Dunkelweizen
The LAB (Lexington Avenue Brewery)

reviewed from notes from a long night of tasting in asheville a while back. served from the tap into a pint glass.

a nice pour reveals a walnut colored liquid with a smooth, semi rounded off white head that sticks to nearly everything that it touches. really nicely done with a smooth even look. aroma of banana, clove, hints of roasted nuts, and a caramel kicking around in there, again very well rounded and quite nicely done i have to admit. smooth even flavor leaves a well deserved and nicely dry finish that seems to really wrap it all together quite well.

overall really nicely done. i was very happy to be able to try this one.

Served at the brewpub from tap into a sampler shaker. Poured a deep dark brown almost black with a red hue when held in the light with a one finger off-white head that subsided to a minimal amount slowly. Maintained decent lacing throughout the glass. The aroma was comprised of sweet malt, banana, and a nutty note. The flavor was of sweet malt, bananas, slight roasted malt, nutty, and slight wheat. It had a medium feel on the palate with low-mild carbonation. Overall this was not a bad Dunkelweizen. I can pick up on some of the flavors from the Weihenstephan yeast that they claim to use in this brew, but it definitely lacks the balance in that brew. I would suggest trying this one at least one, but I doubt I will be having it again when I go back.

Dunkelweizen, 5% abv, 15 IBUs, served on tap at LAB during the weekend of the Olde Rabbit's Foot release (as I was touring NC).

Appearances: Arrives a coffee-hued body capped by approximately one finger of lightly cocoa-ed head. The retention is average, as is the side lacing - leaving drips and fingers littered along the sides of the glass - though the collar left in the head's departing wake is dense and foamy.

Aroma: A pretty straightforward but also authentic smelling dunkel. Coffee and toast dominate, roasty but not charred, and are accompanied by some slight nuttiness and a fair amount of phenolic goodness.

Taste: Very toasty, but with enough sweet balance to keep it from being astringent - more toasty in the "spectrum" of sweetness than in the amount, if that makes sense. Sweet, liqeuor-esque coffee intermingles with slight cherries and the aforementioned spicy phenols for an interesting though not outstanding tasting brew.

Mouthfeel: Very highly carbonated and a little thin on the whole, making this one a little uneven. It's also mildly oily, but none of these problems is in and of itself crippling.

Drinkability: I tried two dunkels this weekend - this was easily the darker, more toasty of the two, and had almost no traditional German yeast character of which to speak (the yeast esters weren't clove- or banana-like at all, unfortunately). I also enjoyed it less, but that's not to say it was a bad brew. I bet they could shake this one up a little and make it pretty stellar.