Opened The Hoagaarden Clone
1306 days agoYup, just opened the Hoegaarden clone I have done about a month back to have a little sample of the brew and I have taken a few photos of it! Just as I expected, the colour leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not white beer but black beer. More like stout than anything else if you ask me. Definitely not a wheat beer type of drink. However, please understand although I like Hoegaarden, I didn’t get the chance to drink as often this kind of brew that I would have like and I won’t consider myself anywhere an expert in Wheat beers at all. So you should take my views and opinions with a pitch of salt.
Ahhh….only 1 week in the bottle and it’s already well carbonated. And with a good looking head when opened as well!
Very nice head. Remember, I have added to the 1.7kg Morgan’s Golden Sheaf Wheat Beer Kit with1kg of liquid wheat malt plus another 1kg of Brew Enhancer 2 (250g malt extract, 500g dextrose and 250g malto-dextrin) so this has a lot of malt (and sugars) in it! In fact, it should be one of the most maltiest beer I have ever brewed! The good head is probably due to the malt and the malto-dextrin.
The colour however makes me want to dump the entire glass of beer into the sink. Too bad.
Ahhh…. looks very creamy. If you were to look at the previous picture and this picture, you would see that the bubbles formed were bigger at the bottom than those on top. Not too sure why this happens as this photo was taken by right after pouring.
And now for the taste test! First of all, this does not taste anything like the Hoegaarden you find in the shops. Although you can taste the herbs (even the cumin) in the beer, it is definitely too “thick” and syrupy to be a real Hoegaarden. And most importantly, it lacks the Hoegaarden refreshing “zing”. It’s definitely not something you would want to drink with your friends just for the fun of it. With that said, it does taste quite good. There is a slight hint of bitterness but it does not linger at the back of your tongue. Furthermore, the herbs does make the beer taste unique. The alcoholic content is quite strong in this one, not that it is the biggest problem in this brew. Probably a mistake on my part to put too much malt in it. If I were to use some dextrose instead, we could see a much lighter beer a lot of people could enjoy.
