It is with great anticipation that I crack open a bottle of Great Lakes Brewery’s latest creation: Miami Weisse. Get it? As a child of the ’80s, in a number of my high school years I was called Don Johnson almost as much as my actual name. So I feel a certain connection — nay, a kinship — with his new wheat ale crafted right here in Toronto.
Now, I’m not going to tell you I cranked up Jan Hammer and fished out an old white suit to wear with my T-shirt, but I will tell you this: Miami Weisse has nothing to do with Miami Vice or even Miami, save for a gaudy ‘80s-inspired label and a wallop of orange on the nose. And it is a wonderful wallop at that.
Miami Weisse offers a bit of a cloudy pour with a good, thick head. And unlike traditional wheat ales, it is fully hopped up. They are calling it an American take on wheat ale. Whatever. I like hops.
It isn’t as smooth as I’d normally like a wheat ale to be — a minor infraction — and its flavour is a bit muted. But it does offer a nice, crisp, dry finish.
This beer would go well with a cheese plate on a warm fall afternoon. Or, better still, as you careen down the Miami shoreline in a massive speed boat, dishevelled hair blowing the wind in hot pursuit of some unsavoury character. A drug smuggler, for sure.
The Beer Necessities is a semi-regularly appearing column by Ron Johnson, editor of Post City Magazines.