Beer Brief #51 - Storm Cellar Series #1 Schoko-Weizen

Brewery - Bad Weather Brewing Company, Minnetonka, Minnesota

Beer - Storm Cellar Series #1 Schoko-Weizen

Style - Dunkelweizen with cacao nibs

ABV - 7%

Color - Dark brown, nearly black, with hints of red and a light tan head

Aroma - Chocolate, bit of clove, slight banana bubble gum, and some roasted coffee bean

Flavor - Very similar to the aroma, weizen characteristics are there but subdued, chocolate and coffee dominate with a bit of nuttiness

Verdict - This beer was very surprising, but also very good. I expected the typical weizen flavors and aromas to be the dominating characters. However, chocolate and roastiness are the rulers of this brew. If I didn't know it was a wheat beer, I'd say it drinks like a light-bodied, nutty porter. Unexpected, but delicious and definitely worth a try. I'm probably going to look for another bottle before it disappears from liquor stores...

P.S. - (This is a new section I want to incorporate into some of my beer briefs, depending upon if I feel the need to state anything above and beyond the basics. Let's see how it goes...) This is the fourth brew I've tried from Bad Weather, and I've enjoyed all of them. I wasn't able to taste them until recently, so the experiences are very new (as are the beers) and fresh in my head. For those of you that don't know, they share brewing equipment and space with both Lucid and Badger Hill in Minnetonka. It's cool that these 3 breweries can share and grow together.

On a side note, I learned something fun by reading the label for this beer, which I always enjoy: Schokolade is the German word for chocolate. Hence, the "Schoko" portion of the name.

And finally, for the last bit of the new "P.S. section" there's this little unimportant nugget: I'm pretty sure there's a spelling error on the bottle. Cellar is spelled "Celler" on the front. Now, normally I would think this was by design (because brewers do all kinds of crazy stuff with their beer names and labels), but the website and the description on the back of the bottle spell it "cellar". It's no big deal, but I did notice and thought it would be fun to point out. I guess that's what happens when you work in the print industry as long as I have. Maybe that error will make the bottles more collectible one day...