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-

Hoegaarden - Original White Ale in Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Tonights review includes an interesting combination of food and brew.  The wife had a craving for pot pie this morning and that sounded delicious to me.  Over lunch I found a book on cooking with beer and noticed wheat beers generally went well with chicken.  Chicken pot pie baked with wheat beer?  Hell yes.  My wife being the culinary genius she is took the Hoegaarden Wit that I came home with and incorporated it beautifully into a homemade pot pie.

Sautéed chicken, shallots and garlic were cooked together until chicken was mostly done.  The chicken was removed and a bottle of Hoegaarden was added and reduced.  Green beans, coined carrots, peas and corn were then added along with a bit of flour for thickening.  The mixture was brought to a boil and simmered for 5 minutes until sufficiently reduced.  Cream of chicken and broth were then added to the veggie beer mixture and combined in the stoneware pot along with the original chicken.  A homemade crust was then placed over the pot and set in the oven until the crust was a nice and flaky golden brown.

The final product was amazing.  Our normal pot pie has always been thick and hearty.  This was no different but the pepper and citrus zest definitely made an appearance making it come alive.  It added an another layer of complexity that was very welcome.  Now, onto the actual beer!

This witbier pours very light and cloudy with a bright white head forming and quickly receding.  Like most white ales this one is full of different aromas.  Lemon rind, pepper, yeast and citrus all play a part here.  The flavor is malty sweet.  A high carbonation makes the flavors bounce around your mouth.  More citrus and subtle yeast and pepper notes reflect the aromas tones pretty closely.  A smooth finish with a mild bitterness finish this brew off.

Overall 5.2/6.0 - As far as witbiers are concerned this is a pretty solid example.  In fact, its the first example listed for the BJCP witbier style.  Nothing is overdone and the flavors are all blended nicely.  For somebody who typically drinks large, American craft beers this was a nice deviation from my standard line up.  I also think you could have used just about any wheat or witbier in the pot pie.  Although I would probably stay away from the sweeter wheats and stick to the more spicy ones.  The spice will compliment the food more than any fruity beer would.