Éphémère Blueberry tops out at 5.5% ABV and has a whopping 7 IBU, so it should be an interesting brew. I've had a good amount of blueberry beers over the years and either they are too sweet, too tart or they're just simply too bland. The Bleuet was supposed to be on shelves almost two months ago but according to the Sleeman rep for the region, the beer was held up at MLCC warehouses for several weeks due to labelling issues.
Appearance: As you can already tell, Éphémère Bleuet has an appearance of a very pink/reddish ale with a very liberal amount of beige foam and carbonation. More reminiscent in colour to the old Ephemere Cassis (or Framboise), but at least it doesn't have a faux blue food colouring to it to make it look more like blueberries.
Aroma: Holy hell, this is by far Unibroue's sweetest and fruitiest beer I've had yet. The first impression I got was BLUEBERRY JUICE! Compared to quite a few of the blueberry ales I've had over the years, this one has more of a natural blueberry aroma rather than the typical sugary, syrupy blueberry extract that we all know and love. There's also notes of cardboard, Belgian yeast (which gives it a bit of a hint of bread) and a hint of sour candies.
Taste: Hmm, the taste of blueberries isn't as sharp as the aroma led to make me believe. For the taste itself, it's a moderately subtle blueberry taste with the Belgian yeast taking up most of the flavour here, which gives off a bit of a sour dough taste to it, very very yeasty. As for the aftertaste, it's a hint of a tartness from the blueberries, it lingers a decent amount after drinking the beer. Oh! And a hint of pepper lingers on the tongue too, which comes off as a bit of a surprise.
Overall Thoughts: The aroma of blueberries makes this a true summer beer, but the taste is mostly sour dough in my opinion. I was hoping the aroma would transfer over but that's not the case here. By far, this is easily the sweetest Unibroue beer I've ever had.. just from the aroma alone. It beats out the Cassis, Framboise and even the Cerise for aroma. Better than most blueberry ales I've had, but as you can see... it could be even more noticeable in the flavour profile.
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