Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Winter Warmer and Hefeweizen Tastings

The Spiced Winter Warmer I have tasted a few times since about a 4 week initial conditioning. The flavor profile has changed a bit over time to be a bit more bitter, but the overall flavor is a malty, caramel sweetness up front with some of the nutmeg and cinnamon spice in the middle, and a drying bitter finish. It poured with a thick, lasting head and the aroma reflected the sweet and spicy notes in the flavor appropriately. Overall this was a pretty good beer, but it could've done with a bit more roasty flavor to balance the sweetness. It was also best fresh off of conditioning as it developed a skunky bitterness after a couple of months.

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The Hefeweizen I was really psyched to taste test after a pre bottling sample indicated the tale tell banana flavors from the weihenstephaner style yeast. My first tasting of this I was pretty dissappointed as I left most of the sediment in the bottle as I typically do since most of my beers I've felt the sediment gave too much of a funky yeast flavor. The flavor resembled a slightly old pilsner, in other words, not good. Upon the second tasting I gave the bottle a light shake to distribute the sediment and the banana and wheat flavors came through quite distinctly. At our Christmass party I went through most of the batch between myself and giving everyone tastings. Since then I've had a few more bottles and despite distributing the sediment the pilsner flavor has returned unfortunately along with a skunky bitterness. In all it was a pretty good beer at the right time and with the proper pour, but it did lack in the wheat flavor and heavier body I'd expect from a true german hef. This is probably due to the not exclusively wheat malt used in the beer. I'll probably also go easier on the hops next time to ease up on the bitterness. Some good lessons learned though to aid in the next batch to produce some good homemade german hef.

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