Samuel Adams Dunkelweizen
Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)

Good dunkel lager.
L: Looks nice, massive frothy head with excellent retention, soapy lace, slightly hazy
S: Dark bread, spice, caramel, dark sugar
T: Slightly dry, has touches of nice christmas-like spice. Dark sugar sweetness, some light hop bitterness on the finish
F: Really smooth. High carbonation. Pretty substantial body but not too heavy
O: Good lager beer, certainly enjoyable will revisit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like this style of beer. They do it well

Look - poured from a 12 oz can. A light caramel color. Clear, a lot of carbonation, and little to no head. If someone told me this was a soda, I'd believe them. Not the most enticing of looks. This doesn't quite agree with some of the other reviews I've read, so I wonder whether this one is just a bad egg.
Smell - a lot of flavors picked up in the nose, including bananas, cloves, and nutmeg. all of this, however, is masked by a strong scent of sweetness, which almost smells artificial. So far, I'm still not in on this one.
Taste - thankfully, the taste makes up for a bit. solid wheat backbone, with the flavors lingering from start to finish. not as sweet as the smell, but still a tad bit too much for me.
Feel - light bodied, high carbonation, and right around the standard ABV for the style at 5.1%.
Overall - this one was a bit of a miss for me. I wouldn't say that it was awful, but most certainly nothing to write home about. below average relative to beers of the same style.

 

 

 

I got this in a Sam mix pack. I like Dunkelweizens. Unfortunately this is NOT one. Nothing on the can or packaging suggests that it's a spiced beer. (Note that "spicy" and "spices added" are not the same thing.) Code "2088 P 0852 Jan 2019 51" on the can bottom.

The can has a picture of a pretzel and some wheat berries on the front, which makes one think of wheaty, bready beer. However this crap tastes like nothing but gingerbread. Imagine eating a Yankee Candle named "gingerbread". Spices are way, way overpowering, WAAAAAY over the top. Ginger-clove bomb. It tastes nothing like a traditional dunkel. It doesn't even taste like beer. An accurate description would be "Gingerbread-spiced malt beverage" or something similar. No way is this brew produced without an overload of spices added. A complete bastardization of the style. AWFUL!

From the 12 oz. can with a best by date of Jan 2019. Sampled on October 26, 2018.

It has an attractive appearance of golden amber with a humongous, lingering white foamy head and a lot of lacing.

Lots of character in the aroma including a toasted wheat, sweet toffee malts, banana, coriander, and Allspice.

Medium to full body and also very smooth

It begins sweet and malt but the spicy characters roar in in short order to balance it out and bring this to a subtle, warming finale.

 

The clear brownish amber beer colored beer pours out into a nonic Imperial Pint glass with a 2” foamy white head that recedes slowly leaving some right and patches lacing on the sides of the glass. Sipping creates some new patches of lacing, most of which slides back down to the surface of the glass.

The aromas include some clove and a bit of banana backed up by some wheat.

As expected from the nose there’s a mix of clove and light banana with some wheat and some sweetness from the malt. The malt sweetness has a caramel-lik3 character is a bit of earthy bitterness.

The mouthfeel is medium bodied and lightly prickly with some on going moderate carbonation. The finish begins as the sweetness, banana and clove begin to fade towards a semi-dry ending with some very light earthy bitterness.

Overall this is a good solid workmanlike Dunkelweizen that is worth investigating. It won’t unseat any of the highly rated Dunkelweizens but it is enjoyable, drinkable and affordable. I’d be happy to have this one again if offered but probably won’t seek it out in the future.