Sea Dog Blue Paw Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale

Brewed by Sea Dog Brewing (Shipyard Brewing Co.)
Style: Fruit Beer
Topsham, Maine USA

Bottle - huge blueberry nose. Maybe a touch of malt hidden in there somewhere. Fairly typical appearance of a wheat ale. A touch of the blue - but it may be the power of suggestion or looking through to my blue computer wallpaper. The first swallow shows some of the wheat, a slight tartness in the middle and then a nice, long blueberry finish. I’m not a fruit beer hater or lover, but this is pretty nice. In fact, I have a scone recipe that it would be very nice with.

Nothing to write home about, but at the same time, I liked this fruit beer. Blueberries were significant in the flavor and partly so in the aroma. However, they weren’t dominating among the sweet malty base of the beer. Would have again, but wouldn’t seek it out.

I’ve had this both out of the bottle and on tap at the Sea Dog Brew Pub, Bangor (as well as other places). Some bars will put frozen blueberries into the glass which is annoying because then there’s less beer in the glass, but whatever. Obviously the aroma is strong of blueberries which is nice if you’re into fruit beers. The body is lacking (the way a diet soda is lacking compared to a regular one) and at the bar it is always watered down, undercarbonated and oversweet (as all the Sea Dog beers are). Unfortunately the quality of this particular brewery has declined in the last 10 years but especially in the last 3 or 4.

Aroma:Strong blueberries ice cream aroma.... Appearance:clear gold good white head... Flavor:Blueberrie yep,light bitterness watery....

Porus a clear golden with a thin, wispy white head. Aroma of fresh, sweet blueberries, a touch of sugary candy and some mild, bland malted wheat. Body is thin, and lightly sweet with an ok balance of fruit, but overall pretty watery.

Smells a little of blueberries with some herbal scents. Blueberry is more prominant in the taste. Looks boring.

My first encounter with Jamba Juice was on a trip to California. It looked appealing at the time; the chromatic, swirling logo reminded me of expensive lollipops I used to have during the circuses of my childhood, so I meandered inside and perused the menu. Foolish me. I expected to see berry drinks, with sugary sweets and delights mixed in to make a slurpable confectionary treat. Those lines of blenders, however, were employed in more perfidious work. Patrons descended on this mockery of fruit, demanding sacrifices of the highest order. “Take a fresh, innocent, plump batch of blackberries!” they wailed, “And mix it with wheat grass!”. I gasped, but stopped myself before I caught anyone’s attention. Customer after customer approached the altar, pleading for a perfectly good handful of fruit and then defiling it with nutritional supplements like spirulina and tasteless chaff from a field. My stomach began to churn, forcing me to run headlong for sanctuary outside of that house of butchery. Since that day I thought, and hoped, I’d never see a fragrant, toothsome fruit paired with a putatively healthy blob of grain again. Last week I encountered what appeared to be a vaguely similar duo; a blueberry held hostage by an uncannily mischievous wheat flavor. But it was an incarnation I hardly expected: a beer. More unexpected was that it tasted marvelous. Though I don’t find anything spectacular about the typical golden-yellow color of the beer (to say nothing of the head that isn’t there), I’m amused by the Shipyard Brewing mascot. Research tells us his name is Barney, likely a simple mariner’s companion playfully leaping out of a barrel for a quick census of the sea. He’s quaint, in the same way the beer is. The smell of the Blue Paw Wild Blueberry is like a gush of pure, sweet blueberry dusted with confectioner’s sugar. The pungent smell could very well be used to scent a room for a dinner party or a date, if left out long enough. The taste of the beer, too, harbors the gratifyingly luscious blueberry taste, alongside a creamy, sweet side flavor; maybe the confectioner’s sugar again, or maybe a bowl of heavy cream within which to serve the blueberries. Of course there is the other side of the bifurcated taste. As advertised there is a jutting wheat flavor that does little else except shove aside the blueberry. Its aggressiveness helps to settle the overall sweetness of the beer, but by itself lends nothing flavor wise. If it were not for the unique little blue spheres which gave their all to accompany this pedestrian wheat, I’d say it would be the lowest quality wheat based beer I had ever tasted. But this isn’t the case. As a consequence of this beer I can look back and forgive those Californians so long ago for their heretical treatment of fruit. The Blue paw Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale is a simple beer (it’s only fault), but that’s what allows it to be simply good. Sometimes that’s just the right blend after a hard day’s ruminating on modern culinary atrocities.

bottle - Meh. Pours clear and yellowish with a head that very quickly fades to nothing. It smells like blueberries. Who would have thought? It tastes like blueberries. Big surprise there! There’s very little else in the flavor. This is like Shipyard’s weak, watery Summer Ale with some blueberries added. The finish is wet and kind of refreshing, but that’s about all I can say for it.