Kona Wailua Wheat

Brewed by Kona Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Kailua Kona, Hawaii USA

Bottled. Pale yellow colour, small white head. Aroma is lots of citrus, tropical fruits and spices. Flavour is wheat, tropical fruits and some mild notes of spices.

Bottle at GBBF 08. Gold, lasting off white head. Some passionfruit. Decent fullness in mouth. It’s not really a wheat beer, more a passionfruit flavoured pale ale.

Bottle. Pours a cloudy yellow golden color with small frothy white head. The aroma is tart wheat and passion fruit. Good sticky lacing on the glass. The taste is a sour fruit and a sweet finish. Not too much going on with this fruit beer from kona.

From tap at Pizza Port, San Clemente. Pours hazy yellow with a lacing white head. Spiced and fruity aroma. Light wheaty note. Passion fruity flavour and dry wheaty flavour. Ends mild acidic and fruity with a lasting wheaty touch.

Hazy yellow with tiny white head. Sweet fruity aroma with yeasty notes. Sweet flavor with citric and wheaty notes. Ends sweet.

12 oz bottle. Poured a cloudly gold color with minimal white head. Aroma was of passion fruit and wheat. Flavor was a tarty fruit with the wholesomeness of wheat. Good beach beer, but I wouldn’t buy it again.

Bottle. Pale yellow-gold, hazy, nice hue, thick white head. Unusual, unfamiliar aroma like maybe passion fruit. Tart, sour, fruity but with no complexity. Sour-sweet, slightly bitter but peters out fast. Soft mouthfeel. Juicy beer, very much like passion fruit and a little grapefruit. Nice attempt,simple but good.

A couple years ago, I would have scoffed, laughed, and snubbed my nose up at "flavored" or "fruity" beers. Beer was meant to be tough, strong, manly, and, well, beer-like. Of course, that was when I was still really a novice and hadn’t realized that beer is what the brew master makes it. Personally, I liken a modern brew master of the craft and import scene to be our modern pioneers. They are delving into uncharted territories and bringing us new lands of beer to embrace.
Obviously, I got over my flavored beer prejudice. While I have never been to any of the Hawaiian Islands, I can say that Hawaii has made it into my apartment’s fridge and currently, my glass.
A limited release for the summer, Wailua Wheat is a wheat beer brewed with passion fruit and it is delicious. A filtered wheat beer, it lacks the cloudiness found in Purple Haze, but Wailua does pour with a clean golden orange color. A small head fades into a soft ring of foam around the edges, though she does leave a small brussels lace trail as I drink. Grassy wheat and sweet passion fruit mingle in my nose. A bit heavier than a lager do to Wailua being a wheat beer, the body gives way to a lingering afterimage of passion fruit and a warm sunny day on the white beaches of Hawaii. A sweet fruit beer, but not overly cloying; very bright and refreshing all-around and very drinkable. Wailua Wheat is a very good, well balanced flavored wheat beer compared to some.