A Year of Craft Beer, Vol. 97, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

A Hefeweizen is a south German style of beer that is usually made with 50% wheat and 50% malt and is fermented with a special yeast (Hefe) that leaves (pheonolic) flavours of banana, apples or bubble gum as well as dry and tart and it being unfiltered leaves the beer cloudy.  It's a lovely beer that to me is reminiscent of a Belgian style.

I poured this beer into a standard pint glass at about 45 degrees F and it is a lovely tone of cloudy gold with an awesome one to two fingered head of tiny bubbles that stays as a full creamy cap the entire drink and leaves a beautiful dragon scale pattern of lacing on the glass!

The aroma is definitely of the yeasty phenols like banana, apples, bread and very light bubble gum on top of some sweet light maltiness.  Enamoring! 

The flavour is sweet yet dry at the same time and is a perfect balance throughout the sip, the carbonation tantalizes the tip of the tongue with banana and citrus and as the beer moves across the tongue some tartness on the sides in the form of very mild grapefruit become apparent and ends with a nice bubble gum taste on the tongue to be finished with a mildly dry black peppery hop finish.  Very mild hops and floral ones at that.  The alcohol is a little noticeable in the taste, but not much, but it's warming in the stomach for sure.  Excellent!

The mouthfeel is a little bit dryer than sweet with a medium body with a peppery finish.  The carbonation is moderate to lively and really works in bringing out all the fruity flavours.

This is a very enjoyable beer and I would think that is is world class even though it's not listed as so on Beer Advocate.  It meets all the criteria for the class and I really can't see anything deserving of criticism other than I can taste a bit of the alcohol and maybe a little of a tin type of taste to it, which I attribute to the yeast anyway.  It may be a little thin on the body side, but I'm not familiar with that too much.  I'm going to give it a 4.5 out of 5 overall.

This is a really good beer and you need to put down that Oly or PBYarr!!! and get out there and try something good because you are going to kick yourself when that dude at the pearly gates asks you what beers you have tried because that Dog guy put it on this planet for us to drink.  Don't let Dog down!

-Wiss