Not long ago, Weyerbacher beers finally made it Georgia. This was a very happy day for me, as I’m a big fan of their products, having enjoyed them many a time in my travels through Pennsylvania. I was particularly excited to see their Slam Dunkel Double Dunkelweizen on store shelves here, however, since that was particularly intriguing. Not only was it a beer I’d never had the pleasure of tasting, it was also an interesting variation on a classic style: dunkelweizen. Dunkelweizen, or dark wheat ale, is a German beer and a variation upon the more familiar hefeweizen.

Classic dunkelweizens hover around the 5% alcohol level by volume; Slam Dunkel is almost half again as strong at 7%. It’s what the brewery calls a double dunkelweizen, a bigger and badder version of the the style. Of course, “Imperial This” and “Double That” seems to be all the range among American craft brewers these days, but this one actually works.

Pouring my bottle of Weyerbacher Slam Dunkel Double Dunkelweizen into a tall Bavarian styled wheat beer glass, the first thing that I notice is the dark reddish muddy color of this brew. While many dunkelweizens normally have a similar appearance, this one is even darker and dirtier looking than most of them, which when you think about it really should not surprise. This is a double dunkel, after all.

Wheat beers are generally very well carbonated, too, and this one is no exception. A thick, towering head of rocky cauliflower like foam forms after I pour about a third of the bottle in the glass, and I have to pause to allow the beer to settle some. Eventually, I’m down to just a bit of liquid left to decant, so I tilt slightly and peer into the bottle. Yes! The bottom is coated with a thick sludge, which is actually yeast. But don’t worry, it won’t hurt you, and in reality is good for you. But only if you drink it, so I swirl the remaining liquid to rouse it and pour it into my glass.

My beer now looks kind of like a lopsided parfait, with a layer of disorderly looking suds sitting atop what looks to be a glass of mud. Before I sip my beer, I like to smell it, which really you should do whenever you’re drinking a good one. Good food, after all, can smell as good as it tastes, and beer is no different. The spicy clove and banana aromas here make me want to dive in immediately.

And I do. Actually, I was fearful this might be just another weizenbock, but I see upon sipping that that is not at all the case. Slam Dunkel definitely retains the character of a dunkelweizen, full as it is of delicious spicy clove, fruity banana, and bubble gum. The dark malts provide some chocolate notes, and the beer finishes dry and tart from the wheat and a dash of hops.

Weyerbacher claims they use more than 50% wheat malts accented by Munich, pale and chocolate barley malts. But to make this a bigger beer they have to use more of all of them, and to a degree I think that allows the barley malts to overpower the wheat malts a bit, at least more so than they would in a normal strength example of the style. You’ll notice this in the slightly heavier and creamier body.

But that doesn’t detract from this beer at all, and I recommend it most highly. At about $4 for a bomber bottle (I paid $3.79), it’s a pretty darned good deal, too.

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