Schneider & Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse

Brewed by Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn
Style: Weizen Bock
Kelheim, Germany

Pours a vibrant, hazy gold with a huge white head. Some flecks of yeast floating around. Aroma of banana, orange, and coriander. Very fruity; slightly tart. Flavor is assertive but soft; there’s a definite spiciness, some mellow hops, and more fruity esters and clove. Finish is dry and tangy with some alcohol warmth. Very nice weizenbock.

Very unusual looking beer, bright golden honey colour, very dense and cloudy wiith a large head. Sharp spicy fruity aroma. Banana, clove estery with a dry hop character that could have not worked if it were stronger, but is nicely restrained. Strange and very interesting

Cloudy golden color topped by a huge white head. Spicy aroma, lots of cloves and woody hops. Banana like yeast esters and lots of spicy, zesty hops and some lemon notes and lingering bitterness in the finish.

necco wafer all over this thing. Spicy fruit and bubbly. Big head and easy to drink dispite such 8.2% banana perhaps a just a bit of the hop. Nice to see the Germans out there participating and trying new things.

Heavily carbonated and spiced beer. Zesty. Banana yeast. Let this one settle for a minute. Light fruit and spice throughout. Sleepy noticed that this beer tastes a lot like necco waffers. Very good.

Bottle. Pours hazy orangey gold with a lasting tall off-white head. Aroma is an intriguing blend of citrus hops and perhaps the nicest banana/clove/spice combination I have yet to encounter. The flavor is everything that I love about Weizen Bocks; banana, clove, lemon, and lots of spices with a great citrus/herbal hop profile. The mouthfeel is perfectly carbonated and a very dry finish hides every bit of the 8.2%. A wonderful collaboration.

500ml brown bottle from The Lighthouse in Manchester. Pours a murky golden yellow body with a good inch of off-white head. Smells sweet and phenolic - with banana, nut, spice, citrus, and malt all playing big roles. Tastes very complex, sweet, spicy, grassy, malty... Nut, banana, lemon, spices, orange, hints of caramel malt... More hoppy than a lot of examples of the style I’ve tried, but only to balance the flavor out. Other than a slight hop flavor that lingers, the finish is otherwise fairly clean and rather dry. Rich full mouthfeel, yet ample carbonation and no alcohol flavor or warming makes this beer an easier drinker than expected. Wow, this beer is good. Extremely flavorful, complex, balanced and very drinkable. I’ll definitely be snagging a few bottles of this again, not only to compare to the Brooklyner-Schneider version, but also to see how it ages over the next few months (if I can wait that long!)

My Bottom Line:
An impressive equilibrum of herbal, spicy hoppiness, citrusy wheat, and banana/peach esters thrives throughout this marvelous hybrid of a Weizenbock.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A frothy cumulus of a head lingers atop the amber-infused golden (before the complete yeast pour, of course).
-Although the body is nourishing, it remains airy and amazingly drinkable for its size.
-There is no sign of the abv in the flavor profile.
-The ending is rather soft, offering mild leafy hop bitterness and milky, earthy yeastiness.
-The harmless yet furious tingling of a carbonation sure is peculiar, but it works perfectly.
-I don’t understand how this German-brewed version can be so much cheaper than its Brooklyn-brewed compatriot.

Bottle.