"hefeweizen" news and stories

Les Trois Mousquetaires Blanche. Photo: Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and The New York Times.

With much of the country smothered by a hot, damp quilt of humidity, drinkers need a brew suited for combating the unrepentant sun. While mowing-the-lawn beers like the Brothers Light (Bud and Coors, that is) may slake thirst, they're like fizzy tap water. A finer alternative is the flavorful German Hefeweizen.

Classically, the cloudy, unfiltered ale (examples include Jolly Pumpkin's sour Weizen Bam and the classic Schneider Weisse) possesses heaps of wheat, creating a lively beverage with a banana aroma and tangy edge.

"When I'm looking for the perfect thirst-quencher, I want a beer with a light body without being watery," says Jonathan Lafortune, the president and brewmaster behind Quebec's Les Trois Mousquetaires."[I like a] beer with a slight acidity that gives me a refreshing sensation and a little bit of spice."

That's Blanche to a tee.

A religious epiphany is sometimes known as "seeing the light." In the beer world, however, it's all about seeing past the light -- Bud Light, that is. Though Budweiser's low-calorie brew is America's most frequently slung beer, now that craft breweries make up our country's fastest growing suds sector, pint-sized prophets are creating converts.

This Slashfoodie's brew-piphany occurred in the late '90s on a tour of Berkeley, Calif.'s Pyramid Brewery, where a Hefeweizen opened our eyes to the world Beyond Bud. Back in Los Angeles, we began frequenting beer-centric bars like Barney's Beanery, attempting to sample all the beers on their extensive list.

We're not alone in our new faith: Middle school teacher turned beer connoisseur Damico Ponzio was first moved by a Belgian (Triple Karmeliet), but Ommegang's Three Philosophers was the first American craft creation that knocked him out: "It had a boatload of flavor and [was served in] a wine bottle with a cork! I was completely blown away." Since then, Ponzio's become one of millions of people who regularly visit online beer communities like RateBeer.com where beer nerds congregate happily.

Some converts even go on to become apostles. Asked about his "Ah-ha!" moment with beer, Marty Jones' response is immediate: Ballantine India Pale Ale. "My cousin married a member of the Ballantine family and we would have bottles of their IPA," he recalls fondly. Now, as marketing man for the Oskar Blues Brewery (source of beloved canned microbrew Dale's Pale Ale), Jones travels the country "seeking out the unredeemed."

Got a beer that put you on the path to superior suds?

Your favorite beer may have just gotten a makeover. To those wandering the suds store in vain searching for those classic pyramid-sporting, Tintin-esque brews, listen up: Pyramid Hefeweizen will henceforth be known as Haywire Hefeweizen (above left), and Pyramid Apricot Ale is now Audacious Apricot Ale. Pyramid Breweries, America's 11th largest brewing company and fifth largest craft brewer, just announced this "revitalized brand positioning," and we're pretty surprised by the assertive redesign.

We're not alone. "Do they make beer or energy drinks?" quipped one BeerAdvocate user. Others, however, are more blasé: At Charlotte, N.C.'s Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, which stocks over 200 beers, general manager Daniel Parks remarked, "I don't think it will change [sales] one bit."

Typically reserved brewers have been shaking it up a bit of late: Sierra Nevada named a new year-round brew Torpedo IPA, a step up from their unadorned line of Pale Ale, Porter, Stout and Wheat. In Pyramid's case, this may be due to a recent buyout by flamboyantly designed Magic Hat's parent company, Independent Brewers United. (Pyramid did not return several requests for comment). To us, Haywire and Audacious sound like sheer marketing, uh, audacity.

Will you miss the Pyramids of the past the way we will?

If you're a big fan of Sierra Nevada Wheat, you might want to begin stocking up now...

Earlier in the week, I passed along information from a Sierra Nevada press release announcing the addition of a new year-round offering due later in 2009 called Sierra Nevada Kellerweis Hefeweizen, a German-style wheat beer. In that post, I stated: "My only question would be that...Sierra Nevada already has a wheat beer: The aptly named Sierra Nevada Wheat. Obviously wheat beers come in many different styles...but it'll be interesting to see how these co-exist."

Well, after speaking with a number of representatives from Sierra Nevada during Philly Beer Week, co-exist they will not. "Kellerweis will replace the Wheat," stated Assistant Brewmaster Terence Sullivan, which was later confirmed by one of the sales reps. Turns out Sierra Nevada Wheat, an American-style wheat beer, has seen slumping sales for quite some time now, and though the beer has been with the company since it's early days, they've decided its time to part way.

It's a sensible move: At the time of its conception, Wheat was one of the first of its kind, but the beer is a bit mild by today's standards. Kellerweis will have more of the bold flavors we've come to associate with a Sierra Nevada beer. And enthusiasm over the Kellerweis was running extremely high. "We can not wait for people to try this beer" was a regular refrain from the SN team. Send one my way, boys!

Hot on the heels of their Torpedo Extra IPA -- Sierra Nevada's first new year-round offering in over a decade -- the California brewery is doing it again, announcing the release of a second, new, year-round release launching in 2009 (which, in case you're counting, will bring the grand total of year-round releases to six).

A "polar opposite on the flavor spectrum" from the Torpedo IPA, this new selection has been branded Kellerweis Hefewizen -- "a traditional Bavarian Hefeweizen that we have been working on for a number of years." According to their press release, the product was originally developed after Sierra Nevada obtained a rare and unique yeast strain from a very small Bavarian brewery. However, it wasn't until a trip to Germany inspired the brewers to use open fermentation that the beer finally obtained the flavors they were seeking (and also inspired the name -- "keller" is German for cellar, the name breweries give to their fermentation systems).

Sierra Nevada states: "The flavor is rich with bready wheat notes and massive banana and clove... The finish is clean and crisp and the beer has a low enough ABV to be scarily session-able." Sounds like a winner to me. I am a huge wheat/white beer fan, especially those in the more drinkable spectrum. My only question would be that, as many may know, Sierra Nevada already has a wheat beer: The aptly named Sierra Nevada Wheat. Obviously wheat beers come in many different styles, and the Kellerweis Hefeweizen sounds distinctly different, but it'll be interesting to see how these co-exist. Just as the Torpedo IPA set itself apart from Sierra's long-standing Pale Ale, the Kellerweis will be tasked to do a similar job.