Colonial Pub Pints Hefeweizen

Brewed by Cold Spring Brewery
Style: German Hefeweizen
Cold Spring, Minnesota USA

Curious stuff. Is this Hefe? I doubt it. It seems a mish-mash of Englishness, a caramelly and rather shallow blend of malts with no real hop dimension (not that I minded that)--a bitter with a bit more carbonation and a bit lighter...perhaps an English Golden Summer Ale. Not a great beer, and probably not even a good beer, but easy enough to drink, better than a BMC lager, and inoffensive.

Lightly Hazed Yellow Color with No Head. Corn Malt/Grains and Bad Banana Aroma. Thin Bodied...Alot of Sweet Grains with Subtle Esters....Session-e to the Max.

Can courtesy (?) of Milwaukee white elephant. Transparent and magnifying brass balls yellow in color with a mold growth of grayish white for the head. Sand paper, lemon suds, vanilla buttered rum toffee, lime scented cloves and dollar store fabric softener all commit severe injustices to the nose. More flavor comes in that expected with the first slip, but then it all slips away into a banana-esque, lemon buttered cheese cream Danish. Dough biscuits get kneaded between the tongue’s roof, eventually excreting mineral water out of steel reserves. The waxy, vanilla lemon wafer crisps out with a strange Splenda artificial sweetness. Sweet, milky banana cream decrescendo.

Cloudy yellow/gold in glass. Smells like sparkling cider. Nice head at pour but dissapears very quickly living a thin ring of medium sized bubbles around the rim of the glass. You get a sweet/sour heffe taste at first sip that dissapears faster then the head. Very fine carbonation, almost chapagne like. Not a thriller but the best tasting drink i had from Glueks. (that ain’t saying much!!) And one more thing. "draught style" WTF!

Poured from can. Citrus/malt aroma. Pale gold with thin head. Citrus-y flavor with some nice malt notes, but thin feel and slightly metallic. Nice concept, but this one needs some work.

500ml can. Pours a cloudy orange-tan with a head that quickly fades away. Mild clovy banana aroma fades into adjuncty sweetness as you get to know it. Hmm...way adjuncty and sweet. The hefe yeast helps to give it some tolerability, but overall this one is a loser. Avoid.

This is just not very good beer. I had the Colonial Pub Pint brown ale, and thought it decent. However, this is a pretty weak wheat beer, with not a lot of wheat flavor but with some weird maltiness that is very uncharacteristic of the style and I find slightly unpleasant. The aroma is a bit apple-y and spicy, but I’m still not a fan. Mouthfeel is weak and watery. This doesn’t seem like a wheat beer; it seems more like a sort of crappy maibock. Not recommended.

16 ounce ’pint can’

I should have learned my lesson about beers like this a while ago, but I fell for the $5 4-pack while in Minneapolis. It turns out to have been worth about half that in my opinion. If you are ever at US Cellars, do not under any circumstances fall for this ruse. There are plenty of legitimate beers to buy instead. If you must try it, at least drink it cold out a can to minimize the suffering.

Aroma / Appearance - The only ’positive’ thing about this beer is that when I poured it, it kind of looked like a hefeweizen. Based on that alone no warning bells went. However then I made the mistake of trying to pick up any aroma. It smells faintly of very ripe bananas or discount topioca pudding. An offputting soapy aroma does not help at all.

Flavor / Palate - After assuring myself that it couldn’t be that bad, I took a sip. It was like soggy banana crackers mixed with a vague hint of fruit. Other than that, there was absolutely no taste at all. I could have been drinking anything. In a way, that’s a good thing because I’m sure if they tried to put flavor into this it would have only made things worse. Somehow I was able to finish the can. Anyone want the other three?