Here’s to prosperity in the new year! Market Garden Prosperity Wheat Beer, that is. I’d like to say that I saved a bottle specifically for New Year’s Day drinking, but if I did, I would be lying to you. Still, when I was looking through my assorted brews I did see a bottle of Prosperity Wheat Beer that I got in a beer trade, and thought who doesn’t want Prosperity in the new year? So, it was the first beer I popped for the holiday.

I didn’t read the label except to see this was a wheat beer, and at first I thought it was a Kristallweizen (filtered), so clear and crisp was the liquid in my glass. But then I looked in the bottom of the bottle and noticed yeast caked there. Usually, some of that will decant but it didn’t here, so I carefully poured some of my beer back into the bottle and swirled to rouse the yeast.

I should have read the back label first:

If you’ve ever spent time in a German Beer Garden, you know how much they love their wheat beer.  Our Bavarian style Hefeweizen is a satisfying blend of sweet wheat and pale malts, clove and banana aromatics, and the zesty tang of wheat beer yeast.

Market Garden Prosperity Wheat Beer has an alcohol content of 6% by volume. My bottle has a freshest by date of 9/13/16, but I drank it on January 1^st. A bottle conditioned wheat beer, it showed no signs of age at all.

Market Garden Prosperity Wheat Beer pours to a brilliant golden color with a light short lived fizzy head and a tart wheaty nose, before you decant the yeast. Taking a sip, the beer was tart wheaty up front with light hints of clove and banana. After swirling and rousing the yeast I poured all that back into my glass, and the liquid turned a cloudy whitish yellow and the clove and banana notes became much more pronounced. The beer was very tasty both ways to be sure, but mit hefe this is really a top notch hefeweizen that would be right at home in Bavaria.  

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