Inherent Weiss
Surly Brewing Co.

 

 

"Highly hopped" and "imperial status" statements usually don't go hand in hand with wheat beer. But when you have the imagination and technical prowess of Surly brewing, anything is possible.

Inherent Weisse pours a strong and cloudy golden hue. Its boisterous froth that pulls from the ale unleashes a host of tropical fruit, spice, booze and grain that swirls in the nose like pastries and vodka. The flavors greet the tongue with those light cakey, doughy and cookie-like sweetnesses before the hops and booze take hold.

But once they do, the sweetness lifts and the fruit flavors captivate the middle palate with a host of banana, papaya, lemon and cantaloup. Juicy and modestly tangy, the flavors soon turn to a peppery bitterness that's more align with German lager and give the beer a lemongrass and lemon pepper piquant spin. Boozy and bitter, the ale favors a strong vodka spice late with an afterglow of grass, lemon zest and peppercorn.

Full on the palate, the beer's spicy, solventy and playfully acidic zing disrupts the fruit, sweet and smooth finish that the beer begs for. Its spicy linger is sharp and distracting, leading for a challenged taste and an unsettled astringent hop bite to close the session.

 

 

 

 

Cloudy golden body with a vigorous white head that even forms a solid nugget like a TIPA would. The nose is particularly perfumey, offering spiced banana, vanilla, orange zest, and something like and orange creamsicle. The booze is the puppetmaster for all these powerful aromas, amplifying them up but itself remaining hidden. The taste puts orange and vanilla first, followed by spices, a bit of mint, and finally banana. The orange julius theme continues, but coming from the experiment that this is, it's good. The spices are moderate, which is appreciated, as they could have been used wantonly and used as a conduit for the power of the booze contained within. The body is a tad watery, but still heavy, a bit creamy, and coarsely but appropriately carbonated.
This was way better than it could have been. Hefeweizen is a somewhat delicate style and doubling the ABV could have mutilated it, but this was still recognizable as one. The alcohol was evident if not directly so, and the flavors were more like approximations of the real thing rather than a well-engineered recipe, but it was still tasty and even quaffable, if one doesn't need to be responsible in the near future.

a hefeweizen meets a double ipa in this strange brew. i didnt love it, but it sure is interesting, which is what really keeps me coming back to surly. hazy and rich headed, creamy looking, very pale, lots of body evident right away. aroma is hopped up for sure, spicy vegetal fresh hops and some pine, but it also smells more like a wit than a hefe to me, bubblegum esters in the yeast in there with the more classic banana and spice notes. taffy or cotton candy, pear, confectioners sugar, and then all these hops with it. i get some sweetness in the flavor from the wheat but its pale not caramelized or anything, a neat base and balancing element for the hops, much needed and rich feeling. this doesnt scream hefeweizen to me in any real way aside from the wheat and feel though, the yeast flavor tastes like it was done way too warm to me, more belgian than german, estery past the point of being ideal, and its not working so great with the hops. bitter and fresh in the finish, but also a little sweet and a little boozy too. weird beer, neat to try, but not wholly successful, at least for my tastes. surly always keeps it interesting though, thats for sure!

 

 

Tasted in a Spiegelau wit glass from a 750 ml bottle on September 3, 2017. Dank hop aromas with flavors of citrus, clove, banana. Very drinkable for a beer with 9% abv.

Decent beer. I like the imperial style to it. Much stronger than standard hefe. Some banana kicks in the flavor to me. It's not something I would seek out but it's a nice brew.

"Imperial hefeweizen." Hmm...

BOTTLE: 750ml. Bottled 06.29.17. Ran me $7.99 USD at a Binny's in Chicago. Branded pry-off crown cap.

Served chilled.

Malts: CMC 2-Row, CMC Superior Pilsner, Weyermann Pale Wheat, Weyermann Caraform, Weyermann Acidulated, Flaked Oats.

Hops: Warrior, Cascade, Chinook, Centennial.

Yeast: WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast.

18.5° Plato.

HEAD: White in colour. ~7-8cm in height. Creamy and robust for a hefeweizen. Retention is good for a hefeweizen - ~8 minutes - but it's even more impressive given this beer's insane ABV (9% per Surly's website) relative to style norms. Leaves inconsistent wisps of light lacing on the sides of my glass as it recedes.

BODY: Translucent transparent copper-orange. Not the vibrant bright hazy orange I'd expect in a hefeweizen, and it's worse looking as a result. I see no yeast/lees within. Why this isn't hazy is beyond me, but it's not as clear as a kellerweizen either, sitting uncomfortably between the two styles. Too dark.

Appearance is subpar for a hefeweizen, but it appears well-carbonated and I'm optimistic. Certainly not to style, but far from unappealing outside style conventions.

AROMA: Downright atrocious for a beer intended to be a hefeweizen. Hops eclipse any yeasty subtlety, beating the drinker over the head with heavy hop aromatics...floral, overtly bitter, and even cotton candy/bubblegum redolent. Has a "green" hop vibe as well...and this is somehow supposed to be a hefeweizen?

I'm not getting any obvious yeast character...no banana, no clove, no orange peel. Why brew a hefeweizen (or, perhaps more appropriately call it and market it as a hefeweizen) if this is the result?

I do get flaked wheat malt and 2-row, but the malt backbone can't withstand the overhopping.

Aromatic intensity is high for a hefeweizen, and moderately high overall. I don't get any overt off-notes, but it's definitely a warm if not boozy brew and it's completely wrong for the style. Even regarding it as some kind of bastardized nonsense (think "German pale ale"), it's not particularly inviting.

TASTE: Wheat, pilsner malt, and 2-row struggle to put up a fight against the onslaught of hops. Any yeasty nuance is destroyed by the overhopping, but in spite of the beer's high hop content the hop profile isn't all that interesting or pleasant, hitting on American hop notes like floral Cascade and overt bitterness but failing to deliver style-appropriate subtle grassiness. I'd give Surly a pass if the hop profile was astounding in spite of the beer being (at best) a boozy violation of hefeweizen tradition, but for all its pandering to the "green"/"dank" (as the kids call it) hop profile, it doesn't amount to much of interest.

Imbalanced, bending boozy and overly hoppy. Those hoping for a mellow hefeweizen or a beer with subtle German yeast character will find this a waste of White Labs hefeweizen yeast. Why not just stick to American yeast and label this a pale wheat? It'd certainly be better.

TEXTURE: Smooth, wet, medium-bodied, overcarbonated, unrefreshing, warm, and somewhat soft.

Not oily, scratchy, rough, dragging, or overly heavy on the palate, but it's certainly wrong for the intended style and I do find it a bit boozy.

Mouthfeel fails to accentuate the best the flavour has to offer, but I do like its softness.

OVERALL: A failed experiment of a brew, Inherent Weiss is another casualty of the imperialization movement in beer; we've seen dreadful attempts from other breweries at imperializing styles that don't need it (think imperial pilsner, imperial wit, and the like), and this is no exception. American breweries keep pushing for louder bolder flavours, bastardizing styles that don't require any tweaking, and this is just another failed attempt at the same. Adding insult to injury, Surly's chosen the cash-grab bomber format for this disappointing ale. I wouldn't recommend this to any beer drinker - casual or discerning - and it's difficult to understand what Surly was really going for here if not a one-off they knew would market well and provide profit in spite of its obviously poor quality.

I adore most of Surly's lineup, but they don't get a pass for putting out clashing imbalanced fare like this. Tastes like a homebrewer haphazardly picked up all the ingredients that happened to be on sale at their local shop with no regard for style or harmony of flavour and tried to make a beer with them...take a sip and witness the cacophony of head-scratching collisions of American and German brewing. Why brew this?

Low C- (2.51) / BELOW AVERAGE

Appearance: Hazy gold, big head.

Smell: Banana, clove, sweet.

Taste: Sweet, banana first then more spicy. Citrus rind underneath. Lighter feel for an imperial hefe. Citrus/lemon finish.

Overall: Nice imperial hefe from Surly. Doesn't feel heavy, so keeps with the drinkability needed in a hefe. Nice combo of sweetness and citrus without being too hoppy.

Its like 2 beers in one that wants to work together, but doesn't, and maybe I kind of like that about it. Overly dry-hopped, a hefty citrus bomb with notes of clove, banana, and more dank hop aroma than you can imagine in a hefe. It grows on you as you drink it.

Thanks to Jeff for this one. 750ml capped bottle into a Surly teku. Shared with schen9303.

Nose is banana, coriander, peppercorn and lychee. Strange. Some baked sweet potato too. Beer opens banana, grass, peppercorn, coriander, sweet cream and sweet potato. Certainly one of the more strange and unique flavor combinations I've come across. Body is light to medium with moderate to ample carbonation. Prickly in the mouth and goes down crisp and accented with a touch of booze.

I can't say this is bad... but its not good either. Very weird. Hefe isn't meant to be strong and its not good that this is brewed that way. Surly is usually top notch in everything they do... but this is a miss for me.

 

 

Clear golden body with a billowing white head and plenty of lacing, but the clarity is odd. This is an ipa in disguise with huge citrus dominating the banana, wheat, and very mild yeast in both smell and taste. Hops are felt in the feel but the bitters are not too strong in smell or taste. Still a heavy body for a hefe. Give me one from germany instead thanks