Mt. Tam Pale Ale – Marin Brewing Company

February 8, 2010

Mt. Tam Pale Ale from California’s Marin Brewing Company comes to The Brew Club as a gift from fellow ‘Brew Clubber’ Melissa!  While Melissa doesn’t write beer reviews for the site, she’s hooked me up with some very good beers that she’s enjoyed in the past so I know she’s got good taste in beer!  Maybe with some encouragement from the Peanut Gallery she’ll give beer reviewing a try!

I just wanted to say thanks thanks Melissa for being a friend and sharing some of the beers that you’ve enjoyed with me! 

Marin Brewing Company is in Larkspur, CA, and they produce this 5.5% ABV American Pale Ale.  I like to read the labels on any new beer I try, and something I don’t recall seeing too often is beer that is not pasteurized.  I’m not sure if this is an unusual feature in a beer, or if I’m just not reading the labels carefully enough!  There’s also a big red warning on the label - LIVE ALE! – KEEP REFRIGERATED! Which I dutifully did.  I don’t want to be responsible for killing live ale!

This Pale Ale looked fairly common in my glass as American Pale Ales go.  It was  light amber in color, and while there were no particles floating around in the beer, it wasn’t quite clear either.

The smell was at first hoppy as might be expected, but it wasn’t a smack-in-the-face kind of hop aroma.  Let’s say moderate citrusy hops were what comes mostly to the nose.

The head is a nice creamy color, and when it fizzles out it leaves that characteristic frothy residue that hoppy beers tend to leave on the surface of the beer.

So far, so good as we get to the tasting bit!

The Mt. Tam Pale Ale was really a nice surprise to me!  Not a huge fan of overly hopped beers, this American Pale Ale was just right I think.  Similar to the scent, the most identifiable flavor was citrusy hops.  Really, it was almost like a grapefruit was squeezed into this beer!  While I’ve had American Pale Ales before, I’d never had a beer with this particular flavor profile.

Mt. Tam Pale Ale has a decent body and a very smooth and creamy texture that I really liked as well.  It wasn’t highly carbonated either, and again, at 5.5% ABV, I could see putting a few of these away during the warmer months of summer!

See, I’m always hesitant to try hoppier beers, but I’m finding that American Pale Ales like this Mt. Tom is a good way to ease into the hop beer world!  It isn’t over the top like I find many IPAs to be.  This is an enjoyable beer, and quite a bit different from what I’m used to having.  I’m glad I tried it – Thanks Melissa!

Rating:

Have you tried the Mt. Tam Pale Ale? If not, what’s your favorite American Pale ale? After this, I think I may be warming up to the style a bit!

Posted in 3 Star Reviews, Ales, American Beers 4 Comments »

Women, Beer and Football

February 6, 2010

I wasn’t sure how to title this post, but as the Super Bowl approached there seem to be two convergent things that women in this country seem to be under-interested in.  Interest in good beer, and interest in football.

Generally speaking, I think most women would rather change the car’s oil than watch the Super Bowl, but maybe they would enjoy the sport more if they understood it better.

In my opinion, Football is the best sport to be a fan of.  There is the unbelievable athleticism displayed by the players – its a physical game, pure and simple.  But there is also the strategy that goes into planning the game, and how it gets executed by the players.  On top of that, you have injuries, weather, stadium noise – so many variables go into the game.

By the time you get to the playoffs, and in particular the Super Bowl, you have two teams facing each other who have survived 4 months of tough games.  Crem dela crem! It’s great entertainment!

Now, the ladies unfortunately seem to be less interested.  Maybe its the culture of sports that turns them off, or how they were raised, but I think if women had a guide, a ‘football 101 for women’ written by a woman, that might help!

Similarly, is just like getting the ladies more interested in quality beer.  I hope that The Brew Club has had some success in getting women more interested in trying something new, but its an issue that will take some time to work on I guess like getting guys to accept and wear makeup. (Don is warming up to the idea I’ve heard )

So, that brings me to the whole point of this post.  Liz, who is a Brew Clubber (and responsible for the Bud Select 55 pick) is also quite the athlete.  While she has a hard time keeping up with me on the hiking trails,  she’s played on Championship basketball teams in College, is still very involved in all types of sports,  and can talk just about any sport with just about anybody!  So, she took it upon herself to write “Football 101 For Girls” over at her own sports blog The Sports Bra Reports.

Her post is getting some good response because its written from a girl’s perspective, and I think even some guys might want to pass it along (or read it for themselves).  Hey, how cool would it bee if the women in your life could spend the time enjoying the game with you (with a good beer perhaps) because they understand it rather than sitting in the spare room watching Thornbirds or something?

Go check it out and pass it along!  Football 101 For Girls

How about you?  Are you without female company for the Super Bowl?  Why do you think that is?  Remember, I’m not Dr. Phil here, so keep it lite OK?

Posted in Other Stuff 7 Comments »

Bud Select 55

February 5, 2010

This week, AB rolled out nationwide its newest beer Bud Select 55.  The number “55” on the label symbolizing the number of calories in the beer.  I perused my local beverage outlet trying to find this beer and I was lucky (?) enough to actually find it.  Funny thing is when I went to pay for the beer; the lady checking me out didn’t even know what it was.  I found that quite amusing.

Anyway, back to the beer at hand.  AB Bud Select 55 comes in a clear bottle with a gray label.  AB is advertising this as a ‘premium’ light beer that has only 55 calories, and the alcohol content on the beer according the label is “no more than 3.2%,” pretty light if you ask me!

On to the beer review!  As I pour Bud Select 55 into my glass it creates very little foam and it pours out a pale yellowish color, it almost looks like apple juice.  It creates a very light head of foam.  I allow the beer to sit for about a minute to see if the lacing sticks around for a while and it doesn’t.  The foam disappears rather quickly.

The smell of Bud Select 55 is quite unique;  it doesn’t have a distinguishing aroma – slight skunkiness if I had to describe a smell.

On to the taste – let’s just say I didn’t like it, and that’s being generous.  When I tried it, the beer seemed to be very carbonated and left dryness in my mouth.   It didn’t really taste like beer at all;  if I had to compare it to something I’d say seltzer water.  (no offense to seltzer water)

I know I might get some heat for the following comment, but I like bud light.  If you’re watching your carbs and you like beer, light beers is the way to go.  So when AB put out Bud Select 55 in response to MGD’s 64, I thought it might have a chance.  It didn’t!  I was hardly able to finish the one beer – and I like beer!

Still, I think I can understand the concept of this beer.  It’s for people who really don’t drink beer or are trying to watch their weight and want a slight beer taste.  That said, if you’re a regular beer drinker, skip it cause it doesn’t taste like beer at all but rather seltzer water.

I give it ½ a star.  Rating:

Liz

What about you?  Will you dare try Bud Select 55?

Posted in 0 Star Reviews, American Beers, Guest Reviews, Lager 9 Comments »

Troegs Troegenator Double Bock Beer

February 3, 2010

While traditionally a doppelbock is beer for early spring, we don’t really adhere to tradition at The Brew Club!  So, we’re reviewing this Troegs Troegenator doppelbock while its still Winter!

Actually the reasoning is much more benign than that because recently we reviewed the Ramstein Winter Wheat, which is a ‘Double Bock’ brewed right here in New Jersey.  So, I thought ‘why not’?  I like themes.

I’m not overly familiar with the style, and if you aren’t either here’s the nice Doppelbock definition from The German Beer Institute.

“Doppelbock (literally “double bock”) is a stronger and usually darker version of the Bavarian Bockbier. It is exceptionally malty, with very little bitterness. Standard Doppelbocks may have as much as 7% alcohol by volume. In the strongest versions (around 10 to 13%), you can actually taste the alcohol.”

Speaking of tradition, Doppelbocks had a real purpose.  They were brewed and consumed by monks as “liquid bread” which they traditionally brewed for the Lenten season. (Early Spring, right?) Because these Monks were required to fast for long periods of time, they actually used beers like this to make up for some of the nutrients they were missing because of the fasting.

Brewers of these meal-replacement beers typically ended the names of their double bock beers with the suffix ‘ator’,and, you can see examples of this with beers with names like Celabrator, Illuminator, Subliminator, (none of which I’ve tried yet) but now we have Troegenator!

The Troegenator checks in at a respectable 8.2% ABV and while that’s on the high side, this is another beer that seems to keep the alcohol flavor and aroma in check.  It’s not a boozy smelling beer at all really, and I like that.

It pours a nice brownish color into my lager glass (it is a lager), and creates a appropriately beige head – but it doesn’t stick around too long.  By the time its ready to drink, there is no trace of a head or lace.

I could see why ‘liquid bread’ is used.  When it comes to the smell, yeah there is something of a bready aroma in addition to sweet malts, something of a caramel sweetness and that ‘dark fruit’ action.  Plum, cherry, raisin – that sort of thing.  Nothing dominates really, but its all in there and some alcohol comes through but as I mentioned its not out of line.

I could probably copy/paste the ‘nose’ paragraph above and save us all some time when describing the taste!  Its just about the same!  Alcohol is kept in check, and its got a slightly bitter and dry finish, but otherwise it tastes like it smells.

Overall, I’d say that I liked the Troegenator from Troegs, but as a double bock I’d have to try some more to make any useful comparisons.  On its own, I thought it was an interesting beer and if you’re into this style you might want to check it out.  Don’t bother waiting for spring either, we won’t tell on you!

Rating:

What do you think?  Is the Troegs Troegenator a good example of the style?  What’s your favorite doppelbock?  I’d like to try some more of these.

Posted in 3 Star Reviews, American Beers, Bocks, Porters and Stouts, Lager 5 Comments »

British Gluten Free Beers

February 1, 2010

Last year Scott reviewed a couple of Gluten Free Beers for The Brew Club – perhaps most notably the “Bard’s Tale” gluten free beer which he described as having “a good flavor that I think anyone could enjoy” – you can follow that link to the full review, and I’ll excuse Scott’s misspelling of the word ‘flavour’.

Scott’s reviews prompted enquiries from some British Brew Club visitors about the availability of gluten free beers in the UK, which set me a bit of a challenge. I managed to find a few and contacted the various breweries to see if they’d be kind enough to send me a sample to taste on your behalf.

Hey, it’s a dirty job…

Wold Top Brewery

The first brewery to respond was the Wold Top Brewery in East Yorkshire, which is perhaps appropriate, as their ‘Against The Grain’ was Britain’s first gluten free beer.

The Wold Top Brewery was founded in 2003 by Tom and Gill Mellor at Hunmanby Grange, their family farm near Driffield in East Yorkshire, high on the Yorkshire Wolds. It’s a five barrel microbrewery producing a range of beers using water from their own borehole and, as far as possible, home grown or locally grown ingredients.

The Yorkshire Wolds, incidentally, are a range of low, chalk based hills on the east coast of Yorkshire, close to the North Sea Coast – thought you’d like to know that – and the chalk based stone filters the water used in the Wold Top brews.

‘Against The Grain’ is brewed using ‘lager malt, maize, hops and yeast’, it’s brewed to 4.5% ABV and has less a gluten content of less than 20 parts per million.

Green’s Gluten Free Beers

The second brewery to respond was Green’s who have taken a different approach to gluten free beers, turning to Belgium for their brews which are brewed for them in Ghent, exploiting Belgium’s rich brewing heritage. Much as Greene king did when calling on Rodenbach to transform ‘Old Speckled Hen’ into ‘Old Crafty Hen’

Green’s produce a range of eight different gluten free beers including a Lager, an Amber beer, and a Tripel.  The brewmaster was kind enough to call me to find my personal taste in beers before sending me samples, wary that I needed to be aware that gluten free beers can be very different to ‘normal’ beers and should be approached somewhat cautiously.

Having reassured them that I would be comparing gluten free beers amongst themselves, a few days later two bottles each of the rather dramatically named ‘Pathfinder’ (a bottle re-fermented gluten free ‘dubbel’ dark beer weighing in at 7% ABV ) and ‘Quest’  (a bottle re-fermented gluten free ‘tripel’ blonde beer brewed to a potent 8.5% ABV).

St Peter’s Brewery

The third brewery I had managed to identify is the somewhat better known ‘St Peters’ brewery from Suffolk, in East Anglia – that’s the bulbous bit of England on the east coast – about a hundred and fifty miles south of Yorkshire’s Wold Top brewery.

St Peters brew a range of around a dozen interesting beers, including the excellent Winter Ale that Scott recently reviewed. Their gluten free beer, which was launched in 2007 is called ‘G-Free’ and is a Summer Ale, brewed to 4.2% ABV.

So there we have it, no less than four gluten free beers, in a wide range of styles. But what are they like to drink?

Against The Grain – Wold Top Brewery – 4.5% ABV

As you should see from the photo it’s a very pale ale that pours with a full white head that disperses quickly, there’s not much nose to speak of, a few more hops wouldn’t go amiss.

It’s quite well bodied, very much a light summer ale, these have become quite popular here in the UK in recent years – my local brewery – Crouch Vale – won Champion Beer of Britain for two years running (2005 and 2006) with their ‘Brewer’s Gold’ Summer Ale.

Anyway, back to ‘Against the Grain’ – as my first gluten free beer I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this pleasantly surprised me, I suppose that tasted alongside a regular Summer Ale then the differences would become apparent, but on its own it works well, It’s light and refreshing, with an underlying hint of citrus.

Personally I’d prefer a few more hops, but I wouldn’t complain about drinking this if I had problems with gluten.

Rating:

Pathfinder – Green’s Gluten Free Beers  – 7% ABV

Unlike ‘Against The Grain’, Pathfinder pours a distinctive dark amber/brown colour, as you’d expect from a ‘dubbel’ with a rich, caramel coloured head. The head is reasonably slow to disperse and leaves some lacing.

The colour is rich, dark and cloudy, a classic Dunkel.

The nose is sharp, almost sour, but not an ‘in your face’ sour as you would get from a Lambic. The mouth feel is good, well bodied.

Flavour wise, this is a really interesting beer; initially there’s a slightly sharp taste, almost sour, that mellows down to reveal hints of (very) bitter chocolate.

This is a very deceptive brew, it goes down really well, and doesn’t taste like a 7% beer.

I recommend you approach with (gluten-free) caution, but I recommend you approach it.

Rating:

Quest – Green’s Gluten Free Beers  – 8.5% ABV

Quest weighs in at a mighty 8.5% ABV, which means 4.25 ‘units’ or close to 1½ times your recommended alcohol allowance (according to the UK Government) – dangerously close to ‘binge drinking’ as I described here.

It pours with a copious, loose, white head, with large bubbles that disperses fairly rapidly, leaving some lacing. The beer itself is pale but cloudy.

The nose, I confess was a bit of a disappointment, coming through as mainly ‘bready’ with hints of lemon. I was hoping for coriander or banana, but lemon it is.

It’s full bodied, surprisingly so for a pale beer, and the flavour comes through much like the nose, bread with hints of lemon, and caramel lurking in the background. There’s a subtle potency in here, again, it’s not ‘in your face’ like many of the strong Belgian brews, but it’s there.

I take my hat off to Greens, they brew beers with strength and subtlety, and they happen to be Gluten-free.

And at 8.5% make no mistake, this is a beer worthy of respect.  And worthy of trying.

Rating:

G-Free - St Peter’s Brewery – 4.2% ABV

G-Free certainly came through as more of a lager style beer, it poured light and bright.

There was no head to speak of, and no noticeable nose which was disappointing, but when I tasted it the flavour came through as really ‘zingy’.

It’s another Summer Ale, which the brewery describes as “a clean, crisp, gluten free ale with a pilsner lager style finish and aromas of citrus and mandarin from American Amarillo hops“. While I haven’t enjoyed these Summer Ales very much in the past (I like my bitters to be dark and bitter and my lagers to be light and refreshing), this is, I think, my first encounter with Amarillo hops and they pack a zesty citrus punch with hints of grapefruit and mandarin – very refreshing.

And I concede this provides a viable alternative to a lager; on a hot summer day I could quite enjoy this, gluten-free or not. But a bit more fizz would be nice.

Rating:

So, in summary, I really didn’t know what to expect when I approached Gluten Free Beers, but having tasted a few I can can confirm that we here in the UK are well served with Gluten Free beers, and have a variety of styles from which to choose.

As I mentioned above, on a hot summer’s day I would have no problem reaching for G-Free from St Peter’s brewery, while on a dark winter evening either of the Green’s brews would go down (indeed went down) very nicely indeed.

Once again I’d like to thank the various breweries for their assistance on this particular journey, for the record their websites are:

Greens: http://www.glutenfreebeers.co.uk/

St Peter’s http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk/

Wold Top : http://www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk/

Posted in 3 Star Reviews, Ales, English Beers, Views from a Brit 4 Comments »

Ayinger Weizen Bock

January 29, 2010

Today, I NEEDED a beer, and that beer was Ayinger Weizen Bock.  Why did I NEED a beer?  Well, If I went into the gory details you would probably never finish reading this particular beer review!  So, enough about me!

Awhile back, I reviewed the Ayinger Oktoberfest and declared it my favorite Oktoberfest beer of 2009.  It was good.  So, when I was out and about looking for winter beers to try, I saw this bottle of their Weizen-Bock on the shelf.

Now, I don’t know what makes it a winter beer in particular, but the label has this mountain goat (holding a beer) in front of the snow-covered Aying brewery.  To me, snow = winter.  So, goat + beer + snow in illustration = winter beer.  Am I right or what?

I guess the point is I had high hopes for what I perceived to be a winter ale from Germany!

I wasn’t disappointed!  At 7.1% ABV, this strong wheat ale looks great in the glass.  It has a slightly darker,  golden appearance, and its cloudy – a wheat-beer for sure.  The head was quite impressive and even though I have a little bit of a cold I could still smell some spicyness, clove, and some alcohol came though as well.

Taste.  Wow.  I need to learn more about this Weizen-Bock style.  Anybody want to fill me in what it’s about?  Seems like a stong hefeweizen to me (maybe it is?)  The flavors in the Ayinger Weizan-Bock are actually quite predictable considering the aroma.  Nice mouthfeel and quite crisp, I think this beer would actually make a great Summer beer!   (Much like the Long Trail Winter White)

Its a bit stronger in the alcohol department, but even at 7.1% the alcohol plays a supporting flavor role to the spices and a very nice bready kind of flavor. I don’t usually like when alcohol comes through too strongly in a beer, and it’s not the case here, but it did provide for just enough ‘winter warming’ on the way down!

So, this evening that I needed a good beer, the people from Aying Brewery really came through with this great Wheat Bock Ale!  Despite my silly calculus above, it is a Winter seasonal beer so if you see it on the shelf, do yourself a favor and try it! 4 stars from The Brew Club!
Rating:

I’m doing quite well so far in January 2010!  I think I’ve give more 4 star beer reviews this month than I did in all of 2009!

Posted in 4 Star Reviews, Ales, European Beers, Seasonal Beers, Wheat Beers 12 Comments »

Beer Review – St. Peter’s Winter Ale

January 27, 2010

Is it just me, or do the British Ales come in the coolest bottles?

I had always noticed the beers from the St. Peter’s brewery on the shelves with their short necks and simple elliptical labels. Still, it wasn’t until I recently decided to buy the St. Peter’s Winter Ale that I actually got to take a closer look at the bottle, and more importantly, try the beer!

Just a little on the bottle.  The glass, as I’ve noticed with many British beer bottles, is quite thick.  I’m thinking you could throw it against a brick wall and it wouldn’t break!  That’s an exaggeration of course, but the bottle is noticeably heftier than bottles from America, Germany or anyplace else I think.  I wonder why?

The short neck is kind of cool too I think, and the glass itself is a yellowish-green color that isn’t that common.  I know.  You’re hoping I’m as impressed with the beer inside the bottle as I am with the beer bottle itself!

Well, here’s the beer review spoiler.  I am!

According to the label on the very cool bottle, the beer is “A deep Ruby Red Ale with a superb balance of malt sweetness, and hop bitterness.  A classic English winter ale, rich in flavor.” For the most part, they aren’t kidding!

The beer pours a dark color, and creates a dense foamy head.  Held to a bright light, one can see that the beer is perfectly clear, and is indeed a deep ruby color.  Its quite nice actually.

The aroma is mostly malt, and while its hard for me to put a finger on, it has an unmistakable British character to it.  Maybe its the type of malt that is used, but I can tell even before tasting it that this is my type of beer!

Getting on to the taste.  Sweet malts dominate this 6.3% ABV beauty and as the label suggests there is just the right amount of hops to give it good balance and a very enjoyable bitterness.

Its got a great mouthfeel, just the right body and overall, this Winter Ale goes down very well.  At this stage, I think this St Peter’s Winter Ale is my favorite Winter beer of this season, and I’ll be looking to pick up a few more of them before they’re gone and I’d suggest you do the same!

This was my first beer from St Peter’s, and while I’m going to try grabbing a few more of their Winter Ales for the stockpile, I’m also going to consider trying some of their other offerings.  I’d be silly not to!

I was so impressed with this beer that I’m giving it a super-rare 4.5 stars!  It was really a pleasure to review this beer for The Brew Club.  That’s a good pint!

Rating:

What about you?  Ever try the St. Peter’s Winter Ale or perhaps another beer for St Peter’s brewery?  What did you think?

Posted in 4 Star Reviews, Ales, English Beers, Seasonal Beers 16 Comments »

Franziskaner Weissbeer

January 25, 2010

Franziskaner, with its distinctive picture of a Franciscan Friar on the label is one of Germany’s best known wheat beers, and indeed was the first wheat beer I tasted, back the late nineteen eighties.

To be honest, here in the UK wheat beers are still pretty ‘niche’ although brands such as Hoegaarden have done much to popularise them.

Franziskaner claims to trace its roots back to 1363;  that was when the brewer Seidel Vaterstetter is first mentioned as the owner of the ‘brewery next to the Franciscans’ in the Munich Residenzstrasse; the name ‘Franziskaner’ derives from the Franciscan monastery.

Then it gets complicated in a ‘Dynasty’ sort of way – but without the shoulder-pads:

The brewery in Residenzstrasse was bought in 1841 by  Augustin Deiglmayr, a son-in-law of Gabriel Sedlmayr the Elder (the owner of the nearby Spaten brewery) as Franzikaner moved their operations to the Munich suburb of Lilienberg.

In due course Sedlmayr and Deiglmayr worked together and in 1861 Sedlmayr took control of the brewery.  The brewery was floated in 1909 and in 1921 the Spaten and Franziskaner companies merged to form (with typical German thoroughness the ‘Gabriel und Joseph Sedlmayr Spaten-Franziskaner-Leistbräu Aktie Gesellschaft’.

Then in 1997 the brewery united with Löwenbräu AG to form the Spaten-Löwenbräu-Gruppe which was in turn sold to Interbrew in 2003.

See what I mean about Dynasty?

In 2004 Interbrew and the Companhia de Bebidas das Américas (AmBev) merged to form InBev and then, in 2006, the company’s Marsstrasse brewery was closed and converted into a museum.

These days Franziskaner is the global number 3 in terms of wheat beer sales.

This review was going to be a straight review of the popular Franziskaner brew, until my neighbour announced that he was going to Germany for a weekend and “would I like anything brought back?” – “well if you find a case of wheat-beer that would be great”.

To my amazement he left a crate of Franziskaner on my doorstep, and when I looked at the bottles, they weren’t just Franziskaner, brewed to 5% ABV, but the dunkel… darker and sweeter than the regular brew.

Bring it on!

Franziskaner Dunkel

This pours with a rich mocha coloured head, really rich… foaming, but very little lacing after it subsided.  As expected, this is a lot more accessible that the more popular light weissbeers, the nose is really subtle, the orange peel and coriander notes are subdued, barely noticeable, but there are distinct hints of banana.

There is an underlying cloudiness… don’t even consider holding this up to the halogen, and the mouth feel is medium bodied, not to heavy, not too light.

As for the taste, well it’s subtler than pale ‘hellas’ weissbeers, it’s dark and sweet, almost like a banana fudge, with maybe some hints of bubblegum. As such this could act as a gateway beer, it’s really drinkable, but has those underlying flavours that tell you this is a wheatbeer, not a run of the mill bitter or mild. There’s just an edge, but a very pleasant one.

When I reviewed Blue Moon Wheat Beer last spring one of the comments suggested serving Blue Moon 50/50 with Guinness to get a ‘Black & Blue’ – well I took a bottle of Blue Moon down to my local and added it to a draught Guinness. When the head finally subsided (and I’d cleaned the froth off the bar top) the resulting beer was very similar to this;  well a pimped and chromed version, but the banana fudge flavours were there.

I then dusted off a couple of bottles of the Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss

Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss

Again a full bodied head from a full pour maybe slighlty less head, but more lacing. A full Banana, Oramge Peel and Coriander nose. Again not as ‘in your face’ as Blue Moon or Hoegaarden, but still a classic German wheat beer.

And the same in the flavour, not too full bodied, but enough to satisfy.

All in all I think I have to score these both 3 stars.

In the past I would have rated Franziskaner higher, but more recent weissbeers – such as the excellent offering from Grolsch and the absolute classic from Weihenstephaner has (in my opion at least) pushed Franziskaner down a notch.

And, for the record, I can’t find my Franziskaner glass, so the glass used in the Dunkel review hails from the Cotswold Brewing Company, about whom more soon, while the Hefe-Weizen enjoys my prized Falkensteiner glass, almost a work of art.

Rating:

Bob the Brit

Posted in 3 Star Reviews, European Beers, Views from a Brit, Wheat Beers 10 Comments »