Name: Watermelon Warhead
Brewery: Feral Brewing Co. (Swan Valley, WA)
Style: Berliner Weisse
ABV: 2.9%
Source: GABS
If you haven’t read the post before this one, please kindly go and do so that you’re not all lost and confused.
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OK, now that you’re up to speed I can continue on the GABS commentary. As I was saying, One of my favorite beers of the weekend (second only to Gunnamatta) was the last thing I would have expected to like: a 2.9% watermelon wheat.
Doesn’t that sound like something I would hate? I pictured a watery, fruity wheat beer – the kind of thing a more careless brewery might label “one for the girls”. But in fact, it had serious ‘tude. It was dry and crisp and wonderfully sour, with this beautiful fresh watermelon flavour that didn’t dominate the whole thing. I threw a lot of strong stuff at my tastebuds that day – chilli, sarsaparilla, all manner of hops – but even after all that this one held it’s own, like a palate-cleansing lemon sorbet.
Other beers I really liked from that session were the True South Coconut Porter, Mountain Goat Spiced Red Saison, and the Resistance IRA. No doubt there were dozens of other beers that I would have loved on their own, but in a marathon tasting session like this it’s generally the biggger/more unusual ones that stand out.
Thank you to GABS and all the volunteers for such a great weekend, to Ollee and Dan for being excellent dates, and to my lovely mum for buying the flights as a birthday present. Same again next year?
Beer for a Year 
Hey Alice, I think this beer was a Berliner Weisse. I wish I could have tried it, my mate paul makes a 2.5% Berliner Weisse, most wonderfully refreshing beer ever!
Better yet, from a quick talk to Brendan from Feral, he said he basically made up the ABV. When it came time to hand over the numbers so the books could be prepared, Warhead hadn’t finished fermenting. So he made it up. Turned out closer to 1.9%, apparently. Which is amazing. This is officially “light beer”!
I’ve just come home from having a watermelon wheat beer with brunch and it was excellent. I didn’t really know what to expect but I loved it.
I’m going to go to GABS next yeah, I’m quite excited already by the idea. Although, I think Oregon Brewer’s Festival in Portland in July will be quite excellent too (location brag!).
I ahd a few of these the night of the AIBA awards, prior to having this I was almost dead and buried, the Warhead spruiked me up considerably and kept me going to about 5am, One brewer tried to convince me he was getting a ginger beer and gave me this, thank God he did.
Great wee beer. I had at least a half dozen glasses of this during the week… I’m not sure I tried any other beer more than twice (though I may have had more Hoptimums… last thing I remember is the second one ;-).
I second that and can confirm that Hoptimum comment – you even bought me one!
[…] a couple of weeks ago. It’s a white beer made with raspberry and rhubarb jam which (like the watermelon wheat) I wasn’t super enthusiastic about […]