Kona Uncles Dunkel

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

I normally don't go for this particular style, if only due to the fact that there are ussualy much more interesting beers available to chose from. But always the adventurous one, my ears picked up when another customer at the bar asked what the bar had, as far as Seasonals go. The bartender said that this Dunkelweizen wasn't really meant to be offered up for sale now (since I had this in August, and it's meant to be a Fall Seasonal), but they ended up producing too much of this, and released it earlier this year. With something this nice, I'm not complaining... :)

Dark (muddy?) amber, with only a very basic head of foam on top. Kinda dull looking for a wheat beer, to be honest.

But the aroma definately has all the things I look for in a decent wheat beer -- that is to say, plenty of the banana&clove thing going on here.

The flavor profile and mouthfeel follows through, too. Light enough to be easy on the palate, but tasty enough to make it worth your while to slow down and savor. A very sturdy wheat base, with enough Nobel hops (Tettnanger perhaps?) to truly make a difference. Still a bit on the sweet end of the spectrum, but not enough detract, IMO.

At first, I thought that was a rather odd style for Kona to be doing. But considering that they already put out a tasty Wheat Ale and a Hefeweizen, it only stands to reason that a Dunkel would work too...
//TB