Two New Glarus

I mentioned this briefly before, but a buddy of mine from Wisconsin brought back a stash of beer from me when he was up there during Christmas. I ended up with about a mixed case of beers from New Glarus. NG is only available in Wisconsin so its quite a treat to try some of these beers. The brewery is run by husband and wife team Daniel and Deb Carey (if your remember my entry from my New Belgium tour, the brew equipment came from he CO brewery). Daniel Carey is not only the owner he is the brewmaster and helps turn out some of the best and unique beers in the country. In fact Mr. Carey has some strong brewing chops having been Production Supervisor for Anheuser-Busch prior to starting up New Glarus in 1993. New Glarus has won quite a few awards including Small Brewery of the Year in 2005, and Mid-Size brewery of the year in 2006. NOt only are they good, they are growing!
Because of the large stash of NG beer that I received, I'll be posting notes on a couple of their beers every once in a while, starting today.
Crack'd Wheat: This is a Pale Ale Hefeweiss which was all I needed to read on the label of the beer to get excited about it. It weighs in at 5.95% and pours a hazy golden yellow, bubbly with a thick white head. The nose is hoppy, citrus, bananas, and clove. The mouthfeel is full good carbonation. Hoppy, grapefruity, cloves, and banana, citrus peel bitterness. Slightly resiny on the finish. This is a wonderful beer and surprisingly combines the citrus-y flavors of a pale ale with the banana and spices of a hefeweiss. This one gets a B+ from me. BA thoughts?
Black Wheat: It makes me sad to know that this one is a retired beer from NG, but I'm glad I was able to try it. This is a winter style dark wheat beer that weighs in at 5.7%. It pours an almost pitch black with a thin white head. The nose is full of banana, clobes, spices, chocolate, bubblegum, and rich malts. The mouthfeel is chewy and full. NOtes of chocolate up front, along with the expected cloves, cinnamon, banana, spices. Oh the spices in this beer are wonderfully complex. Its hearty for such a low abv beer. Great spices, great chocolatey notes as well. Good solid beer that gets a B+ from me. BA's give it love as well.

Schnoor Brau Dunkel

My wife just returned from a week and a half business trip to Bremen, Germany, and brought back some beer for me (what a great wife). Now Bremen is the home of Beck's and St. Pauli Girl so I wasn't quite sure what my wife would be able to bring back that would be a local beer. I sure didn't want Bremen's big local beers! However, I shouldn't have worried the particular beer she brought me was from what seems to be a pretty small brewery in Bremen called Schnoor. From what I can find out about it the only beer they make is a Dunkelbier, so no euro pale lager's! Sounds good so far, let's see how it tastes.
The Beer: The beer weighs in at 5.2% and pours a brownish amber with a good half inch off white head. The nose is primarily of roasted malts, caramel, then a wave of floral hops. The mouthfeel on this beer is medium body, a little carbonation. There are flavors of caramel, roasted malty sweetness, rye bread, an earthiness and mineralness to the taste as well. Its somewhat light, very drinkable beer. It shows that a lighter beer can have a great amount of flavor. This is a beer that one could drink many of in a beer hall in Bremen (and I'm sure they do). I enjoyed this one, it gets a B from me.