As I mentioned in my last review of a Pennsylvania brewing Company beer, my dad and sister brought a bunch of beers from this brewery back for me from their trip to Pittsburgh. It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been spending my time cutting down my hop vines and harvesting hops for my homebrew. I came in the house for lunch, and decided to grab this beer. The bottle says, “This is an authentic Bavarian style wheat beer, bottle fermented and unfiltered.”

Location: Poured from the bottle into a large wheat beer glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.

Numbers: 5.25% ABV, 16 IBUs, 12.5 Plato OG, 2.6 Plato FG, 175 Calories

Ingredients: Malt: two-row, white wheat. Hops: Perle

Appearance & Aroma: It’s a very hazy yellow-orange color, with a decent size head when it was poured. After a couple of minutes the head fell to almost nothing but a ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass. It’s got a wheaty and little bit of banana aroma.

Taste & Feel: The Body is light and the mouthfeel is very effervescent, making it tough to recognize any flavors up front. In the middle, it’s got a slightly sweet honey and bready flavor, which becomes somewhat yeasty in the finish. The finish has a little bit of a light bitterness, and the aftertaste is yeasty and wheaty, but lasts only for brief while.

Food Pairing: This is a lighter beer with lots of wheat and yeast flavors. When matched with the effervescence up front, it makes for an excellent beer to wash down very big flavorful meals. Therefore, sticking with the German heritage of this beer, I’d pair it with a bratwurst or sausage plate and some bangers and mash.

Overall Impression: This beer was a good example of a German weizen bier, with the typical bready, wheaty, and yeasty flavors you’d expect. Because it was bottle conditioned, and probably warmed up a bit in my sister’s luggage, it was a bit more effervescent than I would have liked, as it took away from the flavors just a bit. Otherwise, this would have been even more excellent. Overall, I’d say it’s a very solid example of the style and one I’d recommend.

My Rating:

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