With the holidays over, I can finally start to drink my holiday beers. I was meaning to drink and review all of them for a Christmas beer thing series of posts but y’know how it gets with the holidays; time as a way of disappearing before you even knew it was gone.
The Widmer story is interesting and not unlike many other brewery origin stories. Keeping things succinct, Widmer Brother Brewing Company was founded by the brothers Widmer, Kurt and Rob. Having graduated from college, each brother found the real world not all it was cracked up to be. Kurt goes to Europe for a couple of years and returns invigorated and inspired by the beers he found there. Enlisting the help of Rob, the brothers founded their Widmer Brewing Company with a lot of help from friends and family. Kurt was able to bring back some yeast from the Brewing Research Institute at Weinhenstephan, Bavaria (Germany) which is the workhorse of their brewery. Widmer is probably best known for their flagship beer, Widmer Hefeweizen, an American-style Hefeweizen.
As with many other breweries, Widmer Brothers has brewed up a winter seasonal ale aptly named Brrr. Brrr pours out a brilliantly clear, dark copper/mahogany color with beautiful amber highlights and an off-white/beige head. This beer has a huge estery nose, the hop aroma reminds me of tropical fruits such as papya and guava while maintaining a floral character as well. The flavor of this beer leans toward the hop side of the spectrum. The hop flavor of the beer is fruity (guava) while the hop bitterness is medium-high, smooth and lasts into the finish. There is enough malt flavor and sweetness to balance out the bitterness but it’s a clean malt flavor that allows the hops to really shine through. This beer is medium-high in body, medium/medium-high in carbonation with a slight astrigency. Brrr weighs in at 7.2% ABV and 50 IBU.
Brrr is a surprisingly enjoyable winter seasonal from Widmer. Recommended!
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Brrr shocked the hell out of me. I have come to expect rather average beers from Widmer over the years, but I really liked Brrr a lot. It was previously bottled under their W06 label. This seems to be a trend for Widmer of rebottling one of their annual beers as a seasonal as W07 is going to be their springtime Drifter Pale Ale.
Yeah, Brrr was a surprise for me this year …
usually most Widmer beers don’t do much for me
(I used to like their Winternacht, which was a Sticke Altbier,
but we don’t get that around here anymore).
Yum – just drinking some now – 2 guys went out of there way at the supermarket to recommend this to me and I am glad I took the nudge – I am pleasantly surprised!