Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen

First Brewed: 1997
Brewery Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
ABV: 5.1%

History & Availability: Hefeweizen, a traditional German unfiltered wheat beer, is most popular in Bavaria but has spread slowly to other parts of the world as well. Harpoon's offering is relatively new but sticks to the plan pretty well and has been fairly successful in introducing the style to a new audience. It's among Harpoon's more popular and consistent beers, so if you can find Harpoon in your area, chances are their Hefeweizen is sold as well. Note that there are several other beers in the UFO line, so don't be confused by similar-looking boxes at the store.

Appearance: Very cloudy as you'd expect. It's also super light, a yellowed straw color, so the haze is really pronounced. The head is really fizzy, pure white, and reminds me a little of marshmallows. Lots of carbonation racing up the sides of the mug here. I also noticed when pouring that there was a good amount of sediment left on the bottom of the bottle. They really weren't joking about the "unfiltered." Good on 'em, I say.

Smell: Smells like it could really use a lemon, which is unsurprising given that the box said the same thing. A very light-bodied scent that would probably pair great with seafood. Interestingly this creates more of a feeling of complementarity than a unique smell to itself. Really not much stands out here, hopefully the taste will be more prominent since I'm sadly not going to be having a seafood dinner along with it.

Taste: As someone who grew up on a dairy farm in Maine, let me tell you, hay has a very distinct olfactory package to it, and once you've made an association in your mind it has a tendency to spread. This beer reminds me strongly of wet hay. Now before you take that as an insult, it's really just more of an observation and I'm not entirely put off by it, but this is certainly a taste I've never experienced in beer before and I'm a little surprised that the association so quickly and easily sprang to mind. It's gotta be the yeast that's putting the prominent planty taste in the beer. Besides that, not much hops, not much malt, not much of anything else. The beer is pretty one-dimensional but I still can't get over how odd it is to taste hay in a drink.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, which is expected given how clearly this is not a watered-down beer by any means. Decent amount of carbonation, enough to retain an unexpected level of head throughout the drink. Leaves behind a little bit of a fizz but not enough to really be distracting.

Drinkability: Not bad. It's a little heavier than the average beer of this color, so don't be fooled, but you can definitely throw down a few and be unaffected by the weight. The taste is so different that you may keep coming back for more, as well.

Overall verdict: B-, oddly tasty despite being literally dissolved hay.