Weihenstephaner Xan Hefe-Weissbier

Brewed by Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
Style: German Hefeweizen
Freising, Oberbayern, Germany

Dark golden color, fresh apple pie in the nose. Spicy yeasty mouth with a refreshing cold apple pie flavor. Refreshing fruity finish. Kick ass

Bottled. Hazy orange coloured with a huge off white head. Fruity aroma with notes of bananas and spices. Fruity flavour with notes of malts and spices. A bit watery.

(Bottle 33 cl) I had feared yet another thin and bland designer/yuppie Hefe with more emphasis on bottle design than what’s actually inside. But luckily I was terribly wrong. The special feature about this Hefe is apparently that the Xanthohumol from the hops is preserved (a powerful anti-oxidant, but "scientists believe you have to drink about 120 gallons of beer - or roughly 1,300 12-ounce bottles - every day to reap the benefits"!) Anyways, the beer is dark amber, slightly hazy with a handsome, creamy, tall, off-white head. Fruity banana aroma, with a soft almost cream-like mouthfeel. Short, dry hoppyness in the finish. Quite lovely. 201005

Bottle: Cloudy honey-amber with a nice chunky off-white head. Big sweet-corn wheatyness with lots of floral and lemony notes, and just a touch of spice. The aroma really needed some tanginess to balalnce it. Where this really shines is in the mouth; sweet, mild cooked banana, lemon butter, and some spicy floral notes. The hop presence is a unique juicy clean citrussy hit at the end. Requiring a little balancing but very pleasant nonetheless.

(bottle) Hazy amber colour with a big and sticky beige foam. Aroma of sweet chestnut, banana and yeast. Light sweet flavour, light to medium body, fizzy carbonation. Slightly toasted wheat-malty start with a dry, fruity and nutty finish. A quaffable Weizen.

Medium honey hazy amber with a HUGE pale beige lasting head looked pretty attractive in the Weihenstephaner Glass. Aroma is pleasant floral fruity estery yeast and a bit of sweet malt becoming a bit soapier sudsy as it warm. palate is a bit lighter, less chewy that the regular hefe but still quite smooth. Flavours is a little bland, medium bitter hops, low acid, and ligher sweeter tropical fruity malts. Main problem - bottle is too small especially when you are used to the bigger bottles.

50% of the Xanthohumol offerings from the brewery/university Weihenstephan, a recipe Japan’s Sapporo brewery seem so desperate to obtain. Turned out to be quite a nice drop, overall. Tasted from the bottle and poured into a Weihenstephan weiss glass. Unexpected light amber body, opaque, with a high amount of carbonation raising a hallmark white head of foam a good inch out of the rim. Head lasted and left webs of solidified bubbles down the sides. Soft, sour and tangy, lemon, banana and clove nose with a light herbal note. Quite smooth and fruity in the mouth, citric with only a light amount of clove-like phenols. The mid-palate had the flavour of toasted malt and wheat with a light nutty note (may explain the amber hue) that followed into a clean, banana and bubblegum swallow that lingered. Quite light on compared to their standard Hefe-weiss, but it helped in making this one of the easiest drinking wheat beers I have tasted. I can’t wait for the lazy Summer Sundays and easy drinking beers like this one. Quite nice!!!

Dark cloudy orange-brown, big puffy beige head with long lacing. Banana, sweet spices, bready yeast. Estery palate, sweet fruity notes. A good wheat beer, even though it is surprisingly "gimmicky" from the world’s oldest brewer.