Hefe Madness – Round 1 – Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier vs. Pyramid Hefe Weizen

By John on May 4, 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 1

Hefe Round 1, Battle 1

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier comes in as the number one seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “A” rating at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 95 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.99/each.

Pyramid Hefe Weizen comes in as the number eight seed in the hefeweizen tournament, thanks to it’s “C+” at BeerAdvocate.com and overall 32 rating at RateBeer.com. The 12 oz bottles cost $1.49/each.

(8) Pyramid Hefe Weizen

The Pyramid pour gave us a large 2″ foamy white head that left no head lacing as it dissipated slowly. There was little carbonation and the yellow/gold body had a slight murkiness to it.

The aromas came in with wheat, citrus, lemon and yeast. The flavors came in with an orange taste that kind of overpowered the beer. The Pyramid comes in in pretty far to the right on the malt to hop scale – 3 clicks to the right of balanced on the hoppy side. We got a yes to repeatable and drinkable and a no to memorable, wow factor and buy again.

Our notes were that it had a good, crisp taste, but that it was somewhat bland and muddled relative to the traditional hefe notes. There was also a tart/bitter edge to it that didn’t sit well. The aftertaste lingers in a bad way and the “X” factor is not impressive. It’s better cold – it doesn’t hold together well at all as it warms up.

Overall score for Pyramid: 3 out of 10

(1) Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

The Weihenstephaner pour gave us a large 2 1/2″ white head that laced fairly well as it dissipated slowly. It had a soft carbonation and a nice cloudy haziness to the yellow/gold body.

The aromas came in with wheat, citrus, lemon, yeast, banana, clove and spices. A nice bouquet overall. The flavors came in with lemon, banana and clove. The Weihenstephaner came in just about perfectly balanced on our patented malt to hop scale and got a yes to repeatable, drinkable, memorable and buy again. The only no was for wow factor.

Our notes were that it was quite refreshing and much more complex than the Pyramid. The banana flavors really popped as it warmed up and overall it had a great harmony and balance to it.

Overall score for Weihenstephaner : 8 out of 10