Eight Degrees of separation

I really missed the regular new releases from Eight Degrees Brewing, which came to an end after the brewery was bought out in 2018. So, shortly after it was re-purchased by its founders earlier this year, I was excited to see the first in the new era of specials arrive in shops. I didn't even mind that it's a hopfenweisse, which is far from my favourite kind of beer.

That they named it Déjà Vu had me scurrying to check if it's a re-brew of something they've done before, but this is the first hopfenweisse from them I can find. It's 7.5% ABV, and I guess is in the kristalhopfenweisse sub-style because it's completely clear and Helles-gold. It's on the money for the flavour, however, having estery fruitiness meeting a harder hop bitterness to create a kind of green banana effect. That's the bit that puts me off hopfenweisse. Mandarina Bavaria is the hop, which is actually German, and the way it causes a clash suggests it's fulfilling its role as a new-world substitute. When the sharply acidic fruit fades, the flavour becomes more like an old fashioned American IPA, with harsh pine and grapefruit pith. That's not really an improvement, however.

I don't know how it is that the originators of hopfenweisse, Schneider and Brooklyn, absolutely nailed it on the first and second try, and then nobody else has managed to make it work properly, or at least to my taste, since. Still, Eight Degrees is back, and at least they didn't open with a hazy IPA. If it's to be beer styles that were briefly fashionable 15 years ago, let's have a black IPA next.