Takau Hefeweizen
Takau Brewery

Brought from my motherland Taiwan by a friend. “Takau” actually means “hit a dog”, a local Taiwanese slang word for “Kaohsiung”, the 2nd largest Taiwanese city in Southern Taiwan, where this newly founded micro-brewery is based. Coming in a 350ml can, “can-conditioned”. Canned date 31/08/2006, “best enjoyed within 60 days”. Served chilled in a small weizen glass.

A: murky dark yellow-orange honey hue; the white creamy beer head builds up slowly but surely, to 1cm thick then slowly dissipates with patience… gentle streams of fizziness decorated with large bubbles ejecting from the bottom of the glass. Pretty solid.
S: typically weizen-yeastiness: sweet lemons, green bananas with a touch of green apple peel, combined with a touch of vanilla, clove, while a swirl brings out some apple-ish fruity perfume. The wheatish maltiness is just about enough to render a rough balance, while the dense sugary edge of wheat-malts bears a little resemblance of oxidised honey as well as caramel.
T: a light palate is full of doughy wheat-ish and lesser caramely malts, on top of the sour-sweet fruitiness of lemonade, green banana and bubble-gum, while the spicy yeastiness gradually gathers pace and demonstrates a rich flow of ground clove in parallel with a prevalent flow of savoury-sweet, exotic shellfish-ness(like steamed clams!!), and a slightly tangy, dryish-bitter aftertaste like dried lime-peel, light but lingering finish.
M&D: fine fizziness on the mouthfeel, medium-bodied, with an initial good balance falling off and not holding well as the carbonation evaporates. However, considering it’s a canned weizen, I’m quite surprised by the quality and texture it has shown. Well down, Takau! This is not some easy beer to start one’s business with, mind you. The only downside is the yeastiness does bring me some headache which hasn’t happened to me before with any HEFE-weizen… HA, perhaps it’s home-sick?!