Archive for the 'Grieskirchner' category
Grieskirchner Weiss
The folks at the Beer of the Month Club have been kind enough to keep us in beer every month here at SevenPack central, despite the fact that we’ve been pretty lousy about reviewing them lately due to business, redundancy, etc. Nevertheless, I feel compelled this month to report on a particular selection they tossed in the mix. It’s somewhat rare for us to get a beer these days that we haven’t addressed previously, due to the distribution channels here in NC. Furthermore, it’s pretty rare for me to run across a Weissbier that I haven’t tried – I’m pretty wild about the genre and try to gobble them up whenever I find new ones. This brew, however, manages to fit both of those categories of unreviewed and never tried, so here we go!
First of all, I should frame this review by saying that it is being written from the balcony here in downtown Durham on a 75 degree evening as the sun sets across the skyline – undeniably a great place and time to enjoy a weissbier, and it will likely skew my review towards the positive.
This brew pours a hazy golden, dulled by beaucoup white yeasty debris agitated to life from the bottom of the bottle. The head is rocky and white, and the beer smells of sweet yeast and grain, aligned with the German varieties (though this actually comes from Austria). In the mouth, I’m actually taken by the lack of sweetness in the beer. Not to say it isn’t yeasty and sweet and refreshing, but it doesn’t jump out with the big banana and esther flavors that so often accompany a weiss. Instead, this is subdued, with a hint of sour citrus and some soft grainy flavors. The mouthfeel is pillowy and coats the tongue, leaving a rather resilient aftertaste. What this amounts to is a rich and balanced beer that is exceedingly refreshing and goes down much faster than you want it to. At 5.1% abv, this probably isn’t meant to be a session beer, but you’ll have a hard time keeping it from becoming one once you start on that six pack. A great brew, indeed, and just what I was looking for on this warm southern night…
