On first sip I get the immediate reaction: What the hell am I tasting? This is beer?

No, its … cloves or something. This hits hard with a massive fruity overtone and a double whammy of spices. It overpowers the chocolate malt. I seriously wondered if I’d gotten a bad bottle, but no, reading the back label, this is exactly what I was to expect. Fruity, spices, cloves.

It tastes weird. That’s the best way I can describe it. And I don’t think I’ve ever described a beer tasting “weird” before.

According to ye old label, this is Germany’s original wheat-doppelbock, from Bavaria’s oldest Weizen brewery. Bottle fermented, so there’s some yeast still in the bottle (making me wonder, did I shake it up or something?) I am getting a yeasty note in the taste. The weird taste.

But, no, it’s not the yeast. It’s the spices. The cloves. I’m no authority, but what the heck are they thinking putting cloves in a beer?

Being that it’s 8.2 % alcohol, it’s packing a pretty good punch, which probably explains why it’s tasting better the more I drink it. I mean, it’s not weird enough for me to go pour it out. I am, after all, a fairly adventurous kind of guy. I’m just hoping it doesn’t make me throw up.

Why do I have the feeling, though, that if I were drinking beer 2000 years ago, sitting at the table with Jesus Christ, this is how the beer would taste to me. Weird. I’m talking as a time traveler, mind you, not a native of the era. Because of course a native of the era would think it tasted normal.

Yet, I can’t bring myself to put it on the Holy Grail scale. If I did, it would be like negative 3000 or something.

I recommend this if you’re just so jaded with tasting “beer” that it’s all blending together in your head, and you need something to jolt you back to wakefulness. But if you want to taste beer instead of some wild weird German wheat-doppelbock, avoid this one. Step away from it. Ignore the high BeerAdvocate rating.

Shun this beer. Shun it, I say.

It tastes … somehow evil.

Comments Off on Aventinus Wheat-Doppelbock Ale