THE GREAT SUMMER WHEAT-OFF

Throughout the summer of 2006 there have been barbeques, house parties and bars visits galore where the situation is just crying out for a wheat beer - or a "summer beer" of some kind -- to be consumed. OK, so I've only been to a few such events, but since I almost always appoint myself as the guy who'll bring (and therefore choose) the beer, I've been able to try a few things I thought I'd tell you about & see what you think. I'm not sure I'm really that crazy about beers that advertise themselves as "perfect for summer", since that usually implies a lighter taste and a dearth of the malty, chewy and deeper tastes I tend to crave, but hey, I did find a couple good ones. Let's check 'em out:

ANCHOR SUMMER BEER - One usually is getting quality with an Anchor product of any kind, and that's what I found here. Simple, unadorned, easy-drinking quality. This pale wheat ale was mildly lemon-ish in flavor (without an actual lemon) and I had no problem dipping into three of them over a BBQ during a 50-degree San Francisco summer night a couple weeks ago. 6.5/10.

ANDERSON VALLEY SUMMER SOLSTICE CERVEZA CREMA - Not too bad either, but not as good as Anchor's. More of a yeasty/orangey type of beer, not particularly "creamy" but it tasted fairly solid on draft a couple months ago. I just didn't get excited enough to write about it. 6/10.

DRAKE'S HEFE-WEIZEN - Rather than a summer beer per se, the good folks at Drake's (San Leandro, CA) are trying their hand at a true German hefeweizen. Unfortunately, even with a San Francisco Giants ballgame only steps away last Friday night, I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for this one. Chalky, light, and too boring to ever want to have it again. Refreshing, though - it did get my head straight for the Giants' 7-3 shellacking of the Dodgers a couple hours later. 5/10.

HARPOON SUMMER BEER - My pals Genese & Hank were kind enough to have me over to their New Brunswick, NJ home when I was visiting New York City on a work trip, and this East-Coast-only brew is what they were serving up. It's a Kolsch-style beer, and I think I can say I've never had that before - but it tasted crisp, bubbly and very smooth on the tongue, like everything you're looking for when you're guzzling straight from the bottle and not sitting down at a bar with your notepad. Wait, does anyone actually do that? Umm.... 7/10.

PYRAMID HEFEWEIZEN - This Seattle brewery has basically built their brand on the back of this beer, and it's been "old reliable" in my house for many years. Why the beer dorks over at Beer Advocate think so poorly of it, I don't know. This has tons more flavor that most American wheats and like McDonald's, you always know what you're getting, no matter where you buy it nor what year it is. 6.5/10.

WIDMER HEFEWEIZEN -- Another one that the "experts" are panning -- take a look at these comments -- and yet another one that I'm perfectly content with & have been for years. Would I prefer a more complex German hefe? Of course I would. But Widmer's formulation is more of a pale wheat ale than a deep hefe, but it's got a robust hop scent & taste, and a lemony taste as well that's perfect poured all over your BBQ chicken, down your throat, and over your head. What is wrong with you people? 7/10.

The winner of the great summer wheat-off is none of these beers but instead is the Blue Moon Belgian White, which is what I'll be buying if we can squeeze off a few more good weeks of barbeque weather (and if someone invites us over).

THE RETURN OF THE GREAT SUMMER WHEAT-OFF

Funny how a different year can make the same exact beer taste better or worse. Like I forgot last year that I had stacked up a bunch of summer/wheat beers up against each other & rated accordingly; my hosannas last week for the workingman’s beer PYRAMID HEFEWEIZEN (8/10!) don’t jibe with last year’s 6.5/10. Likewise, last Saturday I ordered up a tall glass of ANCHOR SUMMER WHEAT over dinner, on a nice warm evening here in town, but this time I’m only dipping half a point down from the 2006 score, giving this one a 6/10. Anchor Summer Wheat is a very decent, very drinkable beer, but boring as all get-out. It needs more oomph, something tart or some intensity to the wheat malts used in this one. I know it’s for “sessioning” but that’s not really how I drink, and it’s only fair to expect it to be exciting enough to stand up to a single serving. That said, you could do far worse – Anchor’s products nearly always satisfy on some level and this one’s no different.

Let’s save the kudos for an outstanding wheat ale from GOOSE ISLAND, a fantastic pale wheat called 312 URBAN WHEAT ALE. These fellas hail from “the Motor City”, that’s right, Chicago, “the big easy”. You can’t get their beers in California so you gotta trade for them, so kudos to Wortwurst for sending me this one. It’s the yeasty-est concoction I’ve had in some time, a truly delicious wheat beer with flavors that dart all over the tongue. Bananas, lemon, and that intense yeast flavor that can be so great when formulated correctly. I loved it. I’d drink it anytime, over and over, at your house, at my house, anywhere. 9/10! Get one!

HEDONIST BEER JIVE’S GREATEST HITS

Beer, My Health and My Belly
The Day I Discovered Real Beer
A Note About our Ratings System
Three IPAs in a Big Week for IPAs
Hey! Who Skunked my Beer?
The Absurd Microscene of the “Brewery Bands”
Holiday Beer Drink-Off
Stone Shoots An Airball
Interview: Craig Wathen from City Beer Store
Interview: Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing
Interview: Rick Sellers from Pacific Brew News
Moylan’s Hopsickle – There Goes a Tenner
The Great Summer Wheat-Off
Best Pilsner on the Planet?
The Toronado Barleywine Fest, 3 oz. at a Time
Alcohol & Me
San Francisco, Meet Port Brewing
Final 2006 Holiday Beer Rankings
Don’t Anger This Thirsty Bear
Drinking in Olde New York

A TRIP TO THE BRICK STORE PUB (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

Astute readers will note that HBJ takes a lot of trips to Atlanta for business, and after a couple exploratory searches around the city’s “beer scene” (here, here and here), we’ve finally been able to hit the pinnacle of Atlanta-area drinking. That would be Decatur’s BRICK STORE PUB, a place we tried to visit a couple months ago, only to find it closed for remodeling on the one & only night we happened to be in town. That was a “total bummer”, but thankfully, downtown Decatur is hopping with ale-centric activity, and we rectified the situation in short order. So this time, in early September, we called ahead. They were open, and the place, in fact, was totally packed. The BRICK STORE PUB now joins Chicago’s MAP ROOM, Toronto's BEERBISTRO, Brooklyn’s THE GATE and San Francisco’s TORONADO as one of my quote-unquote “places you must drink a beer before you die”. Fantastic ambiance, with an olde-world, stone-and-brick motif to the architecture and lots of cool, weird art on the walls. When I visited it was skateboards, used as colorful art canvasses. The bottled beer selection is amazing, with just about everything you’d ever want from Belgium, Germany and the US at a fairly reasonable price, notwithstanding the $200 bottles of aged beer that were also on display just for fun.

Having just stepped off a long flight from San Francisco, I guess I wasn’t ready to dive into hardcore barrel-aged big-ass ABV beers. That’s for the next trip. Tonight it was about enjoying a couple of lower-weight beers in lingering fashion, making sure that I’d be able to drive to the hotel afterward. I debuted my Brick Store experience with my very first glass of DUPONT FORET from Belgium, which was actually on draft (!). Nope, I’d never had the beer before, and yep, I’m sorry about that. This saison was a very cloudy deep yellow, and was full of yeasty flavor from the word go. Sparkling mouthfeel, a bit tangy actually, with tastes of cardamom (look it up!). Slightly bitter and zingy while going down. Totally unique and very enjoyable. 7.5/10. Next up was a WEIHENSTEPHANER HEFEWEIZEN, which has been called “the best hefeweizen in the world” by none other than the excellent SUMMER OF BEER blog and by the Brick Store’s menu itself. This, too, was on tap. Far less wheat-centric than I expected, this beer is very clean and smooth, tasting amazingly fresh on tap. A little bitter, like the Foret. Truly not as amazing as I’d heard, but something I’d definitely have again. 7.5/10 on this bad boy as well.

Without so much as a buzz-on, I ventured into the warm Decatur night to find my hotel, totally satisfied that I finally got to drink at a place that, you, the Hedonist Beer Jive readers, had hipped me to. Got any other good Atlanta-area suggestions? I’ll be back again before the year’s done, and Brick Store Pub’s definitely a repeater on the agenda.