Widmer Brothers' Hefeweisen was the first large scale, commercially produced Hefeweisen I tried. It was on tap, in a restaurant in California, though the Widmer Brothers brewery is in Oregon. I like it. I liked it quite a bit, both with and without the wedge of lemon, though I confess to liking it better with lemon. It's a light amber gold, and clearly a Hefe. As is the tradition with Hefeweizen, it's unfiltered, and made with both wheat and malted barley—the malts are Pale, Munich, Wheat, and Caramel 40L. The hops used are Willamette and Cascade, for the aroma, and Alchemy for bittering. This is an emininently drinkable beer; I confess to drinking large quantities at that same restaurant with a variety of food, but especially, with pizza. It's a low enough ABV beer at 4.9 that it definitely qualifies as a good session beer, and it's quite tasty. I'm not alone in liking it, either; Widmer's Hefeweizen has pretty much taken over the market for bottled Hefe, and with some reason; it's won a number of gold medals, including the 1998 and 2006 GABF Gold Medal Award Winner and the 2004 and 2008 Gold Medal Beer Cup.

I'd had this particular Hefeweizen several times on tap—six or seven, at least, before I spotted a six pack at the grocery store. To my surprise, even with a slice of lemon, and poured in a glass, the beer, while still quite good, was also quite different from the same beer on tap. I tried a few other six packs, over time, and I've since come to the conclusion that I'm not imagining it. This beer at least is profoundly different on tap and in the bottle. I still like it on tap and in the bottle, but I suspect that because it's a traditional unfiltered Hefeweizen, when I pour the last third of the gently swirled beer (to collect the yeast and sediment) from the bottle into my glass, I'm getting a bit more of the yeast than I am when it's straight from the tap. I'm guessing here, but that's the first possibility that occurs to me. I know beer on tap is, and should be, slightly different than the same beer in bottle, but in this case, it's profoundly different. My experience with this Hefeweisen has inspired me to try others, and to try, when I can, comparing the bottled beer to the same beer on tap.