Jerkeweizen
Bear Island Brewing Company

i didnt love this, but i appreciate the idea, using jerk spices in this, and i think the choice of a hefeweizen as a base instead of a blonde or something makes a lot of sense, with the obvious banana aspect in the yeast and all. their base hefe seems solid here, but im not sure i am totally on board with the spices here, not that its hot or peppery or anything, but the clove and allspice notes of this are high, and they kind of rip through the base beer, even though thats pretty robustly flavored in its own right, not a lot of balance here, maybe too much of a good thing, this ended up more as something fun to taste than a beer i wanted to really drink. there is an almost brine salinity to this too which is odd with the banana and clove notes of the yeast, which kind of create sweetness and richness thats curious with this element of the spicing. i get some compatible citrus freshness which is nice, and the wheat of the base beer still comes through which is cool, lime and orange to me throughout, and just a little heat at the end. i like it more as it warms, and there is potential here. either way, love it or hate it, its real creative and its hard to argue with the quality of the hefe underneath. never had a beer with jerk spices before, so props for doing something unique here!

Draft at Alefort. German weizens don’t use (or need) peppers. Call it a wheat ale. Pepper heat obscures pretty much everything else. Nice experiment, but no thanks...