Schneider & Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse

Reviewed 8/22/2009 (Bottle): Pours an opaque orange colored body with a small foamy white head, diminishing. Strong spicy and banana aroma. Alcoholy. Lemony aroma. Spicy taste, very strong. Creamy mouthfeel. Lemony, citrus taste. Some banana but not too strong.Not too shabby.

Bottle. Pours a slightly hazy golden color with a small white head. Has a fruity spicy what malty hoppy aroma. Fruity wheat malty hoppy flavor with some alcoholic hints. Has a warming wheaty hoppy bitter finish.

Too unbalanced and overly alcoholic for me. Nice to look at but abit on the jarring side. Would be better with less alcohol.

Dark yellow colored with medium sized white head, cloudy appearance. Rich hopped aroma with exotic fruits and rich spices, yeast and mild alcohol also come up. Medium bodied. Flavor is also richly hopped with grassy and fruity aroma with same exotic notes, alcohol comes up stronger here. Aftertaste dries strongly with mild alcohol and lemon. Nice and surprisingly easy to drink weizen bock, hops come up more nicely in aroma.

500 ml bottle. Cloudy dark yellow colour, creamy white head. Very pleasant fruity aroma (grapefruit, banana, pineapple?) with a whiff of floral hops and spices. The flavour is sweetish at first, with banana, yeast and citrus fruits, and has a nicely warm and bitter hoppy finish. Very interesting.

Alcohol bite to it. Hops are muted and at war with a weird Belgian-y yeast thing. Just does not work for me.

Well, well, well... what on earth do we have here? I don’t know if the rumours are true in terms of this beer having U.S. hops provided by Brooklyn, but it does certainly have a slightly U.S. hop conc. Instantly on opening the bottle I’m greeted with big floral aromatics reminiscent of Simcoe, or Warrior type hops, big perfumed aroma, then behind it lie pineapple, loads of tropical fruit everywhere from classic citrus and quite sharp notes right down to mellow banana, melon, passion fruit... It actually looks the business - which is a big surprise to this less than enthusiastic Weiss beer drinker. Pours orange/blonde with a pinkish hue, nice creamy looking head, doesn’t sit massively high, but it does sustain itself and keeps a creamy inviting look to it. Flavour is surprisingly big and rich with more than a fare-share of complexity. Straight up I’m hit with a good hop smack, followed by soft and quite lush undertones of more tropical fruit, lemon, banana and melon make a reappearance then into some really quite obscure flavours from the hops consisting of what tastes like dental mouth wash, floral hops, some serious perfume, soap and then some more familiar flavours of grapefruit, orange peel and so on. Finish is commendably bitter for the style. My only true criticisms concern mouth feel, which could be a little bit more lush and less sharply carbonated, but all in all I’m not even that bothered by the average palate feel, however, I do feel that the weird free form breakdown in the middle of quite strange - verging on clinical - flavours threaten to swamp the positive points, the balance needs some serious attention and tweeking to score higher in my opinion, but at the end of the day all I can say is: I tried this beer at a total whim not expecting much considering I’m not the biggest Weiss beer fan in the world (by a long shot!) but here I am actually whole heartedly enjoying this peculiar brew. Seems the answer to getting me into Weiss beer is pack the bugger full of hops. I may actually by a few more of these... As a last note, this beer reminds me of free form Jazz - an aquired taste and at times can sound like a racket, but there something most definitely accomplished in the playing that makes it something definitely worth paying attention to, and not ignoring. P.S. even the alcohol is relatively well hidden, what the f***k is going on here?!