Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Hopfenweisse

Beer:                   Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Hopfenweisse

Style:                   pale doppelweizen

Twist:                  dry-hopped with hallertauer saphir hops; collaboration with Brooklyn Brewery

Strength:             8.2%

Notes: the brewing/date code on the bottle reads “13 . 315” on one line and “210813” on the other.  Poured from a 500ml bottle into a Gaffel glass.

A hoppy doppelweizen made by one of Germany’s greatest brewers of doppelweizen?  Count me in, even if it isn’t particularly fresh.  Pours a beautiful golden-orange hue topped by just under a finger of foam.  Head retention is even more excellent, sticking around for quite a while.  True to style, Tap 5 is hazy and full of sediment.  The sediment has a much grainier/sandier particulate appearance than is typical of most German wheat beers, which are normally cloudier.  The carbonation is ample.

Tap 5 Hopfenweisse smells even better than its darker cousin, Tap 6 Aventinus.  Huge banana, wheat, and even peach greet the nostrils.  Apples and semi-grassy hops round out the aroma.  Zesty, fruity and tantalizing all come to mind.

At this point, the head still hasn’t receded at all.

The aroma almost perfectly carries over into the taste.  Flavors of banana, spicy clove, wheat and hops seamlessly meld together.  Suggestions of other fruits---apple, orange---are there but a bit vague.  The finish is quite long and much heavier on the clove phenols rather than the fruity esters, with a slight hop bitterness to balance it all out.

The texture is as soft and fluffy as any German wheat beer I can think of.  It ends on a bit of a dry note, certainly drier than Aventinus.

I will have to do a side-by-side with my long-time favorite doppelweizen (Weihenstephaner Vitus) to see how it stacks up, but I would say this displaces Aventinus as my second favorite of the style.

This was reviewed as it was consumed on July 27, 2014.

Allagash Saison

Allagash's newest addition to their year-round lineup is a saison, a type of beer known for being a varied but usually dry, light-bodied and otherwise excellent summer drink.  It's been a while since Allagash came out with a four-pack, they have mostly been bumping out small-batch experiments for their new releases the last few years.  I've bought this new beer quite a few times since it came out; as long as I'm out here on the East Coast this will probably be my go-to saison.


Allagash Saison pours a very typical but gorgeous bright gold, topped by about a finger and a half's worth of bright white foam.  The head gradually settles to less than a finger's worth.  The beer remains hazy throughout the tasting.

The aroma features a blend of lemons, pepper, fresh-cut grass, and a bit of flowers---par for the style in every way.  It's a pretty classic and classy mix of tang and fruit.


The flavor follows the nose almost to a T.  The brewery makes special note of using a bit of Cascade hops but their touch here is so light you really have to search for it.  The beer leans a bit more towards the peppery-herbal side of the spectrum rather than the fruity side, this beer's only deviation from the style (a minor one at that).  The texture is pitch-perfect saison: dry, quenching, just as easy to quaff as it is enjoyable to sip.


When its readily-available competition includes saisons aged in wine barrels with fruit and saisons brewed with wild yeast it would be easy to dismiss Allagash Saison as generic.  It isn't; Allagash's restraint here is better described as elegant.  Saison as a style might be Belgian in origin but in modern practice it perfectly embodies the kitchen-sink approach to brewing which has taken hold in America.  An America-made no-frills saison that doesn't cost $1 per ounce is badly needed and Allagash Saison fills that space quite well.