This is a beer called a dunkelweizen which roughly translates (I don't really speak german) into “dark wheat beer.”
This beer pours a cloudy, amber/brown color with a huge fluffy head. The head lasts forever and really makes this a great looking beer.
Smells of banana, cloves, a faint detergent smell and some citrusy notes. Pretty typical for a weizen beer; if I hadn't looked at this before smelling it, I would have thought it was a normal hefeweizen.
Big banana taste upfront followed by a medley of spices and a little bit of lemon. The difference in the hefeweizen and dunkelweizen really shows through here. While the smell was almost identical, the dunkelweizen has a much heavier malt taste. Personally I think that the almost roasted flavor somewhat detracts from the other superb flavors present (and as such I prefer the normal weihenstaphener hefeweizen) but it is still a very flavorful beer.
Mouthfeel is silky and light. A yeasty richness gives way to a crisp finish that is very refreshing; definitely one of the best qualities of this beer.
Drinkability is high, as with most wheat beers. At 5.3% abv it is quite easy to drink many of these without noticing any alcoholic effect and the light palate experience simply exacerbates this.
I purchased a .5L (16.9oz) bottle for $3.29 +tax and I thought I got my money's worth. Weihenstaphener has a variety of german styles so I opted for this bottle format so I could try a couple. It's a very tasty beer despite the slight contradiction in wheat and toasted malt flavors and a great example of the style.
Score: B+ 4.0/5
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