Live Oak Dunkelweizen 5.3% ABV
Dunkelweizen
Live Oak Brewery (Austin, TX)

I just finished a two-week long, 3,000-mile+, 10-state roadtrip with my wife and three kids (age four and under). My in-laws had generously offered the kids a sleepover the day of our return. My wife and I found ourselves alone and hungry. We went to our local supermarket, which has a cafe with craft beer on tap, and ordered something for dinner.

I looked at the tap list and saw something new. Live Oak Dunkelweizen? I hadn’t heard of this, though Live Oak is one of my favorite Austin breweries. I ordered one despite my wife’s inability to drink and it was an excellent decision.

A dunkelweizen is a dark wheat ale and so could be called a dark version of a hefeweizen.

I consider Live Oak’s Hefeweizen the best hefe I’ve had in my limited experience—in the dozen or so others I’ve had, none are quite as crisp and solid as Live Oak’s, so I was cautious with this beer. I didn’t want to hype it up as being an amazing beer before having a drink.

The smell of it was beautiful. It smelled like a fine wheat beer. The first sip… wow. Live Oak’s Dunk is incredibly smooth and malty. It is easy to drink—in a very good way, not in the cliche way that I’ve said “easy to drink” when referring to beers like Bud Light or Peroni or Corona when I need to say something good and that’s the only thing to say. No, this beer is easy to drink in the exactly right way.

My only regret with this beer is that it is too new to be available too many places (yet). Live Oak’s “signature” Big Bark or their Hefe are relatively easy to find in the local area. My hope is that the Dunkelweizen is made more available than their Oaktoberfest, another amazingly great beer by this brewery.

Live Oak is generally available in fine establishments in the Austin area as well as others along the I-35 corridor (San Antonio, San Marcos, DFW).