Let's Talk About Weihenstephaner

Hoarder

 

That's pretty much because the two groups are talking past one another. They associate the name with the cask ales, while we mostly associate it with the bottled porter and stouts.

 

German breweries tend to be pretty regional, but as far as I could tell, in southern Germany, Weihenstephaner is held in pretty good regard. Weihenstephaner is from Bavaria and I lived in Baden-Württemberg for half a year and a great craft brewpub in town served Weihenstephaner to people who wanted a Weißbier (instead of the brewpub's Helles or Kellerbier).

That said, I had the feeling that people tended to stick to their own regional brands (and styles) and the nationally distributed macro brewers than have another place's regional specialties. The drink markets I went to had all the local Weißbiere and so forth, along with Paulaner, Fraziskaner, and Maisels, but otherwise lacked well regarded brewers like Schneider Weisse, Weihenstephaner, Ayinger, or Mahrs.

 

wow i don't know here, I gotta go with the Bros, Original is 100!!!!!!!!

 

Not yet... gimme a day!

 

I'm just calling 'em as I sees 'em, although I don't think it's my most radical opinion .

 

Nothing against BrewDog but why couldn't it have been Weihenstephaner that built a big US brewery in Ohio and put all their stuff in sixers?

 

New Jersey has Ramstein, who does an excellent job.

 

From all my readings, including the posts in the Germany forum, your comment here is 'dead nuts' on. German beer drinkers seem to have a structured beer drinking loyalty order: The beers from their hometown/region is number 1, then comes the nationally distributed beers and beers from regions other than their own is last.

Some folks may argue that US craft beer drinkers are not too dissimilar from German beer drinkers since 'homerism' seems to be the rule.

Cheers!

 

Excellent thread. Amazing brewery!

 

Came to mind the other day that I remembered Gordon Biersch advertising that they used Weihenstephan yeasts in their German-style beers. Just double-checked their web site and it looks like they still do. That should be of interest to anyone wanting to compare.

 

Such a fantastic brewery!

 

Weihenstephaner is great (along with Schneider, concerning hefeweizens)! That's a pity, Vitus isn't available anywhere in Russia.

 

How important is freshness for their beers? I only know one shop around me that has some of their products and most of the bottles look like they've been sitting on the shelf for awhile.

 

A couple of reasons:
- We live in a time where we are inundated with new beers on a weekly basis and beer geeks want to try said new beers, so they don't buy "old" beers; and
- Non beer geeks don't know that Weihenstephaner makes some of the best beers in the world, so they don't buy it.

For that matter, when was the last time you had a Rochefort 10, La Fin du Monde, or other highly rated, easily attainable beer?

 

I do the same but the majority of the time it is more than just a few months old. Finding fresh German brewed beer is often challenging for me. I prefer to drink fresh locally brewed German style beers (e.g., Sly Fox, Stoudts, Straub, Neshaminy Creek, Troegs, Victory,...) instead.

Cheers!

 

They're great! ... but some of us like Andechs better...

 

Anywhere from $12 to $15 on the sixers, which usually is only the hefe, original, or premium pils (festbier was $12.99). To compare, I feel Paulaner and Spaten are closer to $8.99/sixer.

500ml bottles range from the $3.80 area to a higher price point just recently, closer to $4.50.

Compared to other beer release threads and comparing prices there to my own state, I would say I live in an area that has cheaper than average beer.. But when it comes to Weihenstephaner, the sixers have that Ballast Point type of sticker shock for some.

Via the first page, someone posted up the bottling date format for this brewery. What does 2015 bottles read? Just a simple 5, or did they add a digit? Can someone post their label? I actually have never had a bad Weihenstephaner and quite a few were dusty and un refrigerated. I think that's a credit to their brewing process.

 

If the bottle is from 2015, the final number will simply be a 5 (example: 7405). Also, it's interesting the to see the variability in price. Here, the 500ml bottles are $2.99 and 6pks are $9.99 across the board.

 

I've never had one. But with German beers I'm always concerned with how old the beers are, and the skunk factor is high on beers that don't turn over very well. I didn't see any if of their Fest beers this year, if they're dated and were this years brew I'd love to try one. But the stuff I see just see sitting out on the shelf gathering dust no thanks. No doubt they are great beers, but if their old or treated poorly I'd pass. Unless they date their stuff.