Widmer's hefeweizens are a monument to how far American brewing has come

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Hefeweizens are a great beer style with a thin margin of error. With a heavy wheat content, even a slight imbalance can leave the whole pint tasting stale. Or it can wind up tasting like nothing.

Hence, you arrive at one of the most likely beers (non-Corona division) to wind up with a slice of fruit garnishing the rim of your glass. At best, your hefe should be bubbly with enough light, bready malt to let you know what you're drinking and some cloves and maybe even some summery banana notes to wrap the whole thing in a nice bow. At worst, you wind up with a beer that tastes like it was wrung from a saturated bar rag.

Widmer has been walking this tightrope for decades now. The Portland, Oregon-based brewer is in its 41st year of operation. Its flagship hefeweizen has been around nearly as long. So will it be a relic of when microbreweries didn't have to go too far to outshine a watered-down menu of boring macro-brewed lagers? Or does it hold up even as the beer world evolves around it?

Apricot Hefe: B-

It pours a pleasant, orange-hinged copper. The head is fluffy and dense, slowly dissipating over the course of a couple minutes. It smells light; a little wheat, a little unspecific citrus, a little bit of malt.

That lightness carries through to the first sip. It's pushed forward on a current of bubbles before the fruit and malt kick in. The apricot is front and center, but not overpowering. It's sweet before giving away to a mildly sour grain finish.

That leaves each sip a bit dry, but that sour fruit aftertaste lingers. That's a bit harsh; it's more of a slightly tart finish. Still, if you were to distill this beer down to one thing it'd be the ending.

It's not bad, but that "sour bouquet, if you will" -- our houseguest Stan's words, not mine -- takes it down a notch. Otherwise, it's an easy drinking beer you'll be able to finish no problem. It could use a better fruit than apricot, but I appreciate the hustle for a less-appreciated fruit.

Imperial Hefe: B-

I'm always a little concerned when lighter beers get the imperial treatment. Blue Point's imperial blonde is a good example -- an interesting concept that never quite works out the way you want. I'm not sure I want my light summer beer to get the double IPA treatment.

This pours with less of a head than the apricot, though it's possible I got better at pouring beers between steps here. It smells heavier than your typical hefe -- a little bit of wheat and a little citrus and a little warm booze.

It's got some spice to it. While it seems heavier than other hefeweizens it's not demonstrably boozy. It's got more malt behind it than I'd expect, but I like malty beers so that is not a problem. You get a decent chunk of lemon and orange and a little clove mixing with that malt in a way that kinda evens everything out.

It's slightly dense, which is expected but also takes away the "easy to drink" benefit of most hefes. That gives you a little time to focus on the back end, where the clove and a little bit of banana comes out. It's nice. Not something I'd want to drink a ton of but, hey, eight percent ABV, so that's a feature not a bug.

Widberry Hefe: B

This pours a lovely... lavender? Purple? This is where my colorblindness is a curse. That and flight school, I suppose. But the head is fluffy and lacy and the whole thing looks great.

That gives way to a heavy raspberry smell off the top. It holds all the promise of a Lindemann's Framboise, only with nearly twice the booze. But the can says it's a "blackberry wheat" so maybe I'm also berry blind as well. I swear, that's raspberry.

Still, blackberry is a great booze flavor. And it meshes well with the wheat, and while the tart malt we tasted in the apricot hefe kicks in to leave behind a lingering aftertaste, it's a better journey getting there. It borders on too sweet and won't be for everyone. But it's got more replay value for me than the other two and is easier to drink.

It doesn't always feel like beer. That's gonna be a problem some places and an advantage others.

American Hefeweizen: B-

This pours fluffier than any of the others. That turns lacey as it deflates, leaving behind a beer that smells like wheat and, if you dig deep enough, a little bit of clove and some sweetness.

The sour finish here is greatly diminished compared to the flavored hefes. It's light and a little sweet, though you don't get that rich banana clove flavor you get from a well done hefeweizen. This is a beer calling out for a lemon wedge, which is fine but not an especially good sign.

It's very light. That makes it easy to drink and difficult to savor. But I want it to have a little more flavor beside wheat, a little malt and a little citrus. It's sorta boring. You can do worse than boring, but you can do a lot better, too.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Widmer's Hefeweizens over a cold can of Hamm’s?

There's nothing wrong with Widmer's wheat beers. But there's nothing for which I'd go out of my way . I might roll with a Widberry as a change of pace, but Hamm's is gonna be my pick most days.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Widmer's hefeweizens are a monument to how far American brewing has come