I am not big on wheat beers, but when it comes in my Beer of the Month Club shipment as a featured beer I have no choice but to give it a try. In the two shipments I have received from my Beer of the Month Club 4-month membership, I have been very pleased with their offerings including Penn Weizen. Without a doubt Penn Weizen is one of the best wheat beers I have had. Penn Weizen is an award winning, bottle fermented beer and has changed my thoughts on what a wheat beer can be. Penn Weisen poured a muddy gold. The head dissipated very fast. It sort of looked like pineapple juice. Just the look of this beer in a glass was a sight to see. It really did not look like a beer but some sort of carbonated fruit-fusion drink one would have with Sunday brunch. The banana-vanilla aroma was light and balanced with some airy grapefruit notes. The flavor was very citrusy and spicy. It is almost like drinking a mimosa with grapefruit juice instead of orange and with just a touch of banana and clove spice added to round out the flavors. What I liked was how light the banana notes were in the body of the beer. I found there were more banana notes in the aroma then in the actual flavor profile of the beer. The aftertaste was all about spices and in particular cloves. This was a very light and refreshing drink. It looked heavy but the carbonation is high and lightens this up a lot. The texture is fruit juice smooth except for the carbonation, which gives the drink some prickliness - just like a mimosa. There was nothing about this beer I did not like.
The two wheats that I was sent by the Beer of the Month Club in March have have become two of my favorites. Penn Weizen is very different from Bischoff - Falkensteiner Ur-Weisse, which was in the same shipment. Penn was a very light, citrusy wheat with a lot of carbonation. Bischoff on the other hand was more luxurious with its smoked banana flavor and cream like texture. In any case, both are excellent for very different reason and have changed my views on wheat beers.
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