Sunday Night Suds - Joseph's Brau Dunkelweizen

This week's Sunday Night Suds raises a toast of Joseph's Brau Dunkelweizen to my oldest daughter who celebrated her bat-mitzva this weekend

(Just to clarify -- no beer was served at the Bat Mitzva, the toast is only symbolic in nature).

The Dunkelweizen is an odd sounding beer and has an interesting mix of flavors which I am not certain that I am a fan of just yet. As explained by the good folks at Beer Advocate, Dunkelweizen are:

Similar to a Hefeweizen, these southern Germany wheat beers are brewed as darker versions (Dunkel means "dark") with deliciously complex malts and a low balancing bitterness. Most are brown and murky (from the yeast). The usual clove and fruity (banana) characters will be present, some may even taste like banana bread.

The Josephs Brau Dunkelweizen was certainly cloudy, as most unfiltered wheat beers tend to be. The color was not brown like a stout, but it was darker than your standard ale. The back of the label indicates that the brew process involves dark roasted malted wheat and caramelized malted wheat in combination with pale malted barley.

The beer did have the predicted clove/banana flavors, both in the aroma and the taste. I was not too crazy about it during my first few sips, but it has started to grow on me as the temperature of the beer in my glass went up.

I could see pairing this beer with banana cake, but not much else as the flavors are very strong and would drown out most other foods.

Joseph's Brau Dunkelweizen is under the Kosher Supervision of the Va'ad of Detroit and there is a tiny Va'ad Hakashrus symbol on the back of the bottle. Please keep in mind that not every Trader Joe's brew is under kosher supervision, so check the label or search my site for the link to the latest list of beers under kosher supervision.To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about Joseph's Brau Dunkelweizen, please follow this link http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10707/39924.

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver. If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

Finally, if you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click http://www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com/ to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!