What's In My Glass: 7/30/2011

Tonight's beer is Sierra Nevada's Kellerweis. I arrived at my aunt and uncle's house in Raleigh, NC this afternoon where we'll stay the night before finishing our trek to the Outer Banks tomorrow. We went on a beer run to a local Total Wine & More, and I'm sure I looked like a kid in a candy shop. I always look forward to this week long vacation for the opportunity to try a lot of beers that don't get distributed to Jersey. While I did have a minor score in finding some bottles of Founders Blushing Monk, which barely made it to shelves back home, I decided to save the new stuff for vacation proper and fall back on a reliable summer beer for tonight. Kellerweis is one of the better American brewed hefeweizens I've had, and not much beats it for a refreshing, tasty beer when the heat really gets up there. I haven't seen it on shelves much locally for some reason, so was happy to pick up a sixer of it tonight. Unfortunately, hefeweizens don't really have a long shelf life, and this batch is on its last legs. The great banana and clove flavors thrown off by a traditional hefe yeast were pretty faded, leaving a little bit of sweetness from the wheat as the main attraction. Still, those flavors combined with the beer being light bodied and highly carbonated made it perfect to idly sip as I sat on the front porch and caught up with family. Had I been seriously drinking and focusing on what was in my glass I probably would have been a bit underwhelmed, but for a mindless drinking session it was just fine.