New Glarus Unplugged Imperial Weizen

Brewed by New Glarus Brewing Company
Style: German Hefeweizen
New Glarus, Wisconsin USA

Cloudy, golden color. Smell of hops, malt, pine, bananas, clove, pine and alcohol. Taste of banana cream pie, pine, hops,malt, clove, pepper and alcohol.

Pours a bright hazy golden yellow with a huge billowy three finger head that hangs around for ages leaving great lacing. This is what a hefe should look like. Huge nose on this with the sweet wheat, yeast and massive spiciness interacting beautifully. Not to mention the big banana aroma with lemon zest. Wow, this is a seriously big aroma for a hefe. Big wheat taste up front which gives way to the spices - cloves are the showcase in the middle. The spice gives way to the lemon zest and orange peel in the finish with a hop bitterness. I didn’t get too much banana in the taste compared to the smell. Mouthfeel is creamy and smooth but, with the carbonation and the spice, there is a serious zing on the tongue. This is certainly one of the better hefeweizens I’ve ever tasted. The spiciness is pretty big so the drinkability isn’t quite what it could be. However, this is, without a doubt, the most complex brew I’ve ever tasted in this style. Highly recommended!

Bottle from trade with ThaBobfather. Pours a hazy dark amber hue with a large frothy off-white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Good wheat, clove and banana aroma. Medium body with a sticky texture. Medium well balanced spicy flavor with a good bittersweet finish of moderate duration. Good drinkable beer.

Opened the bottle with a nice pop of the cap and poured into my glass carefully, but the head still grew too large to fill the glass with beer. Color is a cloudy amber-orange. Aromas of freshly mashed bananas with an earthy hay-like aroma that has bits of citrus and bits of clove in it. Flavors of toasted malt are prominent, along with some bitterness and lots of banana, clove and other esters rising into nose. The citrus flavors from the hops go well with the banana and other esters from the wheat beer, but the bitterness feels odd, combined with the alcoholic bite in the finish, it leaves the mouth feeling not refreshed like a good wheat beer usually does or like a nice IPA can. Mouthfeel is full and body is very chewy.

Now just based on appearance alone in a blind tasting this looks just like a German hefe. Until the nose, then you get the dry hopped citrus aromas. The palate boldly walks the line between an imperial IPA and a real living German hefe. The yeast is predominant in all points of the beer, a beautiful hazy unfiltered appearance, spicy nose and lots of bubblegum, and clove nuances on the palate. One of the most nicely done beers in the Unplugged series. It would be even better in my opinion if they toned the hops down, I am one of those people that believes the addition of large amounts of hops does not make a beer better. Having said that, normally I would mark a beer down because I am a style nazi, but for what Dan was going for this gets greats marks, but bottom line tastes like an IPA, made with a German yeast strain.

Bottle shared by emacgee and aubreya. Thanks yall! Wowzers, says Ethan as he opens this, the first bottle in our mini (mostly ) sour tasting. Pours a cloudy orange golden with a thick white head. Nose is yeast, wheat, hops, and alcohol. Flavor is spicy and sharp with a lot of hops in there not very typical of a german hefe. I found this to be pretty good, but I think it really lacked the refreshing, wheaty, yeast quality I like in my hefes. I understand it’s a different beer and kind of a hybrid or sorts, but I guess I was just hoping for something a little different.

12 oz. bottle received in trade - Pours a hazy golden color with a large off white head. Nice lacing. Aroma is spicey esters (light banana and yeast) and light citrus. Flavor is full of esters and spice. Medium body. Smooth palate. A very good beer.

12 oz bottle. Pours a cloudy orangish body with a foamy two finger light beige head that had excellent retention. The nose is heavy doughy wheat with lesser impact from the yeast. There’s a really odd amount of Cascade hops here as well that seems really out of place. The yeast derived spiciness does emerge a little more the more I smell it though, with lots of clove, some cinnamon, and some allspice. Intense yet weird aroma. The flavor is full-on intense clove spiciness. This really, really, reminds me of clove cigarettes. The wheat is almost lost with all the yeast character going on here. Cinnamon, bright Cascade hop bitterness, spicy alcohol, and a touch of banana very late in the finish. Mouthfeel is full bodied with a slight bread dough stickiness that might get a bit bothersome were it not for the fizzy effervescent carbonation. Overall, a fairly decent beer, but like the Bourbon Barrel Bock, not one that I could drink multiple bottles of.