I love unfiltered beers.

When met with multiple beer choices, I will almost always choose a nice unfiltered, wheat beer over anything else, so I was psyched to try Samuel Adams Dunkelweizen. The Dunkelweizen is part of the Harvest Collection 12-pack that’s in stores right now.

I’ve never had a dunkelweisen-style beer before and wasn’t sure what to expect.

The beer promises a “wide spectrum of flavors and aromas from clove to tropical fruit.”

The nose was right on. It smelled tropical and delicious.

Unfortunately for me, the good part ended there.

As I said, I’ve never had a dunkelweizen beer before so maybe this is how they typically taste but most of the descriptions I found online promised a spicier beer than what I tasted. I was promised complexity, cloves and carmalized malts. What I found was a very smokey flavor with an aftertaste of artificial banana. Not a good combination. I can deal with one or the other but not both.

Would I still buy the Harvest Collection? Yes, but I’ll stick to the Irish Red or OctoberFest next time.