Jamesport Apricot Wheat

Brewed by Jamesport Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Ludington, Michigan USA

Had this one on draught as part of the sampler at the brewpub in Ludington, Michigan. Cloudy medium yellow pour with some flowery hoppiness, very fruity, pronounced apricot and peach with some apple sweetness, clean finish. Good.

Draft at brewpub. Hazy golden amber hue with a small white head that diminished slowly. Sweet wheat and apricot aroma. Full apricot flavor with a good wheat finish. Took a growler with me.

Sampled at the brewery. Not much aroma, just a slight hint of wheatish malt. Cloudy straw yellow with a very thin white head. Wow, candy-like peach or apricot flavor. Medicinal, caugh syrup finish. Thin body, water dry finish.

Sample at brewery and growler fill. Cloudy yellow and thin head. Wonderful apricot and hop aroma, which does a pretty good job of indicating the overall flavor as well. As others have indicated, the apricot, while assertive, isn’t sickly sweet or cloying. Will glady return to Ludington for another growler fill of this.

Nice foam floating on pretty lemony-orange hues. Creamy palate. At least the apricot flavor is bitter, not sickly sweet, and seems relatively authentic. In all, nice flavor, zingy finish. Good.

So here’s the thing. I’ve carried a ferocious anti-fruit beer chip on my shoulder for a long time but recently have had some decent fruit brews and have to wonder. Either my palate has been broadened with experience or the breweries have figured out how to actually fold fruit into the process more adeptly. In any event, I find this brew to be beautifully apricot - not so much that cloying cheap artificialty sends me raging into that good barbaric night that damned so many fruit beers heretofore, and not so little that it seems only a whispered afterthought. No, there is apricot AND some malty substance both to this brew and if I wish for more hop balance it is still in recognition of what is, after all, there.