Road Test - Finest Round Hefeweizen

The Finest Round range of beer kits are made and distributed by ES Brewing, and have achieved quite a following in the homebrew community. This Hefeweizen is the latest in the range for me to review and I’m sure it will soon develop a cult following of it's own.

As with the others; making it is dead easy. Pour in the kit, add water to make up 22L, add the yeast (Munich Ale) and the finishing hops (Hallertau). Then sit back and watch it ferment.

Made up to 22L, we achieved a starting gravity of 1.046, and 1.012 when fermentation was complete giving us a 4.9% alc beer after priming.

We split this Hefeweizen into two batches. One with the Munich Ale yeast, and the other with some WLP300 repitched from an earlier Hefeweizen of our own. This allowed us to compare the flavours imparted by the different yeasts. The Munich Ale yeast kept the bannana and clove flavour so often associated with Hefeweizens to a minimum and let the malts dominate, whereas the WLP300 accentuated the bannana and clove helping to balance the malts.

The malt profile in this Hefeweizen at first seems to be too sweet and coats the mouth with a slightly tart finishing flavour and quite a big body. The Hallertau finishing hops are hard to pick up, with just a hint of aromatics coming through.

I would match this beer with a steak or fish and chips - something to have as the sun goes down on a summers evening.

Colour – a light amber and crystal clear. Well done ESB.

Now to the nitty gritty:

Time – 10 min to sterilise the fermenter and tools, 10 min to make up the batch and 5 min to clean up. Priming and bottling took 30min and clean up took 15min.

Total Time – 70min plus 15 days fermenting and conditioning.

Cost – kit $34 (includes the Munich ale yeast and a 12gm packet of Hallertau finishing hops)        Bottles $32 (you need 32 650ml bottles)
Total Cost $34    (or $70.75 with bottles)