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Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week": Capital Brewery's Island Wheat Ale

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Mar 6, 2009 8:35PM

2009_03_6_botw.jpg It's been a long held belief in this series that wheat ales are a wonderful alternative to lagers for casual beer drinkers, or even folks who don't like beer. Wheat malt is a sweeter malt, so that appeals to folks who don't like the spice and light bitterness imparted by lagering hops. Most of our local breweries make some variant of a wheat ale, from entry-level session beers like New Holland Zoomer and Goose Island 312, to the bold malting and hops of Three Floyds Gumballhead. All three of those, for the uninitiated, are previous "BotW" selections.

Today another joins the wheat ale category. Capital Brewery also makes a wonderful tasting wheat ale. Island Wheat has been mentioned in "BotW" before, but never actually spotlighted. The wheat malt for this ale comes courtesy of Washington Island in Door County, where the climate and soil combine to grow a subtle malt. It's still sweet, but not sugary like 312 can sometimes feel on the palate. The hopping on Island Wheat give a noticeable citrus flavor to the beer, with the bite and spice redolent of hops rounding out the beer on the finish.

The two best ways to enjoy Island Wheat are draft (this shot was taken at Uncommon Ground Devon last weekend) or cans. This way the folks at Capital go out of their way to make sure Island Wheat stays fresh for as long as it can, not that it has far to travel from Madison to Chicago, anyway. Capital Brewery's Island Wheat Ale is Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week."