North-west passable

On a recent trip to Blackrock Cellar I picked up a couple of bottles from two of the lesser-seen Donegal breweries. At least I think it's two breweries: they have a brewer in common and I see their bottlecaps are the same. Otterbank seems to be doing a bit of a Wide Street, pivoting away from the wild fermentations on which it built its reputation in favour of safer, presumably more saleable, fare. I wouldn't have marked the brewery as a natural home for a weissbier, but that's what Big Tree is. It's appropriately hazy, and an acceptable sunset orange colour, though paler is usually a visual indicator of better quality. As is head retention, and that was very poor here. The beer just doesn't look right in a tall weissbier vase without a thick puck of foam on top. I looked for banana and/or clove in the aroma but got little of either. There's a dry white wine effect instead, suggesting a possibly inappropriate acidity. That carries through into the flavour, which is just a little too…