Better than expecto'd

A nice broad topic for the The Session this month, and flagged sufficiently well in advance for me to get my act together for it. Our host is Roger's Beers, and German wheat beer is the theme.

Roger requests a broad brush approach, to learn about all the various styles of weissbier and its variants. The style I've chosen is: cheap.

For less than €2 from German discount supermarket Lidl comes Patronus, sold under the chain's Perlenbacher brand and brewed at the generally-reliable southern regional giant Eichbaum. It's quite a dark colour, showing an almost copper shade at the bulb of the glass. A thick haze and lots of foam are all de rigeur for the style.

It goes big on the banana in the flavour, with a thick texture making it resemble almost a banana milkshake. Happily that's all at the front -- just enough to evoke pleasant childhood memories -- before it fades to clove rock and then a whisper of butane on the end. That gas fuel thing is also the primary component of the aroma, suggesting it's probably full of headache-inducing compounds, despite being only 5.5% ABV. It's probably too heavy to drink more than a couple in one sitting anyway.

Overall, a decent weissbier, well suited to dessert drinking, and showing more individual character than budget versions usually do.