Tonight Matt had a cookout, Jucy Lucys as always, and I had a Mothership Wit, then a (good, sweet-tasting) Trout Slayer Ale. I was already a bit buzzed when I had it, but it did seem very good. Continuing the fish theme, one of Matt's friends wore a Lakemaid T-shirt.

I downgraded to (Sierra Nevada) Colaweizen after those beers... but I don't think I'm going to finish this second one now that everyone is gone. These are so much better with Hefeweizen.

I'm definitely a sucker for fruit flavors in beer. The cashier at Spirits of Nisswa pointed out that my preference for Hopslam over HopDevil probably has a lot to do with the grapefruit flavors in the former.

Labels: Big Sky Brewing, Colaweizen, Mothership Wit, New Belgium Brewing, Trout Slayer

Yesterday we had Ben over for a cookout: dinner consisted of very good (if a little overseasoned) steak and porkchops. It was very nice out, so we sat on the deck and had some beers while Matt tended to the meat.

While my beer glasses went through the dishwasher I had a Flying Dog Garde Dog, good as usual. Then: colaweizen.

For the colaweizen, or colaweizens if you're a crazy American, we combined the drinks in a 3/4 beer to 1/4 cola ratio, i.e. one 12 oz. bottle (poured with almost no head) and 1/2 of an 8 oz. pop can (poured aggressively) in each pilsner glass. The beer will darken noticeably as you pour in the coke. Scientists have determined that this is cool to watch.

I tried two American wheat beers, the Sierra Nevada Unfiltered Wheat and the Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat. Both were good (the Flying Dog mix had some leftover Sierra Nevada in it, so I'll forgive for being the worst of the two), but neither could stand up to Ben's colaweizen, which used Paulaner Hefe-Weizen and had a noticeable banana taste. Once I run out of Sierra Nevada, I guess I'll have to get a good German hefe.

It also occurs to me, just now, that I had enough bananas to juice and make bananaweizen (same ratio as a colaweizen). There's a drink I'm curious to revisit...

Labels: American Pale Wheat Ale, Biere de Garde, Colaweizen, Flying Dog Brewery, Garde Dog, Hefeweizen, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Paulaner Salvator Thomasbraeu, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Unfiltered Wheat

I used to drink Colaweizen all the time before I graduated to Dunkelweizen, so there's a special place in my heart for that drink. Here's a great explanation loosely translated from a German beer cocktails website:

Colaweizen, also known as a Colahefe, Hefecola, Neger, Cab (Cola and Beer) or Mohren, is a mix of equal parts weissbier [i.e. weizen, usually hefeweizen] and coke. In Northern Germany the correct pour order is: first the coke, and then the weizen; otherwise the drink will foam. In Southern Germany the pour order is reversed, because a head is desired and the coke mixes better with the beer that way. In addition, usually far less coke is used (about 3/4 weizen to 1/4 coke, or even less). This gives the beer a wonderful, sweet head.

There are also some slight variations on this formula. A mix of coke and pilsener is called a Diesel, a mix of coke and kölsch is a Drecksack (literally "dirtbag"), and Schwarzbier and coke is a Griefswalder (after a town in NW Germany).

I've only had the Diesel, and I didn't really care for it. Germans also mix lemonade with different kinds of beer, to make what I'd call a shandy. It continues to bother me that Wikipedia thinks the Colaweizen is just another kind of "shandy".

And there are even stranger mixes: at the Freiburg "Monkey Jump," an annual bar-hopping event, I had a delicious Bananenweizen. Would you believe that it took me until now to figure out why they were serving those on that particular day?

Labels: Bananenweizen, Colaweizen, Hefeweizen