532. Off Color Brewing (Chicago, IL) - Beer for Kings

“The parti-gyle first runnings provide a high gravity for this 9% ABV wheat wine. The first sniff bursts with cantaloup [sic][?], guava, and peach sangria notes, while the first sip is surprisingly light from the high percentage of modern wheat as well as einkorn wheat, believed to be the first domesticated wheat variety. The mid-body provides a resiny boost and transitions to a moderate bitterness. The rich, intense flavor profile may make you at least partially empathize the immense greed of the ruling class.”

There’s more on the website, but that’s all I feel like transcribing. This is a collab with the Field Museum for a new exhibit on European kings, and a week removed from our three-day-weekend in Chicago, I am finally giving it a go. Not sure I should have paid $20 for a four-pack of 12-ounce cans, but I would not have known it was a thing if I hadn’t stopped in the gift shop at the museum. I could have had it for $12.99 at the taproom, but that would have required driving to wherever the hell the taproom is; and we did not drive while we were in Chicago. We parked in the hotel’s parking garage when we got there, and we didn’t get back into the car until we left, almost three days later. We walked—everywhere! (Well, okay…mostly inside the Loop, but still.) Not sure I’m getting any of that fruit up front, though there is a moderate (and pleasant) peach aftertaste. The combination of the fruit and the wheat give it a very smooth mouthfeel that does not remotely taste like 9% ABV. It does taste a little heavy, though. The finish is very smooth—vaguely sweet at first, and then just barely kissing the edge of dry. That 9% kicks in pretty quick, too. Pretty sure I like it, but two is definitely the limit.