Sea Dog Blue Paw Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale

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

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.

When this bottled brew marked best before J/06 (J ???) was uncapped, the aroma came pouring out of the bottle. You could smell the blueberries before it was poured as soon as the cap was removed. It poured a small sized head of mostly lasting foamy white colored bubbles that left behind a transparent orange colored carbonated body and a fair lacing. The aroma contained nothing but blueberries that definitely smelled better from a distance than up front close and personal as my nose gets to a head. The mouth feel was mild and tingly from start to finish with an off tasting blueberry malt aftertaste. The flavor was semi-thick with nothing more than, you guessed it, blueberries!

Thin, weak, and poorly done blueberry flavor. If you want to try a blueberry beer your better bet is Maine Coast Brewing’s Blueberry or Atlantic’s bluberry. At least they’re not bud light with blue berry extract added :-P

Bottle at the Rover, Göteborg. Golden colour with a blueberry, candy aroma and taste, sweet. Light body with a thin finish.

Bottle at The Rover, Göteborg. Clear golden colour with a white head. Malty and sweet aroma with a perfume note and some blueberry fruityness. Candy sweet flavor with some blueberry fruityness. watery and light hoppy finish.