Falkensteiner Ur-Schwarze

Privatbrauerei Bischoff
Winnweiler, Germany
Imported by: Import-a-n-t Wines, Inc.
Venice, FL

Available: IL, WI, CT, NY, PA, FL, AZ, NE, ME, MA, NC, TN, SC

Brewing water for this beer comes from the brewer well at the Donnersberg (”Thunder mountain”).

ABV: 5.2
ABW: 4.5
Color: n/a
Bitterness: 11.5
Original gravity: 1050
Final gravity: 1009
Malts used: 60% wheat, 40% barley from Rhineland-Palatinate region
Hops used: Perle (aroma), Magnum (bittering) from Hallertau

Atypical packaging, with its pedestrian green bottle and twist-off top that suggests tonic water, rather than beer. Even the name alludes to something other than a wheat beer. But, packaging aside, that’s what you have — a German dark wheat beer, with notes of vanilla, bubble gum, banana and light toffee, along with hints of plum skin and clove.
- John Hansell

For a beer called schwarze, German for black, this weizen isn’t really all that dark: more a deep brown than anything. It is plenty fruity, though, with a sweet, candied fruit (lemon, orange) and light milk chocolate nose, and a round, still sweet and fruity palate that mutes the spiciness I normally identify with a the dunkelweizen style and persists even through the slightly cloying finish. Although I normally favor dry beers as aperitifs, every sip I take seems to suggest that it would be just the thing to serve guests arriving for a sumptuous, multi-course meal.
- Stephen Beaumont

John Hansell
John Hansell is an equal-opportunity drinker. He writes about beer, wine and spirits. He is the creator, publisher & editor of Malt Advocate, a magazine for the whisky enthusiast.

Stephen Beaumont
Stephen Beaumont boarded his first plane at the age of 15 and hasn’t looked back since, obsessing about travel to the point that he gets nervous if he doesn’t have a ticket or two stacked on the corner of his desk. When he’s not running around in search of new taste experiences, he makes his home in Toronto, where a new cultural experience is only as far away as the next neighborhood.