Grandauer Weissbier
Brauerei Grandauer - Wildbräu Grafing vor München

*archived rating*

Bottle: Poured a slightly hazy orangey color weissbier with nice large foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of sweet wheat malt with light spiced ester. Taste is also a mix of spiced ester with some sweet wheat malt and light grainy notes. Body is full for style with good carbonation. Enjoyable weissbier but not a tad sweater then I would like this beer to be.

 

Appearance: The body is a dark amber color with some brass notes that has some clouding but I can certainly make out the color of my hand from the other side. Ample carbonation in the body, but only a finger's worth of head that barely left any lace and did not stick around.

Smell: Banana, a lot of rough grain and some sweet honey buried in the background with maybe a touch of clove. This guy needs quite a bit of warming to achieve a decent potency.

Taste: Very grainy, with an earthen note throughout it and how it starts before Banana makes a play and then mixes with some cloves at the end with that earthen note.

Mouthfeel: The carbonation on this one goes flat pretty fast, and while it is around it tries to lighten the affair a bit, but fails with that earth note which, you guessed it, is our aftertaste which thankfully doesn't linger. As far as the transitioning, it's just feels constricted by that initial earthen taste.

Drinkability: Refreshing enough for a light-medium hefe, but not interesting enough to want to. Settles down well enough but it's just kind of boring.

Final Thoughts: This isn't a bad beer, it's just boring. There isn't anything that's making an impact with everything dulled by that earthen fog. It's rare a German brewed hefe makes me feel this way, and I get, it's hard to compete with some of Germany's giants, but this one just doesn't do it for me.

piss.

 

500ml bottle served cold into a hefeweizen glass. LCBO purchase for around $4.25CDN. Best before December 1, 2024.

Appearance - Dark golden beer with honey brown hues throughout. A finger and a half of lively and medium lived white head. Not much in the way of lacing.

Smell - Wheat forward with lots of bubblegum and banana. Some sharpness of cloves and a powdery quality to all the fruity esters.

Taste - Quite sweet with banana and bubblegum again up front, the bitterness stays way in the back and a good bready base underneath. There's peach in here somewhere too.

Mouthfeel - Medium-full bodied with lively carbonation. Not quite as effortlessly drinkable as some of the others in the style.

Overall - A very solid Hefeweizen, however stacking up against the German greats is always difficult. That said with this being my first hefe in who knows long, it really was quite enjoyable. Worth a tipple for sure and I can see this being a hit for BA"s who prefer their hefe's a bit sweeter.

500 mL bottle from the LCBO; best before Dec 1 2024 and served barely chilled.

Pours a foggy, translucent golden-amber colour, topped with two fingers of foamy white head that lasts for nearly five minutes. Scant lace deposition, but a creamy collar and thin cap live on - looks fine so far. The aroma is typical of the style - plenty of wheaty, bready malts, with hints of banana, citrus, orchard fruit, raisin and yeast-derived clove spiciness.

The flavours are fruity at the forefront, with notes of bruised apple, orange peel and lemon giving way to wheaty malts and bready sweetness. Moderate banana ester intensity, with hints of raisin, clove, orchard fruit and earthy, herbal hops tying up the back end nicely; yeasty, mildly spicy aftertaste with lingering banana. Medium-light in body, with middling carbonation levels that add some bite to this hefe's smooth, soft mouthfeel. A tad thin for the style, but still quite drinkable.

Final Grade: 3.8, a respectable B+. Grandauer Weissbier is a more than adequate hefe - unfortunately, it's standing in the shadows of some ridiculously good beers, and I don't think it compares all that favourably. That's not to imply that this is a brew to skip... I mean, if you like yourself a tall glass of hefe on a hot afternoon, there's no reason you won't enjoy this one. I just don't think it's anything worth going out of your way for. I'll buy a couple more while it's still available, but I don't see this displacing any of my go-to hefeweizens this summer.

 

Somewhat cloudy golden body with orange tinting in certain light, full white head. Smell has the usual staples of the style: wheat, clove, mild citrus, banana, and german yeast. Taste adds a sneaky fruity emphasis of citrus and banana meeting golden raisin and faint peach, before the wheat and clove snap hits with the yeast for a clean finish as only the germans can consistently do. Feel relays this motion, sure it is lighter bodied but that only adds to its charm. This is a good beer! Where is the love?

 

 

 

 

I got a can of this beer from the 2023 Costco Beer advent calendar pack as the December 13th offering. It poured a hazy copper with thin white ring head that is not leaving much lace. The scent had subtle clove notes. The taste was nicely balanced and easy to drink with crisp malt base with apple, clove and floral presence. The mouthfeel was lighter in body with good carbonation. Overall it is a good beer.

 

 

 

500ml can from Costco. Cloudy yellow, wispy white head. Aroma is light weizen notes. Taste is also barely there, bread, yeast, banana, but really weak.

Another new micro to the Kalea "collection" to celebrate Advent (and German brewing) brought to us courtesy of Costco.
Grandauer's Weiss worked well with appetizers while preparing dinner, but lacks the juicy yeasts of the Bavarian masters.

Poured into my BA Respect Beer glass, Grandauer's Weiss Looks the part; adding a nice orange tinge, but less foam from a flaccid yeast. Smells? I'd like the full banana, but I'll take half as it's mid-November. Tastes are balanced and work together; but not a summer yummer. A bit too bubbly on my tongue for a top hefe, but medium-mouthed enough.

My first from Grandauer, I give my obligatory micro-review: they're cool. At its heart, their town (Grafing) is traditionally Bavarian and their website has many of the traditional icons. But Grafing is metropolitan; connected to Munich by its famous S-Bahn. The website is well-focussed on fun and promoting their beers and, as implied, Bavarian culture. So IMHO, this is a good addition to the Kalea Collection and I will appreciate trying more Grandauer brews. Prost !