Work was pretty soul-crushing today, so I was happy to hear back from Barry about getting together. I stopped at his place after work, and one coin flip later we were at the Muddy Pig.

I've got to stop using the booths at that place: both the bar and the outside area are definitely better options. For one, they aren't right next to the men's bathroom.

I started off with a Flat Earth Curly Tail Ale, a nice no-nonsense drinking beer. Originally brewed for St. Paul Saints games, if I'm remembering correctly. Next I had a Heavy Weizen, a so-called "Imperial Unfiltered Wheat Ale" from Southern Tier. It seems like we just started getting Southern Tier beer here in Minnesota, and so far I'm impressed. Someday I'll have that Imperial Cherry Saison that's in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow.

Barry and I both had Furious for the last round. All I caught was the grapefruit aftertaste, which faded by the time I got halfway through the glass. I definitely need to get out the netty pot, because I remember this beer being considerably more complex.

Labels: American IPA, Curly Tail Ale, English Pale Ale, Flat Earth Brewing, Furious, Heavy Weizen, Hefeweizen, Southern Tier Brewing, The Muddy Pig

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