matches perfectly with the apple's sweetness. There is a short aftertaste that isn't bitter, but lightly tart. It is actually very refreshing and finishes clean. I feel like this would be a great beer to sip during a warm summer night. There's no overly sugary or overly tart aftertaste that plague most fruit beers. If anyone can do it right though, Unibroue can. I think the key here is that the apple flavor isn't overdone. Too many brewers try too hard to impart fruity flavors to their fruit beers. This isn't the case here though. This is just like Blanche de Chambly (Unibroue's white ale) that just so happened to have a few apples through in the middle of the brewing process.
The beer is heavily carbonated and goes down smooth. The bubbles just lightly tickle your throat as it goes down. It's as crisp as biting into a fresh, firm apple. That makes this beer great to be sipped or chugged. The mellow taste and texture will match with similarly mellow soft cheeses. The sweet and tartness would match up with sweet or tart desserts, like apple pie. This is a good beer for anyone. Hardcore hopheads can enjoy the subtlety of the flavors and less adventurous drinkers can enjoy the mild flavors and lightly sweet taste.
Overall, I'm still not sold on the whole fruit beer thing. There are some excellent examples, like Dogfish Head's Aprihop, and Éphémère certainly ranks up among the top, but when it gets down to it, those are dressed up beers. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that this is a category of beer that is really missing something.
The beer pours beautifully. It features a gradient starting as light straw at the bottom and goes up to a rich golden hue at the top. Green tinges can be seen throughout the body, which is broken up by a fluffy cloud of white head that dissipates quickly, but leaves behind a thin lacing. The beer is nearly opaque and is really a marvel to look at, much like an apple tree in full bloom. The smell starts off sweet with coriander, then finishes with tart notes of granny smith apples. The smell is pleasant but a little weak overall. It is a lighter beer though, so that is to be expected.
The taste is mellow. It's not too sweet, and it's not too tart. There's almost no hoppiness and the malt count is equally low. The coriander spiciness matches perfectly with the apple's sweetness. There is a short aftertaste that isn't bitter, but lightly tart. It is actually very refreshing and finishes clean. I feel like this would be a great beer to sip during a warm summer night. There's no overly sugary or overly tart aftertaste that plague most fruit beers. If anyone can do it right though, Unibroue can. I think the key here is that the apple flavor isn't overdone. Too many brewers try too hard to impart fruity flavors to their fruit beers. This isn't the case here though. This is just like Blanche de Chambly (Unibroue's white ale) that just so happened to have a few apples through in the middle of the brewing process.
The beer is heavily carbonated and goes down smooth. The bubbles just lightly tickle your throat as it goes down. It's as crisp as biting into a fresh, firm apple. That makes this beer great to be sipped or chugged. The mellow taste and texture will match with similarly mellow soft cheeses. The sweet and tartness would match up with sweet or tart desserts, like apple pie. This is a good beer for anyone. Hardcore hopheads can enjoy the subtlety of the flavors and less adventurous drinkers can enjoy the mild flavors and lightly sweet taste.
Overall, I'm still not sold on the whole fruit beer thing. There are some excellent examples, like Dogfish Head's Aprihop, and Éphémère certainly ranks up among the top, but when it gets down to it, those are dressed up beers. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that this is a category of beer that is really missing something.
Be the first to comment on this story