Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse

Brewed by Brooklyn Brewery
Style: Weizen Bock
Brooklyn, New York USA

Bottle. The beer pours to a murky pale straw colored body with a nice coating white head. The aroma is quite hoppy. Very fruity pineapple/starfruit and yeast with lots of wheat. The flavor is really wheat laden with some toffee and starfruit. The palate is not as textured as I’d have thought. The hops burp up pretty well however.

Bottle courtesy of eaglefan538. Real good floral aroma on the nose. Hazy gold body with white sustaining head and good lacing. Lot of flavors citrus at first. Then sweet sugar pepper and spices are in the mix. A sweet pepper aftertatse left on palate. Good brew after a night at work. Should sleep like a baby today.

Bottle shared with blankboy, jerc & mabel - my bottle courtesy of rudy. Slightly hazy golden with a small persistent white head. Aroma - awesome! Herbal hops, medicinal (hint of band aid), yeasty and spicy, verging on being a saison. Full mouthfeel. Flavour is a complex combination of spicy/herbal notes, pineapple and other tropical fruit, coriander, yeast and citrus. Stellar!

750ml bottle: Pours a slightly cloudy yellow orange with a white head, complex aroma with banana, cloves, pine, grapefruit and bubblegum. Starts and ends lightly bitter, ample carbonation, medium bodied, crisp ending with yeasty banana at the end.

25 oz bottle, via Julio’s. Pours a gold body with a slight haze. Large frothy white head, vigorous carbonation. Grassy hops and hay hit the nose first, then some yeast derived spiciness, bready malt, and honey. The flavor is unusual to say the least. The combo of heavy bready and wheat malt plus the floral and grassy hops create a unique and flavorful beer. I’d like some more earthy yeastiness to balance the hops. I’m getting a slightly odd minty note on the finish from the hops. Rather alcoholic on the back end, which for some reason makes me think that it’s more apparent because of the lack of dark malts. Mouthfeel is full and sturdy with just a little clingy doughy wheat and lots of efforvescent carbonation. Overall, pretty nice, and a decent drinker, but I’m not totally sold on the pale Weizenbock style.

750mL bottle, courtesy of artusory. Thanks, Ryan! Pours a hazy, honey-golden color; fizzy off-white head with solid retention and lacing. Loads of pine, vanilla and bready malts, bubble gum, and spice in the aroma; very generous nose. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: sticky bubble gum, complex yeast, bread, and Belgian sugar; chewy and bready, with a slightly piney character; less hop character than in the nose. Lengthy finish: esters, vanilla, and some pine. I enjoyed this, but preferred the Schneider version a bit more.

Bottle Number 0668; Sampled August 2008
A fairly careful pour into my 25cl tulip glass still produces a three-finger thick, pale tan colored head. The head has a very fluffy texture to it and it leaves a nice amount of lacing on the sides of my glass. The beer is a hazy, light amber hue that still shows a hazy, orange tinged, gold color when held up to the light. The aroma is quite vibrantly spicy with hop notes, but is still quite obviously a Hefeweizen too. Aromas of tropical fruit, ripe apricot and a spicy herbal note from the hops are backed by significant clove phenols as well as a touch of fruity banana that lies just underneath. Other notes of lemon zest, pale-whole-grain cracker notes, and a fresh crushed wheat aroma. I really like the mix of spicy notes that come from both the Palisade hops and the fermentation character; huge woody pepper aromatics, perhaps a touch of sweet pickled ginger, a touch rosemary / menthol.

Fairly sweet tasting, but much of this is accentuated by the fruity hop character that provides notes of bergamot, apricot and lots of tangelo. The ample hop flavors that are packed into this beer also provide flavors of minty pine, light herbal notes and a significant, herbal leaning bitterness. In the flavor the hop character is a lot more noticeable than it was in the aroma; how this is really manifest is that the Weizen flavors are a bit muted under the hop character. Traditional Weizen notes of clove are certainly the most prominent, but there is also a nice fresh wheat character that both adds texture and flavor, a touch of tartness typical of the style can also be noticed and there is just a hint of banana that seems to be noticeable in the lingering finish. This is quite well carbonated, but the viscous body does a good job of hiding this fact; really though the ample carbonation does a good job of balancing out the medium-heft that this beer has, such that this remains fairly quaffable (the hop character also seems to help with this too). This can get a little hot in the finish at times with a mix of spicy phenolics and higher alcohols, but it doesn’t seem to detract too much.

Quite tasty and I really like the vibrant hop character, despite it drowning out the yeast character a bit. This certainly retains the refreshing wheat character that is typical of a Hefeweizen; speaking of which, I really do see this as more of a strong Hefeweizen than a Weizenbock, as I usually associate that last with being darker and richer.

Bottle (75 cl) from Systembolaget. Hazy golden with white head. Tropical fruit hop character, some weak phenolic notes as well. Medium bodied, medium carbonation. Nicely balanced, dryer than the Schneider-Brooklyn version, and a bit more bitterness as well.