Mission Street Hefeweizen

Brewed by Firestone Walker Brewing Co.
Style: German Hefeweizen
Paso Robles, California USA

Serve in Weizen

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This beer has a cloudy gold appearance. It has that very typical wheat smell. It is especially good tasting for the price. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Mom was thoughtful enough to buy this for Christmas. Hazy, light orange, nice head and retention. Spicy with ripe banana nose. Decent ripe banana palate. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Bomber. Pale hazy orange pour with a white head. Slight spice, wheat, and yeast. Excellent value on this.

What a pleasant surprise: two dollars for a bomber at Trader Joe’s and its a Firestone Walker product. Aroma is wheaty citrus, and just a hint of banana. Could be spicier. Look is American-wheat orange juice. The flavor is like the rines of a lemon or tangerine: dry, sour-sweet and mildly bitter. Palate feel is also dry, and chalky. Not a great hefe. Overrated here at RB, though the price is right.

Now that I’ve sampled a lot of the Trader Joe’s beers I’m realizing that almost every beer is a "craftier" version of a macro brew already on the market - or at least that’s how it seems to me (I mean, I can’t prove they’re intended to be clones). If that’s the case then I’m betting Mission Street Hefeweizen is their take on a Shock Top or Blue Moon. An American take on the German hefeweizen with a noticeable amount of orange flavoring added. Not bad at all, but very one dimensional.

I poured a 22oz bomber into a wheat beer glass.

Appearance: Bright orange/maize hue; extremely hazy but translucent. Initially forms a large, white, soapy head, but it evaporates quickly and completely.

Smell: Generic wheat beer scent with an orangepeel overtone. A hint of spice and some candy-like scents.

Taste: I’m not sure if Mission Street Hefeweizen is brewed with authentic Bavarian yeast. It does taste a little more authentic than the "American Pale Wheat Ale" brews, but is still lacking a lot of distinct German characteristics like banana and clove flavor. There’s a mélange of spice up front, but it’s very mild. It’s hard to name any individual ingredients, though this might be due to the fact the bottle was over three months old when I bought it and almost four months old when I drank it.

There’s a candy-like sweetness through the middle, akin to a mouthful of Runts or Mike & Ike’s. Banana is subtle, but an orange flavor is prominent - so much so it almost seems artificial. There’s a very short, faint, sour twang right before it finishes and the aftertaste is a bit honey-like. It’s more of a strange palate than a bad one. For a craft beer it’s definitely not typical of the style, which leads me to believe it’s attempting to ape those two macro orange-flavored wheats.

Drinkability: For a fairly small beer, Mission Street Hefeweizen feels a bit big for its size. The mouthfeel is thick and the body is almost completely tepid, but this enables it to go down smooth. There’s a dry, pasty aftertaste, though, which is tolerable. At only 4.7% ABV anyone could drink an entire bottle themselves without any problem.

Refrigerated brown bomber poured into a weizen glass. Pours hazy deep golden with small white head. Little lacing, medium body, medium/low carbonation, and aroma is clove. Taste is clove, hint of an off wheat taste, and some banana.

22oz bomber from Trader Joe’s in Chicago. Nice sweet banana and yeast aroma. Refreshing flavour. Great beer at just over $2 a bomber.

Bomber from trader joe’s. Nice sweet fruity aroma. Creamy wheatey mouthfeel. One of the better american hefe’s I’ve had.

picked up from TJ’s, look this is quite passable and it is difficult to offer complaint at $2 / bottle. Certainly not exceptional, but it will do.

Bottle from Trader Joe’s. It pours a nice cloudy yellow/gold color with a shrinking white head. The aroma is wheaty with hints of banana and very light spice. The flavor is a bit on the sweet side with noticeable banana flavor and a prickly, mildly spicy finish. A bit on the watery side, but better than most Americanized hefe’s.