Friends, those last few sips in the bespectacled, goatee-d and uh, pastel hatted Captain’s glass are Trader Joe’s Dunkelweizen. I was initially critical (this is years back, I’m talkin’) of Trader Joe’s beers. But then I started drinking them. By in large, they score. It still seems odd to me that a grocery store craft brews, but they do, and they do it pretty well. Sergeant Stout came by yesterday and we sampled this ‘lil weizen (along with various fine homebrews, of course) and it’s fine indeed.

The Dunkelweizen has the right chops—pours out into a nice, deep amber/light brown, cloudy brau. The head is a light tan and held up pretty well throughout the first half of the beer. (If you poured it fast, I betcha’d get a glass o’ foam.) Here’s the low-down: 3 types of malt provide the body—2 caramelized, roasted wheat malts and 1 pale barley malt. The prevailing aroma, flavor and finish is a sweet, wheaty, malty whathaveyou. The beer is actually a bit too sweet for me, but not by much, and I don’t fault it as it’s totally a personal thang. It’s not crazy-sweet. The hops are pretty light; detectable in the finish, and surely doing their part to balance the sweet malt character, but subtle. At 5.2% A.B.V. it’s pretty easy to have a few of these fellahs. It was chilly here in the Metropolitan Los Angeles area yesterday, and this is more of a 72 degree Spring beer, but hey—worth trying, and I bet you’ll like it.