Garden County sunshine

It's the summer releases from Wicklow Wolf today, beginning with the latest in the seasonal Locavore series of beers made entirely from local ingredients. Locavore Summer 2022 is once again a saison, and 6.5% ABV like last year, but they've swapped the foraged gorse for foraged elderflower, and I think that's a trade-up. The first surprise is that it's completely clear, looking more like a pilsner than anything with farmhouse ancestry. The aroma is pure saison, however, packed with soft apricot and melon, some of which I'm sure is due to the elderflower. That fruit doubles up in the aroma, where the elderflower really kicks in, and the end result is almost tropical tasting. It lacks the dry crispness and earthy rasp typical of Belgian saison, but I don't miss it. While a little too heavy to be a quenching quaffer, this is a lovely sunshine sipper, delivering lots of good saison qualities and, unless you like them palate-scorching, no flaws. I wonder what they'll bung in the kettle next year.

Released at the same time in early July was a hoppy weissbier called Heff Bezos, a clunkier pun than one normally gets on a Wicklow Wolf limited edition. In the glass it looks like a pretty normal weiss, a little on the pale and unhazy side. The aroma is startlingly tropical, then, brimming with pineapple and mango. They've badged it as a hopfenweisse, and often with these there's a clash between the fruity weissbier yeast and the bitter citric new world hops, something the original Schneider/Brooklyn versions overcame by ramping up the alcohol. Here, by going sweetly fruity with the hops they've avoided the clash while keeping the ABV relatively modest at 6.3%. There's still a trace of banana, butane and bubblegum left, mainly in the finish, as a reminder of what this is. You could still easily mistake it for a New England IPA, however, especially when it's cold. I liked it, it's fun and summery, even quite refreshing despite not being session strength. For the first time since the first time, I see the point of hopfenweisse.

I guess summer beers don't have to be 4% ABV. Wicklow Wolf has managed to cram the sunshine into altogether more sippable packages. Two further summer beers are available at The Big Grill festival this weekend and in cans from next week. All going well I'll have reviews on here some time before Christmas.