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Things here at the Beer Dorks' office have been pretty rough the last week. Eddie crawled out of his basement office to take something called a "vacation," which Merriam Webster defines as:

1: a respite or a time of respite from something : intermission
2 a: a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended b: a period of exemption from work granted to an employee
3: a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation
4: an act or an instance of vacating

When Eddie left on this vacation thing of his (which none of the rest of us Dorks get), he sprung it on us. Seriously. Clutching a suitcase, he shuffled out to the room where the rest of us are chained to our desks and beer fridges, growled that he was going on vacation, and walked out.

Needless to say, this week has been bad. Nigel's tried to take over and threatens to walk around the office without his kilt on if we don't follow orders. Jug's started brewing several batches of beer in the kitchen, one of which exploded (and you know who's going to get stuck cleaning it up? Me.). Baby-boy's been mainlining Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout, which means every bit of copy he submits mentions it. A lot. I mean, one person can only write so many reviews of one beer. And Ade and Franz show up whenever they damn well feel like it, take all the best samples, and eat most of the pizza we order.

Since we don't really know when Eddie's coming back, I needed a little bit of sunshine to get my spirits up and keep me sane. That's when I reached for a New Glarus Dancing Man Wheat.

Although one would typically drink this in summer because it makes for a fine lawnmower beer, I like to keep a couple of bottles in my beer fridge for crappy winter days or for when I need a little cheering up because this is like sunshine in a bottle.

On the pour, this is a bright straw yellow with a huge head and a malty nose. Drinking it is really easy--it's got a bright malty/wheat flavor that goes down insanely smoothly. It doesn't have much of the clove notes one might get in a hefeweizen, but after a few sips I can get over that fact because its thick, refreshing flavor is just the ticket to cheering me up and seeing that there's hope at the end of the bottle.

Reviewed by Jill Jaracz on March 13, 2009.

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