New Belgium Brewing - Mothership Wit

Tonight I'll be drinking a Mothership Wit from New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado.  This is the brewery's first venture into 'organically-produced' beer - a wheat beer brewed with lots of organic stuff, including organic orange peels, organic coriander, and organic lemon peels.  What classifies a food or ingredient as organic?  Organic refers to foods that are grown and processed without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, or cyber-genetic mutations.  Ok, I made that last one up.  But you get the picture, this stuff is all-natural.  Mothership Wit is a session brew with 4.8% alcohol, and classifies as a Belgian Witbier.

The beer is very light, pale straw color with lots of bubbles (as you can see in the picture).  Those bubbles help to maintain the half-inch of white head, never allows it to recede.  The aroma is dominated by spices and yeast-funk.  Coriander, some pale malt, and lemon sweetness also linger.  The flavor starts off with a tart lemony citrus.  Then comes a wave of bananas, which combine together with spices.  The spices are present but take back-seat role to the tart citrus, sweet wheat malts, and bananas.  The mouthfeel is very crisp, heavier carbonation, and the finish is dry.  The finish leaves a lingering banana flavor.

Overall Rating:  This was a really pleasant, simple, refreshing witbier.  Fantastic brew to enjoy during the summer months.  I don't have a lot of experience with this style, but I certainly enjoyed New Belgium's take on it!  A-

Eel River Brewing Climax Noel Belgian Imperial Red

I picked up this 22 oz bottle randomly about a week ago - it's a Belgian Imperial Red Ale that caught my eye.  The bottle notes that Eel River is America's 1st certified organic brewery.  I wonder what that means?  The barley and hops used are grown naturally without pesticides??  Makes no difference to me as long as the beer tastes good!

I'm pouring the beer into my new ale goblet - it pours a hazy amber with a mega-blast of head that holds very strong, and with sticky lacing at each level of the glass.  The nose is extremely fruity with cherries, along with spices....I can definitely smell the belgian yeast in there.

First drink took me by surprise - there is a wave of bitter dark fruits that hit me immediately - raisins and cherries and sour grapes.  There is also some malty sweetness alongside the fruity sweetness.  No hops are present at all, there is a slightly grassy flavor that may be hop-related, but sweetness reigns supreme.  After the sweet-train, there is a strange metallic flavor that is pretty unpleasant - a 'tin can' flavor.  The texture of the beer is deceiving...it looks heavy and thick, but in reality this beer is relatively thin-bodied and watery. 

Overall Rating (2.5 out of 6.0):  I'm not sure if Eel River intended this beer to be an Imperial Red ale, or a Belgian Dubbel.  I definitely felt it was more of a dubbel, and not a very good one.  It was thin and watered-down, and that metallic flavor singed my tongue.  I just wasn't a big fan of this beer.