Beer review No.5 - Berentsen's Neptun Wheat Beer

Ahoy there! It's finally beer review time again. I've been having some issues with my laptop's power supply, which is apparently a bit of a misnomer in that it wasn't supplying power. I think I've sorted it now, and I also think I've found a way to write blog content without having to be online. Copy and paste is amazing when you get the right font and stuff. I've been tasting things as always and buying things ready to taste. We're still working through the Berentsen's beers and I've been buying some Nøgne Ø beers to have a go at. I've now got a fridge full of beer waiting for tasting and a cupboard full of whisky. I did have a nice cheese to taste as well, but couldn't hold back on that one and ate it without taking notes or pictures. A delicious smoked Cheddar from Yorkshire that I bought in Filey recently with my old friend Mr. Tiffen and my educational friend Mr Eaton. That was a very fun weekend. Anyway, enough of this drivel, let's get to the beer.

Bit of an intro

This is a wheat beer, which means it's made with malted wheat as well as malted barley, usually with a fairly high proportion of wheat. It's usually top-fermented, but I don't really know what that means. I assume the fermentation happens nearer the top of the liquid as opposed to the bottom or an even mixture, but that's a guess really. I gather wheat malt delivers quite a high amount of protein to the drink, so I'm expecting this beer to be quite full bodied. Wheat beers also tend to be only lightly hopped, so probably not much bitterness. Probably also going to have a lot of flavours from yeast byproducts too since that's characteristic of this kind of brew, namely esters and phenols. Phenols are often found in whiskies and are responsible for smokey and medicinal flavours. Esters usually produce fruity flavours and aromas, so I'm expecting something full bodied and probably fruity. I've never had a smokey or medicinal tasting beer that I can remember which is why I'm expecting fruity.

This particular wheat beer is supposed to go well with seafood. I haven't got any and I just finished it, so I'm not going to be sampling that pairing, although I like the sound of it. I assume the pairing with seafood gave rise to the name Neptun, which for the hard of thinking is Norwegian for "Neptune" the ancient Greek god of the sea. You'd think Neptune would disapprove of his subjects being washed down with wheat beer, but whatever, you have to call it something.

It's from Berentsen's in Egersund again. I bought this one from Vårland, the beer supermarket. Seriously the biggest beer shop I've ever been in. They can only sell beers up to a strength of 5% of course what with not being the government run booze boutique. This one's 4.7%. The bottle contains 330ml and cost 32.90 kr. (That's £5.52, $3.75, €3.47 or 0.008 Bitcoins).

Packaging

It's a brown bottle like all the others, but with a different label. The label's kind of a similar design to the others, with a bold design. Not surprisingly it's a picture of Neptune. I guess the blue lines fit with the loose sea theme. It looks ok. I don't really have much of an opinion about beer labels today, as long as they look decent and the beer tastes good.

I have no opinion today

I assume these are available in six packs but I don't remember seeing any. The label has some nice writing on it which I'll try to translate in my rather amateur way. I realized the person I speak most Norwegian to is nine years old, so I'm probably speaking like a kid to most adults I meet. At least I don't talk about minecraft to them. Anyway here's what it says:

"Berentsen's Wit er ufiltert og brygget på blant annet korianderfrø og appelsinskall. Ølet egner seg spesielt godt til sjømat. Inneholdet maltet bygg og hvete."

And here's what it means:

"Berentsen's Wit is unfiltered and brewed with a blend of coriander seeds and orange peel. The beer goes especially well with seafood. Contains malted barley and wheat."

Exciting right? No? Ok. Interesting that they include coriander seeds and orange peel in the brew. Those aren't the flavours you can expect to encounter, those are ingredients. Somehow I don't think my old friend Mr Tiffen would approve. It's unfiltered which suggests cloudiness. I've had a couple of wheat beers before and I think all of them have been at least a little cloudy. Time to pour it out.

Oh, wait, I forgot to show the label close up. Here it is.

I can honestly say I have never seen a more ancient Greek sea god themed label on a Norwegian beer bottle. Ever. Not even one time.

I'm still assuming those little gold circles are some kind of awards, but they're so tiny I can't read them and the camera won't pick them up. One day I'll get a close pic of them on the six packs in the supermarket where they're a bit clearer. Interesting that they've gone with "wit øl" on the label there. Øl is Norwegian for beer of course, but the Norwegian word for wheat is "hvete". "Wit" doesn't appear to be a Norwegian word at all. The best I could come up with is that it's Dutch for white, suggesting that maybe this is a Dutch style wheat beer. Who knows? Maybe you do. Comment if that's the case.

Time to pour at last.

Appearance

Looks interesting. I've compared whisky to urine several times, and often beers have a similar colour. I think I've only had a slash that looked like this once, and I was really sick at the time. Fortunately it's a drink and not a sample, so we don't need to worry about that.

Hmmmm... 

It's a yellowish brown (or brownish yellow) and is cloudy. Not a great shock. Wheat beers generally tend to look like this, although it's the brownest one I've seen. The bottle has a fair bit of sediment at the bottom and I gather the method of pouring involves swirling the last ten or fifteen percent of it around in the bottle to pick up the sediment before pouring it into the glass. The yeast really contributes a lot to the flavour, so it's important not to leave it in the bottle. That's what the internet told me, so it's true.

Aroma

Fruity, notably bitter lemon, grapefruit and a hint of cooked banana.

The fruitiness has a definite yeasty quality, and the fruity aromas are esters from the yeast. Apparently the banana note is most likely isoamyl acetate. Yummy.
I didn't detect any hoppy aroma at all, although I believe some are used.

Orange rind is in there.

Some kind of spice that smells like the kind of thing you'd use in Indian cooking. I guess that's the coriander seeds.

Slightly earthy, maybe a sandy kind of earth.

Got a whiff of peanuts at one point

smelled a little soapy towards the bottom of the glass.

Taste

Initial impression was of light flavours but quite a lot of body.

Fresh and fruity in general, but you become increasingly aware of the yeastiness.

A bit of something slightly soapy. I always think fresh coriander tastes a bit soapy, but maybe it's the bittering hops making an appearance combined with fruity fragrance.

A bit of citrus that seems more like a kind of bitter-sweet lemon than the orange peel they mention on the label.

A kind of toasted taste if you hold it in your mouth for a few seconds.

That sandy earth note is there in the taste too. Quite pleasant.

Aftertaste

More yeasty than fruity, but the fruity flavours are still there.

Feel in the mouth like you just had something sweet.

The aftertaste is quite like the taste, but with a bit more substance to it.

A bit of orange rind like bitterness as it fades away.

A touch of roasted hazelnut

Bit of grapefruit

If you hold it in your mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it there's a bit of malt in the aftertaste.

By the end of the glass there was a thick almost cloying feel in my mouth.

Balance

Not quite sure what to say here. It's not just hops and malt, this just seems different. It's not too sweet and not too bitter, so I suppose the balance is pretty good, but bear in mind that I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for with a regular beer, never mind a wheat one. Most of the Berentsen's beers have been a bit on the bitter side, this one seems sweet, but more in the feel in the mouth afterwards, which may well be protein rather than sugar.

A few extra comments

It's pretty full bodied like I thought. I actually like the feel of fuller bodied beers, and generally like full bodied things. Nice rich coffees, heavy wines etc. Lovely. Also I was expecting fruity flavours and got fruity flavours. I'm turning into some sort of label interpreting genius.

It seems pretty gassy. I'm not sure how it compares to other wheat beers in terms of gas content, but I gather German ones tend to be gassier than most regular German beers. I have no idea how gassy German beers typically are, but I remember having Swiss and Austrian beers which were very gassy indeed and served in vases.

The inclusion of orange rind in the recipe is not something I've ever heard of before. The complete lack of any noticeable hop flavours or aromas makes me wonder if the orange rind was used for bittering instead of hops. Orange ring has a very bitter taste as I'm sure you will have noticed if you've ever tried to break into an orange with your teeth. That sounds a bit weird, but I mean just that first little bit. It's a solid ball, you can't just slip the skin off like a banana. It's not like I remove the whole skin with my teeth, I'm not a chimpanzee. In fact I don't even begin to peel it with my teeth because it tastes so bitter, which is the point I was trying to make. It's the same bitter flavour you get in marmalade, which is not unlike the fresh bitterness you get in hops. You probably noticed I mentioned bittering hops in my tasting notes, but I have to say that I'm assuming hops were used. Afterall, what's a beer without hops? Some kind of weird malty marmalade drink.  I just googled it and it looks like orange skin does actually contain alpha acids, which are responsible for the bitter flavour in hops so maybe it was used as a hop alternative rather than an additional flavour. Fascinating.

Conclusion

Not bad. It had a bit more going on than the Skumring brown ale, but still wouldn't be my first choice of beer. Mostly because it's a wheat beer and, even though I've never had a wheat beer I didn't like, they just don't taste beery enough. Brown ales are more my thing. I think it's the yeastiness. Hops and malt are what beer tastes like, maybe with a hint of marmite. Yeasty is odd. There's a scene in Pirates of the Caribbean (possibly in a DVD extra) where Jack Sparrow calls someone a yeasty codpiece. The yeastiness doesn't improve the codpiece, it makes it worse. I guess there's some context to think about there, but still. Just say the word yeasty to yourself a few times and see how you feel.

Having disgusted you by making you think about the word yeasty too much I'm still going to call this beer quite pleasant. It's another one where I'd be delighted if someone bought me one, but probably wouldn't buy myself one. I just prefer all-barley malt beers. You know where you stand with barley. On a scale of one to ten I'd give it a rating of interesting. It's kind of a novelty and all that, and nice to drink, but if you take an interest in something too long it can get awkward. Would I buy it again? We've kind of covered this, but it's relatively unlikely. It's a matter of personal taste, not the quality of the beer. The beers decent and a very reasonable price, especially for Norway, but it's just not my cup of tea. I'd recommend it to someone who wanted to try a reasonably priced Norwegian wheat beer, but it's just not my thing. Pat on the back for Berentsen's for this one though. Good effort.

Well done for reading all that rubbish. I'm not sure what's up next, but I'm thinking I might try to get my massive tasting session on Norwegian julebrus written up. That's Christmas soda to English speakers. It's a kind of weird fizzy soft drink that they have here at Christmas and there are almost as many brands as there are Christmas beers released each year. My firefighting Norwegian friend Mr. Nøkland and I spent two days sampling every brand that was available in our town, sparking much discussion among the locals. See you next time!

Actually I wont, I can't see any of you. Let's keep it honest.