American...Hefeweizen?

Julius Echter probably

 

I remember trying that in Munich, too.

 

One-off, really meaning to say "aberration." You might not like that term either, but the dark beers are not prominent in the Weihenstephan line. And most people are not making a special trip there to drink their dark.

Back to geology, Freising is hardly all-of-Bavaria. Read the link I posted above. And yes, when in Bavaria I drink mostly the dark beers, some of the best around. I also surprisingly drink more helles in Bavaria than I do stateside USA. And I prefer Czech pilsen to German pilsen (and the mountain cave pilsen available in Prague is to die for!).

In any case, we all have our preferences. I am not big on dunkleweizen and others are, but I love a very good hefeweizen, but not a fan of ordinary ones.

 

https://www.weihenstephaner.de/en/our-beers/

Their Dunkelweizen is fairly prominent in stores here, and I've seen it on tap a number of times. Obviously their Hefeweizen is their most popular.

Unless you mean their Dunkel? (Also featured on their main page linked above).

I would also consider their Doppelbock, Korbinian, on the darker side. Certainly not pale.

 

One of the best import Dunkels I've had:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3689/385727/

From Hofbrauhaus *Freising.*

Their Weiss label also offers a Dunkelweizen.

 

You are correct... 3 dark beers of the 16 displayed. None of which I would call outstanding. Most people would not go to Weihenstephaner to drink their darks. And again, we should track back to how the water is the conduit to most of what they brew and excel at. Likewise for Schneider Weisse, in terms what one would go to drink there other than hefeweissens (except for the Eisbock!) but I have no knowledge if the water chemistry in Kelheim favors weiss biers or dark beers, or neither.

 

Maybe I caught Hofbrauhaus Freising on a bad day but I wasn't impressed nor was my buddy. Oh well! No need to return, but we will be back to Weihenstephan to enjoy what they so well master. In addition to a couple of special foodie items there as well

P.S. Now, Hofbrauhaus Berchtesgaden is another story... I will be there in May if all goes according to original plan.

 

I was about to say that maybe you and I just have opposite palates, but I loved HB Berchtesgaden too.

It may have just been the setting.

 

Water sources can change over time at the same location. I vaguely remember a study of the water at Burton on Trent that indicated fairly drastic variations as the aquifer(s) were drawn down. Even a municipal source can change. I was raised in Portland, OR, in the 50s when extremely soft mountain stream water was the sole source. Now, to better assure supply, they mix in varying amounts of well water drawn from an aquifer nearby. The local water composition can change over time, as well as from location to location.

 

Yup, they definitely don’t specialize in dark beers. Agreed.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/top-styles/91/

Not that it’s the be-all end-all but their Dunkelweizen is the highest rated on this site, and by a wide margin. So people seem to dig it. As @steveh said, we all have different palates.

But it tracks with the ratings on this site for their Hefeweizen, which is also number one.

Regarding what they do best? I think their Original (Helles) is their best offering. Super fresh it may be my favorite import period, regardless of style.

 

This was on tap at a local watering hole for about a month. So amazing

 

somehow weihenstephaner beers seem to make the transport over the Atlantic better than most. in germany their original is far from my favorite helles. but here, it's absolutely up there.

 

Weihenstepher makes nearly every Bavarian style there is at this point. On my first trek there, they were rolling out Vitus for the first time that week and were making a pretty big deal about it. I guess it was their first new beer in some time. Fast forward 15 years and they've since added 2-3 rotators and quite a few one-offs. Luckily most of those beers have been pretty good. Infinium was a bit of a miss, but it's not like it was horrible. Ditto with the kristall weizenbock. While there aren't a ton of people drinking Korbinian or Tradition in Freising, I feel like both are still wonderful. The last time I was there I saw an older guy buying a literal forklift full of Tradition. They loaded something 10 crates into his van, and he bought them in the little gift shop so they weren't likely for resale.

 

But does this make them very unusual for a German brewery? There are greater forces at work here than just the water chemistry of their immediate region.

 

Do you know how much of the process is compromised for the kegged beer for a brewery with the standards of Schneider or Weihenstephan? I have no idea what their process is with kegging.

 

I don't know. but some german brewmasters (actual ones; not self-styled ones) are coming to drink weißbier tonight and I will ask them.

 

Is there a live-cast somewhere?

 

if so, it's almost certainly on WhatsApp.

 

I gots Zoom on my phone!

 

True. White beer in Bavaria was superseded by braunbier, brown beer, in popularity by the 1700s, by the 1800s white beer was becoming a relic of the past while brown beer steadily increased in popularity (and was imitated outside of Bavaria by the 1840s). The problem with the old white beer and the air dried malt it was made from was that it's production and consumption was only suited for the warmer part of the year. The air dried malt required warmer outside temperatures for the drying process and the air dried malt didn't keep as well, which meant that the beer needed to be brewed close to when the malt was made, i.e the warmer months. Warmer outside temperatures and drying temperatures went hand in hand with warmer fermentation temperatures, and top fermentation.

The braunbier on the other hand used kiln dried malt which could be produced year round and stored for a longer period of time. The beer could be brewed in the colder months and kept for shorter or longer periods of time, spanning the full year. The use of more hops for the winter-brewed summer-drunk beer increased the "shelf life" (inside the brewery) of what would become known as lagerbier from 6-9 months, whereas the winter-brewed winter-drunk beer, known as schenkbier, could make due with less hops and had a "shelf life" of some weeks. Both kinds of beers relying on colder primary and secondary fermentation temperatures in order to last and to prevent souring/spoiling (the colder temperatures helping to give the yeast the upper hand over competing micro organisms in consuming the sugars of the wort).

Also worth noting is that most of that weissbier by the early 1800s would have been barley weissbier, gersten weissbier, as opposed to wheat weissbier, weizen weissbier, the latter of which would have been brewed by the royal brew house and the breweries of the nobility. The barley weissbier was the common man's weissbier.

Whereas a brewery brewing braunbier (winter and summer beer, or schenk and lager beer) by the early 1800s up until the 1850s-1860s were limited to brewing their beer between Micheali (29th of September) and Georgi (23rd of April), had to use a set ratio of malt to beer, and at times a set ratio of hops to beer, for brewers of weissbier, barley and wheat, none of those restrictions applied. Yet, even though they were free from those restrictions, being able to brew their beer at a lower original gravity (lower malt to beer ratio), lower hopped and throughout the summer (not needing to invest in expensive summer beer storage cellars), braunbier prevailed.

Around the 1830s the indirectly heated kiln is introduced to Bavaria from England, replacing over time the domestic smoke kilns (spreading from cities to towns, and being standard operating procedure when the Bavarian braunbier is being imitated outside of Bavaria by the 1840s). This development also impacts the weissbier which by the latter half of the 1800s takes up the use of kiln dried malt which replaces the air dried malt of old.

By the turn of the 19th century Karl Michel of the Munich brewing school will write:

Furthermore he writes: