But I don't like Wheat Beer

Blue Moon is now readily available in every bar and grocery store. What's funny is that millions of bottles have been consumed and the beer has quite a following but nobody seems to realize that it's a wheat beer. People also don't know that it's brewed by Coors which is because Coors feels that the association would ruin Blue Moon's brew cred. And they're right...most craft-brew fans can't drink enough good beer to wash down the contempt they have big corporate breweries.

In spite of my disdain for mega-breweries I have to give Coors some credit for having the sense to brew such a true-to-form beer. Blue Moon is very similar to traditional Belgian white ales and the inclusion of coriander and citrus zest in the brewing process is something very gutsy for corporate behemoth. Back in 1981 Coors had the foresight to reformulate an old recipe and offer Kilian's Irish Red to the masses and for a while I loved it. Kilian's was a beer that helped me make the transition from cheap collegiate swill to craft beers. So Coors isn't completely evil. Anheuser-Busch might be, given their shameless and ill-advised attempts to stagger into the craft beer market, but Coors is OK.

Thanks to Blue Moon we have a growing number of people who can look you straight in the eye and tell you that they don't like wheat beers. Granted most of this attitude comes from the fact that Blue Moon is almost always served with an orange slice, which actually diminishes the flavor and body of the beer.

Wheat beers, or Hefeweizens as they are called in Germany, come in many forms. The origin of Hefeweizen comes form necessity. Some brewers had access to wheat so they used it instead of barley. The result was a much nuttier and slightly creamy version of beer. Wheat beers are proof that the ballyhooed Bavarian Purity law is a complete and total sham designed to put smaller brewers out of business centuries ago.

Anheuser-Busch, not to be outdone, purchased a stake in Widmer Brothers in order to more widely distribute Widmer's Hefeweizen. Again, Widmer Brothers produces a great product and the brilliant minds who brought us concoctions like Bud Dry were wise to leave the brewing the the brothers.

Widmer's Hefe however, does not provide a departure from the standard wheat beer genre. Like most white ales it is not very hoppy, instead relying and acid from citrus sources to balance out the sweetness of the wheat. They're good and they have a well-deserved following but they aren't for everybody.

Sadly, Coors effort to provide a respectable wheat beer at a frat party price backfired a bit because too many people think that if you've had one wheat beer you've had them all. That's simply not true. There are numerous styles of wheat beer ranging from light to dark, and sweet to brutally bitter. There are wheat wines that can stand up to great barley wines and wheat stouts that are better Guinness.

A wheat beer that defies convention is a seasonal offering by Southern Tier called Hop Sun. You notice a big difference in Hop Sun as soon as its poured because it's been dry-hopped. That means it's got a nose not unlike a pale ale. It's also a filtered wheat beer which might be a bit of a sacrilege but it's still a fine beer. It took me a few sips to get past the fact that it wasn't cloudy but when I finally put tradition aside and judged the beer on its own merits I really loved it and most beer drinkers would feel the same way. Hop Sun is a wheat beer that refuses to submit to conventions, which makes it an excellent choice for those people who took two sips of a Blue Moon and decided they don't like wheat.

Hop Sun is lighter and has a lower alcohol content (4.5%) than most craft beers but that doesn't mean it can't hold its own. What it lacks in gravity it makes up for in flavor. This is a great beer to throw in a cooler and drink at a BBQ. It's an all day beer.

Of course Southern Tier offers a more traditional take on wheat beer with Heavy Weizen but don't confuse more traditional with typical. Heavy Wezen is a big unflitered wheat beer that gets a nutty flavor from the weizen yeast used in the fermentation process. It's not a light beer by any stretch of the imagination but because it is properly hopped it defintely finishes more like a beer than some of the more popular wheat ales. This is not an all day beer...at 8% ABV, two pints can put you out.

No matter what anybody says (especially some bloated king back in 1516) wheat beer is real beer. Just because you don't like seeing orange slices in your beer doesn't mean you should close the door on the thousands of other beers derived from wheat. Once you sample a few more wheat beers (because you won't live long enough to try them all) maybe you'll be ready to try a soba ale or two. Beer knows no limits and neither should beer drinkers.