BY MATT STEVENS for WEEKLY VOLCANO 4/3/26 |
This week we snuck out of North Tacoma to downtown Tacoma to get a beer I hadn’t had in a while. Down at Sig Brewing we pulled two beers, a Hazy IPA and a Dunkelweizen. As it’s one of my favorite beers, we’re going to go with the Dunkelweizen.
A Dunkelweizen is a German-style dark wheat beer, which is generally an unusual beer to find in the U.S. The classic definition beer of this style is a Franziskaner. Usually, the beer has hints of clove and banana in the nose with a smooth dark malt body, but very little roast flavor.
The Dunkel pours a beautiful dark amber. It’s cloudy and dark and very inviting.
The smell is … ok. I love how, in a great German wheat beer, you can smell the banana and clove. A standard hefeweizen is fresh with the banana and clove flavors. The dunkelweizen is usually right there with it, but with more of that amber chocolate to go with it. A great hef smells like spring and good work done.
This beer is quite subdued. There is almost no banana coming through. It misses that flavor profile in the nose.
On the tongue, the beer nails the amber malty smoothness. No roast profile. No hops. It’s tasty, but it is missing the banana and clove hints. They need to be a bit stronger to really nail this style.
On the mouthfeel front, the dunkelweizen nails its targets. It’s smooth and slides all over my mouth.
Overall, this beer is a beautiful color and the mouthfeel nails the style. It could use a little more banana to really nail the flavor profile, but it’s extremely drinkable. Grab one at Sig Brewing on Tacoma Ave and S 23rd and catch a Mariners game.
