The Brew Guru tastes New Glarus Crack'd Wheat, or, All hail alchemy

The Brew Guru has long told anyone who would listen that his stomping grounds is home to the best beer in the world. And while his credentials may not quite match such a sweeping assertion, Wisconsin’s brewers keep coming up with ways to make him more right with every new beer they bottle. Most impressive is the creativity and improvisation central to so many of these brews. Not only do these alchemists perfect the classic styles developed in the old world, they so aggressively tweak, push and bend them that they’re really creating new styles. The brewery that serves up today’s beer is at the forefront of that refinement and innovation. There’s no question a Swiss enclave in southern Wisconsin is home to The Brew Guru’s favorite beers.

This week’s brew: Crack’d Wheat

Style: Hefeweizen, technically and probably.

Brewed by: New Glarus Brewing Co., New Glarus.

Availability: Initially billed as a new addition to New Glarus’ year-round lineup, New Glarus' website now describes it as an April-to-July seasonal. It's a tier below Spotted Cow or Fat Squirrel on the easy-to-find scale, so your best bet is “finer” liquor stores. In Wisconsin.

What it’s like: Think two parts Hacker-Pschorr’s benchmark hefeweizen and one part a benchmark from our side of the pond: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

In the glass: Crack’d Wheat is a cloudy, yellowish-brown pour that’s sweetly aromatic – the familiar wheat notes of banana, clove and cinnamon are there. There’s also a little citrus nose to it, a character that explodes on the tongue thanks to dry-hopping with the lemony, orangey Amarillo hop. New Glarus brewmaster Daniel Carey bills Crack’d as “an international marriage” of a hefeweizen and an American pale ale, and it works as well as a couple celebrating its 60th anniversary. The pale ale husband does the heavy lifting on the front of the palate and the wheat wife carries the gentler characteristics: a delicate aroma and smooth, yeasty aftertaste. That smoothness and an alcohol content (5.95 percent) less than that of many hefeweizens make it easy to crack a few Crack’ds.

Backwash: You know how a hefeweizen is often garnished with a big lemon wedge? The Brew Guru doesn’t know if that unfortunate trend was the inspiration for this beer, but in hindsight it’s a beer that has been begging to be made. Take a potent, citrusy hop like Amarillo, dunk it in the beer during the brewing and dispense with the annoying (and overpowering) citrus wedges. Duh!

Bonus news you can use: The Brew Guru has recommended the New Glarus brewery tour before, and with the Careys' recently completed $20 million expansion, it’s even better now. It's a gleaming, fully functional temple to the art of making beer. Tours are available every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

3½ mugs (out of four)

The Brew Guru tastes Leinie's Summer Shandy, or, Half beer but not half bad

Imagine you are a German innkeeper in the 1920s, the early days of the Weimar Republic. It’s a weekend, and business is steady. Then, around the bend come thousands of touring cyclists, thirsty and and in need of refreshment. Without anywhere near the beer to serve all of them, what’s a body to do? Improvise! Dilute the beer with lemonade, say you created a refreshing new drink just for the occasion, name it after the guests (a radler, German for “cyclist”) and rake in the cash. It’s the legendary – and informative – origin of a cousin of this week’s brew, new from our friends on the other end of Highway 29.

This week’s brew: Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy

Style: Shandy, a mixture of wheat-based lager and lemonade, although the packaging here is clear that the mixture is “lemonade flavor.”

Brewed by: Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co.

Availability: One of four prominently placed seasonals from Leinie’s, the brewery says you’ll find it anywhere Leinie’s is sold. Sales began April 1.

In the glass: By definition, this is a compromised beer. The question, before a taste (or even a sniff), is how much it is diluted. Some ABV math tells us that Summer Shandy is about 85 percent beer (It’s 4.2 percent alcohol by volume, which is 85 percent of the 4.9 percent of Leinie’s other wheat beers.) The senses, however, tell The Brew Guru the beer ratio it could be even lower. The body is paper-thin, the aroma benign and the taste ... what taste? There’s virtually no malt to speak of, and even the lemonade (flavor) lacks the tartness or sweetness that could punch up the brew. It’s a surprising turn from the brewery that last year brought us the breakfast-cereal-style fruit freight train of Sunset Wheat.

Backwash: So Summer Shandy doen’t taste, smell or feel like much, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This style is what it is, and it’s not made to please beer purists. It’s made for cyclists. For beer-league softball players coming in after a long inning in the outfield. For a fisherwoman getting skunked and sunburned on the bay. And, from the view of the Leinie’s brass, for the large, mostly young market for non-beer beverages in beer-type bottles, like Mike’s Hard Lemonade. For all of these people, the light body and mild taste is not a problem but an asset, which means Leinie’s could have another hit on its hands.

2 mugs (out of four)