Hefe Madness

By John on April 27, 2009 @ 8 PM (No Comments)

With March Madness and college basketball finally done the Beer Love wife reminded me that the sports we watch in the Beer Love household are pretty much over until football season kicks off in the fall. So we decided to create our own sport to both celebrate and get us through the spring and impending summer months. That’s right – we decided it was time for our first ever beer tournament. But what kind of beer tournament?

Well, we love the hefes here at The BeerFathers, so much that we made a rule about it – so why not put a bunch of hefes head-to-head and figure out who the real champ is? And so we declare the official start of the first ever The BeerFathers Hefeweizen tournament.

Hefe Madness

Let’s meet the contestants:

#1 seed: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

Coming in with an “A” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 95 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each.

#2 seed: Ayinger Brau-Weisse

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 92 rating at RateBeer.com. 500 mL bottles at $3.49/each.

#3 seed: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 90 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.49/each. Though it has the same overall rating on both sites at the Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, the higher seed went to Franziskaner based on more reviews at BeerAdvocate.com – 793 reviews vs. 634 reviews. Also, the price tag was 50 cents less per bottle. Better bargain means a higher seed, with all things considered.

#4 seed: Paulaner Hefe-Weizen

Coming in with an “A-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 90 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each. See notes on Franziskaner above for seed justification.

#5 seed: Erdinger Weissbier

Coming in with a “B” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 53 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $2.39/each.

#6 seed: Arcobrau Weissbier
Coming in with a “B” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 49 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.99/each.

#7 seed: Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat

Coming in with a “B-” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 36 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.79/each.

#8 seed: Pyramid Hefe Weizen

Coming in with a “C+” at BeerAdvocate.com and a 32 rating at RateBeer.com. 12 oz bottles at $1.49/each.

So all told we’ve got $54.23 worth of beer from Total Wine. Six German (Bavarian) beers and two American beers. We bought 3 of each beer as well so any beer could make it to the finals. And to help us through it all we recruited one Beer Love neighbor – Josh – to help us drink and rate and drink some more.

So if you want to play along at home go and get these beers and tune in over the next few weeks as we work our way through each pairing until we declare the official Hefe Champion.