Let's Talk About Weihenstephaner

One thing which I thought was interesting when visiting the Weihenstephaner website is that if you opt for the American version of the website you find amongst their listed beers:

Whilst if you go to the German version of the website you only find their regular line up. So they are obviously brewing other kinds of beers for the export market. I thought that was interesting to see.

 

The mention of Andechs in this thread has prompted me to to give them a spin. I've got their Doppelbock in the beer fridge right now but they've some others on the shelf of my usually bottle shop that I'll be giving a try. Of course it doesn't exactly take much prompting to get me to try out German beer.

 

You're in for a treat -- their doppelbock dunkel is one of my favorite German brews!

 

$3.69 for a 0.5 L and $12.99 for a sixer.

 

Damn near perfect beer! Their dunkelweizen is no slouch either.

 

The only beers you should be wary of are the green-bottled variety that sit in direct light, covered 12 packs are usually safe. Skunking is an effect of light contamination, not age.

Again, inspired by this thread, I traveled to a retailer that's somewhat out of the way, but not so bad as other spots, and found a good variety of imports -- including Weihenstephan in six-packs and .5 liter bottles. The .5 liters were right around $3.50 and the six-packs were around $11. Crazy how different prices can be from the same distro-to-retailer network.

Picked up a sixer of Weihen Original, a .5 of Ayinger Jahrhundert, and a .5 of Mahrs Bock -- yay Mahrs!

 

Always have loved them. Making me wish I had one right now!

 

I bet if you had Korbinian on tap at a popular taphouse or brewpub, and told patrons it was something else, they would rave over it.

 

A 7285 dated Original is drinking rather nicely right now. It's been in my fridge about 3 weeks. If I read that right, its the 28th week of 2015 bottle dated? That's right around July 7th. No skunk. No off yeast flavors.

Today I picked up a 1335 dated sixer of Original. If I read that one correctly, it is the week of August 10th through the 16th. The first 1 denotes either the 1st or 11th.

I also picked up a Vitus 500ml bottle. That one reads 8315. 31st week of 2015 was July 27th through August 2nd. First digit 8 denotes the 28th I believe.

Despite what looks like an incredibly old stock, these beers hold up just fine. I've been drinking them for years without knowing the freshness. I know at one point last summer they changed their packaging artwork. So I knew how to age them based off of that.

And other than a couple of gushers from the hefe (active yeast can do that) sixers over the years, which btw, had no off flavors, just extremely carbonated, this brewery deserves all the QC praise there is to give.. So many IPAs just three weeks old taste crappy. These guys have beers with minimal hops holding up just fine after nearly 7 months

 

Weihenstephaner, and Ayinger are my two most frequently purchased beers. They have always sat atop my list of favorites and will always have a special place in my heart. They are what made me fall in love with beer far before I was a craft drinker. They deserve more credit for there amazing brews and I frequently recommend them to my customers. In my mind the only American brewing company that can even hold a candle to them is Founders. Don't get me wrong I love and drink many many many craft brews but still every time I have a Weihenstephaner or Ayinger brew it reminds me how great they truly are.

 

Your thread convinced me to try this one. Pretty tasty. Thanks.

 

Having a Vitus right now, very nice!

Cheers!

 

AWESOME brewery. Certainly a top 5 along with Ayinger for me. I would probably give Ayinger a slight edge.

I prefer Ayinger Celebrator, Weizenbock, and Oktoberfest (this one by alot) more than there Weihen counterparts, while preferring Weihen Original and Hefe over the Aying counterparts. Dunkelweizens are very ever. Love Ayinger Dunkel (can't get weinhen), like Weihen Pils (no ayinger), and Ayinger Maibock is pretty good.

Both exceptional breweries. After reading this thread guess I have to try Andechs

 

I also quite enjoy Weinstepahner's beers. And they get mad respect that they are the oldest continually operating brewery in the world.

Eric

 

I don't think it's common, as others have said you generally get local beers in each city. I tended to hunt out the Bavarian beers, and happened upon a bar in Hamburg that had Weihenstephaner on tap.

 

When I ventured around Germany 2 years ago this was my favorite beer (of traditional German beers - my very favorite were the rauchbiers of Bamberg). Living in California I spend more time trying beers I haven't had before which pretty much means at every turn there's something new but Wiehenstephaner does travel well.

 

Up in the expensive city called DC, a pack of hefe/original costs around 12$, and Vitus ~15$

 

I'd love to try Vitus, but the label is stamped 5195 at the store, so I assume it is pretty old. I'd love to find it within 3 months of bottling and give it a try.

 

$9.99 but it is almost a year old, so I haven't bought any. I'll have to keep looking when it arrives with a newer date.

 

How to interpret the code exactly has been discussed in the thread already but if you want a quick and dirty way to get a feel for the bottling date without looking up week numbers* just assume each month is 4.3 weeks. So 19/4.3 = 4.4 months into the year or sometime in the first half of May. Your gut instinct when seeing 4.4 months into the year may be to think April, but keep in mind that one month into the year is the start of February. You could add 1 to get the month number instead of months into the year and use the decimal to tell you roughly how far into the month you are, it creates an oddity for week 52 but you shouldn't need any tricks to realize that's the end of the year.

Using a calendar to get the exact bottling date of your example I get May 5th, 2015. So really not that bad for only needing a calculator or the ability to divide by 4.3 in your head.

*Simply Googling week numbers for the appropriate years is going to be more accurate and easier.