Leinenkugels Sunset Wheat

Brewed by Leinenkugel Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
Style: Wheat Ale
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin USA

Cloudy pale-blonde with an egg-white head. Sweet, fruity, lemon aromas. Fizzy orange flavor with hints of clove blends with the fruity citrus aftertaste. Banana and doughy notes emerge as it warms as well as what tastes like artificial blueberry pancakes. Pretty refreshing and tasty even if it’s a bit sweet.

From a bottle, pours a cloudy straw-golden with sizable white head. Citrusy aroma with hints of coriander. Mild iniital wheat taste followed by surprising depth of tastes, including grapefruit and yes, coriander. Some hops show up in the background as well. I didn’t have high expectations for this beer but was pleasantly surprised by how good it is. I’d definitely buy it again.

I thought this was better than its average rating (currently 2.97). Nicely hazy orange/yellow with a sizable yellow head, it has a distinctly apricot quality, most sweet with a tang that only hangs around for the first couple of sips. Quick finish, but easy drinking with fruitiness (orange and apricot, baby) and only a hint of spice (just like a mild fruit bread). Reasonably well supported body, moderately frothy carbonation. Decent summer beer. It probably suffers in ratings from the reputation of Leinenkugel’s as something of a "aspiring lower middle class" person’s beer.

Chicago trip. Tuesday 12:15. Tap at Old Chicago by O’Hare. Dark yellow orange. Froth holds the side of the glass. No fruit added to the pint. Orange citrus aroma. Sharp orange flavour. Nice body. Very refreshing and quaffable. A bit tart in the finish.

Poured from the bottle the expected cloudy yellow. Had some head that hung around for duration. Some lacing, but not much. Slight fruity nose and moderate carbonation. Decent mouth feel, not too watery. Spicy citrus taste, coriander, orange. No real hop presence, just a slight tad at the finish. A nice refreshing beer for the style and definitely worth having again.

Robe blonde voilée surmontée d’une mousse blanche qui s’estompe. Arômes d’épices, d’agrumes, de malt et de céréales. Saveurs de blé, de bleuets, de sucre, d’agrumes, d’épices et de levures.

The beer leaps from the 12-ounce bottle a fuzzy lemon yellow with a portly creamy white head that lingers long, finally, the lace gets to put on its show with a nice coating of lace. Nose has a nice fresh wheat bread aroma, sweet with a citrus like crispness, a touch of orange peel, with a lemon twist. Start has a mild wheat presence; a trace of bitterness at the back, top is light to middling in feel. Finish has steady acidity with the mild hops adding a bit of twang, somewhat sweet and certainly dry aftertaste finishes the beer, a nice refreshing beer.

12x12 ounce bottles consumed from late July through late August 2006. Cloudy light gold in the glass with a small diminishing fluffy head and a bit of lacing.....blueberry dominates, oh my how it dominates the aroma, with cranberry and lemonjuice also present and always a fine sour wheat malt underpinning....I’m stunned that this isn’t listed as a fruit beer, it’s so overwhelmingly berry-scented....but when you get to the taste, the fruit definitely doesn’t stick around except in a subtle, background way as it softens the strong sour lemongrass-spicy character of the body....super-fresh and clean, immensely quaffable by the bottle or 6-pack, this was one of my biggest summer surprises, truly a well-made special from an otherwise fairly mediocre pseudo-micro. Get it if you still can.