The Brooklyn Brewery is pleased to announce the brewing of its second collaboration with the G. Schneider & Son brewery of Kelheim, Germany, brewers of the world-famous Schneider Weisse wheat beer. Brewmaster Hans-Peter Drexler of Schneider visited The Brooklyn Brewery on Wednesday, July 18th to brew Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse.

This exciting new beer will be a strong pale weissbock at 8% ABV, robustly bittered and then heavily dry-hopped with Mr. Drexler’’s favorite American hop varieties. It will be fermented using the Schneider Weissbier strain of yeast. FYI: Dry-hopping is a British technique that many American craft brewers use to impart fresh hop aroma to beers such as India Pale Ales (IPAs).

Nine weeks ago, The Brooklyn Brewery’’s brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, visited the Schneider brewery in Germany to brew Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse, the first half of this ground-breaking collaboration. This was essentially the same beer, but heavily dry-hopped with the Hallertauer Saphir variety of hop, grown in the fields near Kelheim. “”Essentially, “I brewed a beer in Germany to celebrate Schneider’’s hop terroir, and now Hans-Peter is brewing a beer in Brooklyn to celebrate our hop terroir,” said Oliver.

This project is the Schneider brewery’’s first collaboration in its 400-year history, so it’s a pretty big deal! This collaboration grew out of the ten-year friendship between brewmasters Oliver and Drexler. Oliver had long admired the flavor and balance of Schneider’’s wheat beers and Drexler had fallen in love with exuberant American hop aromatics on his several previous visits to The Brooklyn Brewery.

The Schneider brewery brews only wheat beers, which are normally lightly hopped. When they decided to collaborate on these beers, both brewmasters immediately decided that the beers should be a celebration of hops.

Both beers will be deep hazy gold with orange highlights, intense floral and citrus hop aromatics, snappy hop bitterness, and sweet fruit flavors imparted by the special yeast strain.

The difference in the dry-hopping will deliver a different hop character to each of the beers. Says Drexler, “”We did this collaboration in order to learn some things and to create some nice new beers, maybe even a new beer style. And, more importantly, to have fun.””

Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse will be part of The Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster’s Reserve Series, and will be released on draft in mid-August. The bottle-conditioned Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse has been available since July 16th.

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