It certainly helps to be on a business’ mailing list. I really had no plans for this Tuesday night but I got an email from Wine Affairs in downtown San Jose about a Spring Beerfest they were having tonight. They had 30+ spring/summer craft beers specially priced to be no more than $5 a bottle. With affordable beers to be had, Sammy and I stopped by there after work.
White, Allagash, 5.0% ABV
Pours out a hazy, gold color with an effervescent, white head. Slight yeasty, sulfury aroma with banana undertones, clove character and herbal notes. The flavor has a lot of fruit character, some banana, peach and pear. There’s a slight spiciness to the beer while the hop bitterness is really low. This beer is refreshingly effervescent with medium-low/medium body.
I had this beer before in a past Beer in Review session where I reviewed a bunch of witbiers. You can check out my initial review here.
Witbier, St. Bernardus, 5.5% ABV
Because I’ve only seen ABT 12 in my local BevMos, that’s the only thing I associate with St. Bernardus. Call me sheltered but I was very interested in trying their witbier.
This witbier pours out a cloudy gold color with a lasting white head. The aroma has a sweet, bready, wheat malt aroma with a slight earthy spiciness. The flavor is much like the aroma, sweet, slightly bready wheat malt flavor up front with a soft spiciness in the finish. This is also an effervescent beer with medium-low body.
Between the two witbiers, the Allagash is a lot crisper and brighter in its flavors while the St. Bernardus is much softer on the palette with regards to mouthfeel and flavor.
Hefe-Weizen, Hacker-Pschorr, 5.5% ABV
This beer pours out a clear, dark gold color with a moussey, white head. This beer has a light aroma that has a big, spicy, clove phenolic. This beer is very balanced in it’s flavor profile with equal parts banana, clove and yeast-derived spicness with a grainy, wheat malt character. The hop bitterness is low. This beer is also low/medium-low in body with medium carbonation. It’s very smooth and easy drinking hefe. Love those German hefeweizens.
Aprihop, Dogfish Head, 7% ABV
Aprihop pours out a brilliantly clear reddish-brown with amber highlights and an off-white/beige head. This beer has a toasty malt aroma with a slight alcohol quality and floral hop notes. Sammy is picking up a slighly smokey phenolic character in the beer. Hmm. Aprihop has a big apricot flavor balanced by the toasty malt character. What I find interesting is the lack of hop bitterness, which isn’t to say there’s no bitterness, it’s just not as bitter as I would expect an IPA to have. This beer is medium-full in body with medium carbonation. Sammy loves the aroma of this beer.
I’m torn about this beer. On one hand, I find it to be an interesting experiment of adding fruit to a style of beer (IPA) I wouldn’t have thought about. On the other hand, I think the base beer is lost in translation, so-to-speak. Even though this is an IPA, the hop aroma is lacking as is the hop bitterness.
Pikautus Weizenbock, Erdinger, 7.3% ABV
Pikautus pours out an almost opaque dark brown with a beige colored head. The aroma of this beer is reminiscent of banana nut bread. There’s this slightly grainy, wheat malt character with a hint of caramelization and low banana ester quality. This beer has a very pleasant malt character that is sweet, with hints of kettle caramelized Munich malt. The hop bitterness is low. There’s a fair amount of fruity esters to this beer; hints of banana and slight clove notes with some phenolic spice character (nutmeg, cinnamon). This is a medium bodied beer with medium carbonation and a slight alcohol warming character.
This beer is one of the earliest “hybrid” beers out there. Pikautus has bock-like qualities (flavor, alcohol) but there is a slight hefe note to this beer as well. The bock has a stronger presense but the hefe is there playing in the background.
I managed to pick up some St. Bernardus Abt 12 while I was there. Couldn’t resist.
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Great post, Peter. Very informative, as always. Several beers here I’ve never had and will definitely now seek out, especially the St B Wit. And I agree with you, in principal, about Aprihop. Although I’m not a big fan of fruit beers (see my post this week about two fairly undrinkables, http://tiny.cc/yEkRO), I do think that Dogfish gets it right, as usual. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Peter, I’ve been meaning to try some of the beers you reviewed, so appreciated the preview.
I added myself to their mailing list, since I could have made it last night with a little advance notice.
Some good sounding beers, of which I have only had a few.
I tried the Aprihop the other night. My impressions are similar, however I found that after about half a bottle, the apricot was almost overwhelming. I actually gave it to my wife in exchange for the Rogue Soba Ale she was drinking. I think if the apricotness of it were halved it would have been better, and definitely more drinkable.