Hefe Madness – Round 1 – Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse vs. Arcobrau Weissbier

By John on May 18, 2009 @ 8 PM (No Comments)

Note: This is the The BeerFathers Hefe Madness Tournament, where we put eight hefeweizens head-to-head in a beer tournament to end all beer tournaments, March Madness style. See the original post here. All beers are consumed in weizen glasses with John and Beer Love neighbor Josh serving as the judges.

Round 1, Beer Battle 3

Hefe Madness Round 1, Battle 3

Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse comes in as the number three seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “A-” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 90 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.49/each.

Arcobrau Weissbier comes in as the number six seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “B” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 49 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.99/each.

This should be a pretty good matchup, as we pit two German hefes against each other. The ratings difference at BeerAdvocate is small (A- vs B), but there’s a bigger gap at RateBeer (90 vs 49). We’re excited for this one and drank these outside on the deck in the sun.

(6) Arcobrau Weissbier

The Arcobrau Weissbier gave us a large 3″ creamy off-white head that left no head lacing as it dissipated slowly. There was a little bit of carbonation and the gold body was slightly murky – the sure sign that the hefe is made correctly.

The aromas came in with light caramel, orange and some other nondescript citrus, yeast and banana. The flavors gave us a switch from caramel to toffee, but the other aromas didn’t stand out too much in the flavor. On the malt to hop scale it came in a little to the left of balanced on the malty side and for our bottom line notes we got a yes to repeatable, drinkable, balance and buy again. We got a no for harmony, memorable and wow factor.

The toffee pops up in the aftertaste nicely but the rest of the taste just isn’t that complex. It’s very smooth and very drinkable, but the flavors just don’t stand out, especially as it warms. You’d think a little bit of warming would put some punch on the flavors but it’s just not the case. Toffee is the story with this one. Solid, but unspectacular and it just does one thing well.

Overall score for the Arcobrau: 6 out of 10

(3) Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

The Franziskaner gave us a super impressive huge 4″ foamy white head that left a good amount of head lacing as it dissipated slowly. It has a soft carbonation to it and there was a good murky haziness in the gold color.

The aromas struck us with banana, bubble gum and spices. The flavors came in with some toffee and orange to complement the banana and peppery edge. For our bottom line notes we got a yes to repeatable, drinkable, balance, harmony, memorable and buy again. The only no was for wow factor.

It’s strong on the banana on both the taste and smell with the citrus notes only coming in on the taste, along with some toffee. The spice is nice in this one and it gets even spicier as it warms – more pepper and banana in the taste. It moves towards banana bread as we get to the bottom of the glass. A lot of adventure in the glass and it does many things well.

Overall score for the Franziskaner: 7 out of 10