KC Bier Company - Hefe-Weizen

KC Bier’s Hefe-Weizen pours a well-hazed golden color with a tall cap of bright foam, and we made sure to take the traditional step of swirling up the yeast at the bottom of the bottle before finishing the pour. On the nose, expect all the classic, yeast-driven Bavarian weissbier aromas including bold banana esters, bubblegum impressions, and a spicy-herbal phenolic character invoking clove, which matched well with a light dose of German Perle hops and their peppery and evergreen notes. All these aromas translate boldly to the flavor, as well. Big banana gum character jumps out right away, alongside those contrasting spicy yeast and hop notes. There’s a richly realized malt core here, too, enhanced by the brewery’s use of traditional and painstaking German-style decoction mashing, in which part of the mash is removed, boiled, and returned – the end result being a more full-flavored malt contribution. This 2020 GABF silver medalist is easily among the most true-to-style weissbiers we’ve encountered in recent memory, thanks to KC Bier’s mastery of German techniques and use of German malts, hops, and a yeast strain from a Bavarian monastery. For pairing options, bready or breaded dishes should work nicely, like schnitzel, pizza, and soft pretzels, as will grilled pork sausages. Prost!

In the 1800s, German immigrants brought their brewing traditions to America, and pale lagers soon became dominant in the U.S., much as in Europe at that time, as well. Sadly, industrialized “macro-brewing” led to the cheapening of those styles with corn and rice adjuncts which turned those lagers into a shadow of what real German beer is actually like. When the American craft beer renaissance began in earnest in the 1980s, brewers focused on styles less familiar to American audiences, typically British and Belgian ale styles, while authentic German beers, typically lagers, were often ignored.

KC Bier’s founder, Steve Holle, set out to change that. The great-grandson of German immigrants, he developed an appreciation for German beer from his father, and from time spent studying in Hamburg. He became a highly experienced homebrewer, a beer writer with numerous articles and books to his name, and a GABF beer judge. His brewing education includes studies at Munich’s Doemens Brewing Academy.

In 2014, Holle opened KC Bier with his friend and Bavarian native, Jürgen Hager, as well as Karlton Graham, a German-trained Kansas City homebrewer whose education includes Chicago’s famed Siebel Institute and a stint at Doemens. KC Bier’s motto is “We put the i back in bier,” and their focus on and success with traditional German style “bier” certainly attests to this. The brewery crafts an array of German specialties using malts from a 160-year-old family-owned company in Bavaria; yeast from the famed Andechs monastery & brewery in Bavaria, which has been brewing for over 500 years; and hops grown on a 600-year-old farm in Bavaria’s Hallertau Valley. For more info about the brewery and their Bierhalle and Biergarten, visit kcbier.com.