First off I must thank my wife, this tasting plus the upcoming Dogfish Head Dinner was a fathers day gift.  Do I have the best wife or what!? The Extreme Beer & Extreme Cheese pairing was at Amanti Vino in Montclair, New Jersey.  To quite honest, I was a bit skeptical at first not knowing much about the store, except they carry a hand selected wines.  When I got to the store and saw the selection of beer they had, I was encouraged.  It was a very small selection of beer, but it was a section of top notch imported and craftbeer.  I was shocked when I saw they had the Dogfish head Sah’Tea.  I had not seen it anywhere and just that morning I had heard stores complaining on twitter that they hadn’t received it.  Now I was excited.

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This weeks’ Beer Brawl is an attempt to bring back summer to New Jersey.  It has been raining for more days in a row then I can count.  So, we’re focusing on a traditional German Beer and also a great summer session beer, Hefe-Weizen for our 15th Beer Brawl. The “Hefe” is German for yeast and “Weizen” is for wheat, meaning the yeast is still in the wheat beer giving this style of beer its characteristic hazy appearance.  The yeast used in this style will typically give the beer unique banana and clove characteristics, often dry and sometime spicy or tart.  They are also low alcohol (session) beers, typically ranging from 4%-5.5% abv.

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