Sierra Nevada Kellerweis Hefeweizen

It has been a while since I had something new to drink, so thought I would go with the new Sierra Nevada Kellerweis Hefeweizen that I picked up at ol’ Malt & Vine the other day… Sierra Nevada touts that this beer was brewed in open fermentation style where the top of the fermenting tank is left open… this can be dangerous as it is easier to contaminate, but if done in a very sanitary environment can also lend depth and character to the brew… lets see… on to the review:

Pours a cloudy, light-yellow with a small head. Nose is defnitely yeasty… it almost smells like it is in the fermenting tank still… Much more yeasty than a traditional hefeweisen, that is for sure. First taste is nice… different. The front of the beer definitely has belgian influences but as you head to the back and finish, you can taste the citrus of the American Hefe… very nice. Overall, drink after drink brings the same results, giving you a little European flare to your standard American Hefeweisen. Think Hefe meets Belgian and you have this one nailed.

Nice work on the style, Sierra Nevada!!

Details:

alcohol content 4.8% by volume
yeast Ale Yeast
beginning gravity 12.8 Plato
malts Two-row Pale, Wheat, Munich
ending gravity 3.5 Plato
bittering hops Perle or Sterling
bitterness units 15

JBB6 Rating: Will Buy Again

Erdinger Oktoberfest Weizen

From the world’s largest wheat beer brewery comes this crafty little number, a handsome weizen dressed up in Oktoberfest clothes to cash in on America’s favourite beer marketing event. Nice move by Erdinger, and you really can’t blame them for wanting to take part in a little bit of the Munich breweries fun. Quite how well it was going to stack up against the rest of the Oktoberfest’s we’ve been tasting lately I wasn’t sure – but today was the day to find out.

FIrst impressions are good – I like the label, the bottle opens with a satisfying hiss, and soon enough the glass in front of me is full of deep orange beer with a thick, feisty head that sticks around for the better part of the pint. Smells rich and malty at first, and delivers a well-carbonated, refreshing blast of faintly lemon-scented wheaty goodness as you dive into it.

Good stuff, that gets better as it goes down. A second one is equally as enjoyable – and while it’s got nothing to do with Oktoberfest in the strictest sense of the word, I’m not going to hold that against it too much. Welcome to the party, Mr Erdinger…

JBB6 Rating: Will Buy Again

Franziskaner Weissbier

My prayers were answered! Although I was really enjoying the Krombacher pils we discovered in the little sausage-restaurant at Dusseldorf airport in Germany on fine summer day, I’d had my heart set on some Franziskaner since we’d walked in, and broken when the waitress told us it wasn’t working. But somewhere, somehow, something changed… and the beer came back. Hurrah!

The Franziskaner brewery has a long and distinguished history – dating back, if you’ll believe their history, to 1363 as the oldest privately-owned brewery in Munich. So by now, they surely do know how to knock out a decent weissbier. I’ve drunk this a lot before so I’m happy to report that it survives the journey pretty well from Bavaria to the north.

A typical cloudy amber-orange weissbier pour with a thick, suddsy head (not as thick as I’d like, but good enough) covers up a well-carbonated, refreshingly tart brew. High in wheat and yeast flavour and aroma, this beer is one that just keeps on giving. Super-tasty, incredibly refreshing, and a fine fine beer to say goodbye to Germany with, I’ll keep the memory of this fresh on draft with me a for a while to come. While it’s good in bottles, it’s pretty much unbeatable from the pump – if we’d only been in a Munich biergarten, this probably would have gotten our highest accolade, but as it is…

JBB6 Rating: For the Win

Weizen mit Banane

After the delight of the Schofferhoffer Weizen earlier in the evening, I took the bull by the horns, ignored my friends advice to save my soul for other pleasures, and rustled up a demi-litre of Weizen with added banana goodness.

What a diabolical mistake! Gone was the gently clouded honey-gold nectar of the first drink of the evening. Gone was the delicious aroma of wheat and yeast. Gone was the refreshing, invigorating flavour of one of Germany’s classics. Gone, everything I’d been enjoing so far about the evening… replaced with an overpowering faux-banana smell, a thick-looking sedimentary liquid, and a vile taste that made the drink undrinkable.

Sad to say, I couldn’t even finish the glass, and was forced to purify my pallate with a draft or two of fine Pils. In the case of of the remarkably delicious Weizen, less is most definitely more.

Avoid this banana abomination like the plague.

 

JBB6 Rating: Not Even For Free

Schofferhofer weizen

Picture the scene – a warm, drowsy evening follows a scorching summer afternoon on the high plains of northern Germany. Five wandering souls stroll the tree-lined cobbled promenade that follows the path of the medieval city walls of the ancient town of Munster, capital of Westphalia and home to more students on bicycles than you can possibly imagine. Rounding a leafy bend they spy the object of their quest – beside the lake, across the highway – the bustling, laughing tables of the Kruse Baimken biergarten, haven for all who seek refreshment.

After a gentle meander through the town, an equally gentle perusal of the menu presents an obvious choice: a tall, cloudy glass of Schofferhofer weizen is what’s called for, a yeasty glass of goodness that radiates taste, charm and happiness in equal measure. Our fraulein takes our order, and with bated breath… I wait.

My expectations are not dissapointed. I’m not sure if it’s the beer alone, or the combination of location and the brew, but this wheat beer is light, refreshing and bursting full of flavour. The very definition of “zesty”, it brings to mind cloudless summer days and fields of wheat, of weary travellers taking their ease at the side of the road, of ancient German brewing wisdom passed down the ages to make this beer. Through a thick foam head I dive into the liquid gold whole-heartedly, enjoying the purity of the experience and the beer in equal measure. Come hither, biergarten maiden, and fetch me another.  

 

JBB6 Rating: For The Win

Pyramid Hefeweizen

I am actually starting to like Fridays more and more… I am very lucky.  I had zero meetings today.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  I was actually able to stay on top of email and get A LOT of stuff done.  This may be the first time in at least a couple of years and by god if it didn’t feel good.  I am going to have to start making it a habit, I tell you. 

So… I worked in Bellevue at Lincoln Square from about 7am to 2:30 and then decided to beat the traffic and get closer to home and work a bit more… so I ended up at a wonderful little afternoon happy hour again at Sockey’s in Monroe.  Sockey’s first came up on my review of Skagit River “Steelie” Brown Ale.  While that beer was middle of the road, Pyramid Hefeweizen definitely is not.  I was super surprised to see that we actually hadn’t blogged about it yet, so here it is.

For me, this is one of their signature beers.  I think it rates right up there with Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen in that it is a pure, clean, wonderful hefe that really beats the heat on a hot summer’s day and whisks away the worries of a long week.  I had a couple over the course of a couple of hours and boy am I glad.  Very tasty and it may just have to be what I drink when I go there… although they have a few others that may be worth reviewing.

JBB6 Rating: For the Win

FireStation5 Fire Hydrant Hefeweisen

I’m back… a long drive and some slightly difficult kids later and we arived back in WA today at about 2:00 pm.  We had a pretty good stay at the Best Western in La Grande, OR.  Nice rooms, nice pool, good breakfast, right off the highway… highly recommended.

So, we have been unpacking for a while and I am ready for a cold one… I look in the fridge and there it is… the second beer from FireStation5 that I purchased before the trip.  FireStation5 Fire Hydrant Hefeweisen stares me in the eye and gives me that “drink me” look, so I open it up and pour it into a standard pint glass.

First things first… this doesn’t look like hefeweizen.  It just doesn’t have the right color, no head even with a straight-to-the-bottom pour, and it sure doesn’t look unfiltered… much to my dismay, of course.  Well, I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I think you can judge a beer by its pour and color… really.  This beer was much more bitter than it should have been, it wasn’t fruity in the least, and it didn’t hold a good aftertaste at all. 

First beer from Firestation was the Firestation Blonde and it didn’t rate well… hoping the full line isn’t of the same caliber… will keep trying and let you know.

JBB6 Rating: Just Not Right

Henry Weinhard’s Hefeweizen

Henry Weinhard’s has to produce some of the best low cost beer I have every laid lips on… and I have laid lips on a lot of brews as you can tell by this blog.  I generally go with the Private Reserve, but I have been enjoying the Hefeweizen genre of beer more and more lately, so I decided to go that route instead.

Good choice.  The folks at the Henry Weinhard’s brewery really know what they are doing.  While not as full flavored as some of the others we have blogged about, there is not beating the value for the money.  Good, clean hefe with just enough lightness and fruitiness to remind you why you like it so much. 

While you are at their website, check out their screen savers (Downloads > Pour Screen Saver)… there is one that is just a glass of beer with a nice bubbling golden ale and head and it really makes me happy every time I see it at work…

One more thing… make sure you check out their heritage… very cool.

JBB6 Rating: Will Buy Again

Screen saver:

Beer:

Widmer Hefeweizen

A beautiful Tuesday evening with a bit of snow on the ground and a late dinner.  Today was a fine beer day.  Two different work sponsored events with beer as the beverages makes Dug a happy boy…

Lunch = Beer and pizza

Dinner = Beer and apps and then dinner

I missed the trifecta… next time the moons align like this I will have to make sure I have beer with breakfast somehow, as well.

The beer of choice tonight was Widmer Hefeweizen.  I think I am turning into a Hefe fan… This is the second one I have had that I would highly recommend.  Although that Pyramid Hefe has to still be #1 in my book.  Still, Widmer did a fine job and I think they are less expensive, too…

**UPDATE** I just had Pyramid’s Hefeweizen and realized in looking up Widmers that this was so early as to not have a rating… that is a poor shame since it needs to be on the For the Win list for sure.  May even need to go in the Hall of Fame, but I need to discuss with Po first.  So here you go:

JBB6 Rating: For the Win

Beer and pour together:

Hitachino Nest Beer: Weizen

Saturday! Even better than Friday night, sometimes, especially if the rain’s lashing down outside (surprise!), the fire’s raging in the hearth, and there’s a bit of a Japan-fest going on in your house. Youngest son has developed a strange obesession for repeat watchings of Kingu Kongu no gyakushu, and everything else from the Land of the Rising Sun. To develop his education a little further, I think a trip to Uwajimaya is in order.

An hour later and weighed down with bags of strange candy, spicy baby octopus, a pack of raw sea urchin and enough sushi and sashimi to feed a small army, I come across the beer fridge. Intriguing! There’s a lot here that’s familiar (the predicatable Sapporo, Kirin, and so on) and a lot that’s not. Basing my choice pretty much solely on the label, I plump for an extortionately priced $9 bottle of Hitachino Nest Beer in Weizen form from the Kiuchi Brewery in Naka-shi, Ibaraki, Japan. Even if I don’t like the contents, the 1 pint 5 oz bottle and the Owl label are pretty darn cool.

A couple hours later, and it seems I do like it – at least a bit. An attractive cloudy golden amber pour develops a head that’s an inch high, but which rapidly fades away to nothing much. Taste-wise it seems to lack a little of the body I wanted, and there’s a yeasty, acidic finish that I’m not really in the mood for today. But it’s refreshing enough, and there’s plenty of the spicy coriander notes and lemony tang that you’d expect to find in a decent hefeweizen.  By the end of the second glass I’m wishing I’d bought more than one bottle, but given the price… I’m not sure I would.

There’s plenty of others in their recipe-book that I’ll be sampling, though, and next time I’m in Japan, I think I’d like to pay them a visit.

 Edit: Now I remember what it reminds me of… Hoegaarden! I wonder if I can find that here in the States…