Weizenbock: A Beer That’s Not to Be Trifled With

This insidious practice of cramming a cheap lemon rind atop a luscious, aromatic glass of Hefeweizen—the taproom equivalent of slobbering ketchup all over a perfectly grilled T-bone from Morton’s—has got to stop. But since I’m in no position to halt this rampant half- wittedness, I urge you to fight fire with fire, or more accurately, wheat with wheat. While many drinkers and bartenders seem to have no problem ruining a perfectly good Hefe, no one would dare defile a dark and moody Weizenbock. Try introducing slices of stale fruit and it’ll remove your head, mount it on a tap handle and make it wear a silly hat.

With that understood, order a Weizenbock instead of the Hefe the next time you see it on draft. Just be prepared to wait. The spigot invariably gushes mounds of foam no matter how much the bartender tilts the glass. She’ll let it sit, return to fill again, let it sit … It makes the wait for a properly poured pint of Guinness seem like a snap.

A Weizenbock is, at its heart, a German wheat beer, only more so. You get the drift when at last you raise the glass to your nose. The aromatic esters are there: the banana, the clove and the bubble gum you love in a Hefeweizen. In fact, it’s probably the same yeast strain, just pulling double duty at the brewery. But it’s a Bock, remember, so it’s all about muscle: more wheat malt, more barley, and yeah, more alcohol.

As your Weizenbock seduces you with its perfume, it fills your mouth with a bold array of flavors: doughy bread, ripe fruit, candied spice, maybe a hint of chocolate. Don’t hunt around for the hops—they’re only there to offset the sweetness. Go ahead, suck her down and try to sort it all out. But be warned: by the time you hit bottom, you’ll have forgotten the question. Eight percent alcohol by volume has a funny way of barging into the room and changing the subject.

So is this beer a temptress or a brute? The answer is in the fermentation.

With that big-time malt bill, an ale has a tendency to go off on the brewer, bubbling madly ’til he’s left with too much octane and too little body. Worse, it’s alcohol of the fusel variety, the kind that gives you headaches of biblical proportions. Slow it down by dropping the temperature, and you risk losing those lovely esters that invited you in for a taste in the first place. Get it right, though, and you’re left with a Weizenbock of complex character—soft and slamming, sweet and tart. Brewer Bill Covaleski, whose Victory Moonglow can stand aside Bavaria’s best, likens it to “an alcoholic caramel apple.”

Pour a glass of Schneider Aventinus, the original Weizenbock invented a hundred years ago, plow through the thick collar of foam, and you’re rewarded with a fruit basket of aroma, and a mouthful of ohmygod. A lemon on this glass would be a profanity.

WEIZENBOCK
Color: Dark amber to dark, ruby brown
Original gravity: 1.064–1.080+
IBU: 15–30
ABV: 6.5–8.5 percent
Other examples: Ramstein Winter Wheat, Hacker-Pschorr Weisse Bock, Otter Creek Otterbahn ■