Spring Heat Spiced Wheat

Friday night was St. Patrick’s day as I type this a few mornings later, and I and my Beloved Barbara celebrated that uniquely Irish holiday at Summits Wayside Tavern , one of our preferred local watering holes here in Atlanta. And when I entered, one of the first things that caught my attention was the ornately designed tap handle for Spring Heat Spiced Wheat, a decidedly un-Irish wheat beer brewed at least in name in the Belgian Wit style.

One of the interesting things about Spring Heat Spiced Wheat is the very company that makes it: Anheuser-Busch, makers of top-selling brands like Budweiser and Michelob . With craft brewed beers the only segment of the brewing industry that has seen growth in recent years, Anheuser-Busch is determined to get a piece of the action with its own craft brews.

So far, these brews have been mostly draft only, and are intended as a line of seasonal specialties. The first of these, Jack’s Pumpkin Spice, was also sold in bottles as Michelob Pumpkin Spice . The second, Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale, was only available in select establishments on tap.

Such is the case, too, with Spring Heat Spiced Wheat. And since Summits had it, I had to have it too. In style, this is supposed to be a Belgian styled Wit as I mentioned above. Such beers are often made with the addition of Curacao Orange Peel and coriander. In a slight departure from that style, however, lemon and lime peels are also used for the Spring Heat.

My pint of Spring Heat Spiced Wheat arrived before me with a very light head formation sitting atop the slightly hazy, yellow-orange colored liquid. This is an unfiltered wheat beer, so the haziness should not be too surprising. The nose was very faint, and I did not immediately detect any spice here.

A sip revealed a fairly non-descript palate. There’s a little bit of crackery wheat that makes the beer a good refresher for a warm spring day. The citric notes are definitely present, though they’re surprisingly subtle and could have been better represented to make this a more interesting beer.

The coriander was entirely lacking, and although I allowed my beer to warm up a bit to better detect the spice flavors, they were still not evident. The finish is a bit thin, smooth but lackluster. A little more wheat tartness or citric character in the finish would have been a nice touch.

At just over 5% alcohol by volume, this is an average strength brew. But in the flavor department I found it fairly uninteresting. Still a step up for Anheuser-Busch, however, and more experiments from them are to be encouraged. It’s worth a try, but try it soon: this seasonal will only be around for a few months each spring.



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