Pours smooth and creamy into the glass. The beer is an opaque and murky straw-amber color, topped with a thick and creamy foam head. Lacing is nice, with some glass-clinging action going on, and more than ample head retention. What’s odd about the appearance is the amount of yeast in suspension. Even when chilled for days, the yeast is still hanging in there, when typically it would settle. Something is keeping it floating around, and it aint Mother Nature.

Body is light, and the mouthfeel smooth. The palate gathers apple peel, light clove notes and a thin sweetness that’s touched with caramel. In the middle, ripe and juicy fresh wheat malt with pear edge, while a husky, grainy, wheat twang livens things up. Suggestions of bubblegum are noted. There’s very little bitterness, but a slight lemony sourness, banana pith and light hop leaf character that, combined, increase the perceived bitterness. Yeast is rather neutral, a bit chalky. Some medicinal phenols show through toward the finish. Finish dries the palate, with a lingering wheat and barley husk.

Smooth, thick and viscous on the palate, with a full and robust body. For a moment, it’s sweet and tropical, then hops rush in and tear it all to shreds! The lip-smacking hop profile roams all over the place, as a sticky pine and a slightly burnt resinous coating forms on the palate. Intensely spicy, with a big grape-fruity zest and a sugary, warming alcohol that smacks you upside the head for noticing it. Malt-wise, caramel and bread flavors clamor to be heard, but the hops entangle them and draw them back into the depths of the brew, where they die. Malt flavors are there, but they add sweetness and body versus anything distinct enough to challenge the hops.

Brewed with hand-smoked malt from red and white oak from a forest in Orange County, VA, on land once owned by James Madison. Hazy, slightly muddy brown with orange and copper hues around the edges. Beige head with some initial foam, but it quickly settles to a thin wisp. Raw and wheaty aroma with a hint of smoked malts and a faint suggestion of cocoa powder. Otherwise, pretty clean in the nose. Watery and very light in the mouth. Thin caramel and toasty malt character, with a bread crust linger and soft chocolaty edge. Carbonation livens the palate up with a zest that pulls with it a slight citric bitterness and banana-like pithiness that sits among the wheat and rye flavors. Tangy rye with some spice and smoky malt character rounds off the brew, with a lingering, bittersweet, toasty bread finish in tote. Mouth is left dry and a bit sour. Wasn’t working for us at first, but once the beer warmed, the flavors began to emerge. We can imagine that this is as close as one could probably get using modern-day brewing equipment and methods. Most appealing brew of the pack.