Sierra Nevada Brewing Company's Kellerweis Hefeweizen

I don’t want to dislike a Sierra Nevada beer, but this may be the first. I’m hating the European type wheats lately, but feel compelled to buy every beer from my favorite breweries. This complete lack of discretion is a bad combination at times, and I’m hoping this isn’t one of them.

Pours an unfiltered and cloudy golden. Great light tan head, decent carbonation. Huge pile of yeast on the bottom of the bottle.

Wow, I think only one other time in hundreds of beers have I ever said that a beer smelled like bananas. In fact, I fairly ridicule other reviewers who use it at the drop of a hat. But this one smells like a fruit basket. It’s a bit floral, but the banana smell was huge. Like the cheap cologne a gorilla would wear. As it warms it fades to the standard chemical smell that European wheats often have.

Cleaner than I thought. Most beers that other describe as having banana and cloves (it always seems to be both banana and cloves, never just bananas or cloves, for some reason) I describe as have a chemical, plastic, or burned plastic taste. The banana smell mellows in the taste. Still no cloves though. It doesn’t really have a chemical or plastic taste, but I’m just not wild about the style. Good bready aftertaste, but it’s still tinged with that odd European wheat taste.

Well, I won’t go so far as to say I don’t like it, or so far to say I do. It’s definitely my least favorite Sierra Nevada offering and will be giving away the other five, but I don’t regret having bought it. Too badly, anyway.