Gordon Biersch – World Premier of Weizenbock

“To the best of my knowledge, we are the first brewery in the U.S. to brew a Weizeneisbock. The flavor of this beer is enormously rich with dark roasted malt attributes counterbalanced by hints of citrus, banana and clove produced naturally by the unique yeast strain,” said Dan. “It pairs extremely well with charcuterie, especially smoked and cured meats such as prosciutto San Danielle and Bresaola.”

Weizeneisbock’s historical roots began as a mistake-turned-masterpiece: it was the result of a lazy brewer at the Kulmbach Brewery in Germany who accidentally left kegs of bock outside during the coldest days of winter. The cold temperature froze the water out of the beer, thus concentrating and intensifying the flavor and alcohol content. Most German bock beers top out at 7-8% alcohol by volume, whereas this beer hits 10%. The bock beer that was produced in Kulmbach was a traditional dark bock, as opposed to this one-of-a-kind Weizeneisbock.

Today, Dan Gordon and his team apply modern German brewing engineering techniques to recreate the historical process. At Gordon Biersch Brewing Company’s state-of-the-art facility in San Jose, water molecules are frozen out of the beer during the aging process, thus concentrating the alcohol and flavor of the resulting bock beer. Naturally carbonated and unfiltered, Weizeneisbock is 10% ABV and 30 IBU. Never compromising authenticity, both the specialty malted wheat and malted barley were imported from the Weyerman Mältzerei in Bamberg Germany, and hops were sourced from the Hallertau and Tettnang regions of Bavaria. Dan’s dedication and expertise in craft brewing began with five years of Brewing Engineering at the Technical University of Munich at Weihenstephan. He was the only American to graduate from the program in 40 years and continues to source his malt and hops from former classmates in Germany.