Schöfferhofer Hefeweisen

Date September 19, 2011

The Schöfferhofer  brewery was founded in the city of Mainz – in the Rhineland – south western Germany.

Unusually it’s not named for the brewery’s founder, but for Peter Schöffer, a noted early printer and associate of Johannes Gutenberg. After extensive (and I mean extensive) research, I’ve been unable to find any record of when the brewery was actually founded, but Peter Schöffer’s face adorns both the beer label and the brewery’s interpretation of the classic weissbeer glass.

Schöfferhofer HefeweisenThe brewery merged with two other breweries in 1921, the Frankfurter Burgerbrauerei and the Hofbierbrauerei Schofferhof to form Schofferhof-Binding-Burgerbrau AG and production was moved to Frankfurt am Main in Hesse, central Germany – outside Bavaria.  As such, it has to be called a ‘Hefeweizen’ instead of a ‘Weissbier’.

Schöfferhofer has effectively created (and subsequently dominated) the wheatbeer market in Hesse.

These days Schöfferhofer is brewed at the massive Binding brewery in Frankfurt – Germany’s largest brewery.  Binding is in turn owned by Dr. Oetker who are possibly better known for yoghurt and frozen pizza.

Schöfferhofer claims to be the 4th most popular wheat beer in Germany, and is widely exported – I think it’s even available at EPCOT.

Coops reviewed the Schöfferhofer Kristallweisen for The Brew Club back in 2008, but this one is the unfiltered hefeweissen with its distinctive orange label.

Interestingly, it pours cloudy (as you would expect from a Hefeweisen) but slightly darker than most wheat beers, most are a summer barley colour, while Schöfferhofer is definitely just a shade darker.  The head, however, is full, foaming and brilliant white (heck – I’m beginning to sound like a paint colour chart), leaving a healthy lacing as the drink goes down.

The nose was ‘drier’ than I expected, yes there were subtle hints of banana and clove that I was anticipating, but these were almost completely masked by a yeasty ‘bready’ nose.  Not unpleasant, just not quite as I expected.  German brewers resist adding cloves and orange peel to their brews like the Belgians do, so a German wheat beer always has a more subtle nose than a Belgian.

The flavour is smooth and crisp, there are some citrus notes, maybe grapefruit, and the background banana flavour.  It’s very refreshing – I’ve heard it described as quaffable – and it goes down very easily.

Overall, and I’ll risk the wrath of Schöfferhofer fans here,  I consider this to be a second division wheat beer.  It’s crisp and refreshing, but not quite up there with the classics like Franziskaner or Weihenstephaner.

Checking back at our Beer Rating system this falls into the Something that does what it sets out to, I’d be happy to drink it again.” So that’s three stars, but I think I’d revisit my rating of Franziskaner and give them 3½ or maybe 4.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Bob the Brit

4 Responses to “Schöfferhofer Hefeweisen”

  1. Scott-TheBrewClub said:

    Nice write up Bob. As familiar as the label is to me, I don’t think I’ve tried this beer yet! Maybe once I’m back to drinking beers again, I’ll revisit some of these Germans.

  2. Nate said:

    Hey Bob, great write up.
    Schöfferhofer has a very special place in my heart. This is my gateway beer, the first Hefeweisen that I had ever tried.

    Back in 2005 when I was still living in Sydney my mates had just discovered Belgian, Italian and many other international beers, we were open to “non Aussie Beer”, when one day the local bottle shop had a 6 pack of this Hefeweisen. Not knowing the nuances of the beer or how to drink it, my friends and I ended up drinking directly from the bottle. Needless to say we thought that we’d found a little bit of heaven. For the remainder of that year we would exhaust the local supplies of this good stuff.

    I then toured Europe in 2006 and found out that whilst Schöfferhofer is a good beer, there were even better Hefeweisen out there. But back in Australia all we had was Schöfferhofer, which was still brilliant.

    So I actually started up my little beer blog back in 2006 based purely on this beer. You can actually see the original post here.

    Having lived in Frankfurt in 2007 and 2008, a small distance from Mainz I was blessed to have a very, very steady supply of this beer both in bottle and on-tap form, which really allows me to complexly agree with your description of Schöfferhofer, Bob. It is a great beer, but it’s not a category leader. Die hard weisen fans will not love it, but they will like it.

    For me, this is the beer that I will and do romanticise about. It started my adventures into beer drinking and analysis, so yeah I love it 🙂

    -Nate-

  3. Scott-TheBrewClub said:

    @Nate – That’s such a great story! As they say, you always remember your first, even if better have come along since.

    Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

  4. Bob the Brit said:

    Thanks for the story @Nate, Franziskaner was my gateway Weissbeer and, as you guys both acknowledge, you always remember your first.

    It’s always reassuring, when people agree with one’s views, even if they’re less than complimentary, it means that either you’re right, or not alone in being wrong! 🙂

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