Here it is January, and thoughts of winter are quickly turning to hopes that spring will arrive early. The holidays have passed and we’re now in the heart of the doldrums of winter. Even the holiday seasonal beers, sure to warm the depths of the coldest of hearts, are starting to disappear off store shelves. Or so I thought. The other day, I was rather surprised to see a new one in the cooler case of a favored package store. Not new in the sense of never having been released, mind you, but new to this area, at least for this year. It was Shiner Winter Ale.

That struck me as odd. Most winter beers are released shortly after Thanksgiving, some even before that. So I asked the guy working in the store about this situation, and he assured me that the Shiner Winter Ale had just arrived. Interesting, I thought. Shiner distributes this beer from October to February, or so they say, in the states of Texas (where the brewery is located), Arkansas, Colorado ,Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

Georgia, the reader will note, is not on that list. We do get other Shiner beers, though, and at first I thought distribution of this winter seasonal was being expanded (a good thing). But why wait until January to do it? Did the brewery just end up with an extra batch or so of Shiner Winter Ale and decide to send it off to Atlanta? It’s hard to be sure. Whatever the reason, I was glad to see this beer. Having never tried it, I quickly snapped up a six-pack.

Here is how Spoetzel (Shiner’s brewer) describes their Winter Ale:

Shiner Winter Ale is a crisp, hearty brew modeled after a Bavarian-style dunkelweizen, German for dark wheat. Shiner Winter Ale is fermented with an old-world technique called Kräusening, brewed to be smooth and rich without being heavy on the palate. Its subtle flavors come from the brew's malted wheat and malted barley.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Krausening is a method of natural carbonation in which a small amount of unfermented wort is added to the batch of beer during conditioning; the fermentation of which provides for a naturally bubbly beer. In addition, I was impressed to see that Shiner Winter Ale is brewed with a decoction mash. This is a procedure where a small portion of the mash is removed and superheated, then returned to the full mash. Decoction provides for rich and toasty flavors that are difficult to replicate with an infusion mash.

Now with all that going for it, why was I disappointed with Shiner Winter? It’s a tasty beer, after all, and one that I heartily recommend. Let’s get right to the tasting notes and see why.

Shiner Winter Ale pours to a deep mahogany color with a medium head formation and strong notes of chocolate in the nose. The beer has good body and smooth mouthfeel with a rich malt presence packed with chocolate notes. There is a subtle toasted character from the decoction and a sweet finish that is balanced slightly by a hint of hop bitterness. It’s a great beer, and it reminded me in some ways of a Munich dunkles with its clean, soft dark malt flavors.

All well and good, but this is supposed to be a dunkelweizen according to Spoetzel. Clearly, it has little in common with that style. The tartness of the wheat, a subtle smoky character, perhaps hints of clove are some of the things I look for in a dunkelweizen (dark wheat) beer. I didn’t find them here.

The yeast strain being used is likely one culprit, but I also suspect that the proportion of wheat in the mash here is likely too low. The mediocre head retention is another sign that that could be the case. Wheat beers generally produce a lively head.

All that said, I still enjoyed Shiner Winter Ale, and would certainly buy it again. It’s an award winning brew, having taken a Silver at the 2001 Great American Beer Festival in the American-Style Wheat Ale category. It also won a Silver medal from the Brewing Industry International Awards in 2000. So give it a try. It is not a great dunkelweizen, but it is a great beer all the same.

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