Beer of the Week: El Hefe

Brace yourselves. When I first got into craft beer it was [gasp]…the last-nineties! And was it ever a different scene! Gather around ol’ grandpa and let me tell you all about it. First off, there weren’t tons of breweries with built-in tasting rooms (or to be more accurate, production facilities with designated corners that would get cleared away at the end of the day to make room for rollaway kegerators). Back then, the majority of microbrew operations were brewpubs; restaurants with on-site breweries and the ability to brew all sorts of beers without the burden of considering mass distribution to retail accounts. Styles hailing from every corner of the Old World (i.e., Europe) and running the color gamut from straw-gold to onyx were available. Oftentimes there were IPAs, but usually only one, and they were typically of the lower-alcohol, maltier, earthier English variety. And we liked it, dammit! OK, before I go full old-man-yelling-at-clouds I’ll get back to the point I was looking to make. Back then, beer lists were made up of wildly different styles than one encounters nowadays. One thing people were all about back then were wheat beers, particularly hefeweizens. With pillowy carbonation, big aromas and flavors of banana, clove and citrus, and a more viscous mouthfeel, they were a departure from the standard American rendition of “beer.” While these Bavarian-born wheat ales can still be found around the U.S., in Southern California, they’ve become largely forgotten. There’s no widely accepted reason for this, but my theory is that the 2010s popularity of macro-beer companies’ takes on Belgian witbiers (wheat ales called “wits” for short) – Blue Moon and Shock Top – left hefeweizens in the dust. Couple that with the fact that IPAs and low-alcohol lagers now make up the vast majority of all craft beer produced on a local level, and there’s little perceived need for a non-hoppy ale, even if it is delicious and a proven crowd-pleaser. Enter this week’s featured beer, El Hefe. The newest beer from Sorrento Valley’s New English Brewing is a traditional hefeweizen that’s silky on the palate with enduring carbonation, notes of underripe banana and an earthy spice character. It’s a welcomed return of a style I’ve missed for some time. El Hefe will remind those who forgot about this lovely style of what been missing form their lives, and hopefully educate those who’ve never tried a hefeweizen about the deliciousness that can be experienced when one opens themselves up to something different.

We brewed El Hefe for all the customers who’ve been requesting a wheat beer ‒ and for those who didn’t ask for one, but will be super stoked at the first sip. El Hefe is the beer you didn’t know you wanted, but quickly becomes your go-to. However, this is not our first foray into wheat beers. Years ago, we brewed a tasting room favorite called ‘Why Not Wheat?’ It had a good run until other beer styles crowded it out and we moved on. The good news is that, sometimes, if you’re lucky, great beer styles become popular again. So why not give El Hefe a go!” Simon Lacey, Owner & Head Brewer, New English Brewing.

New English Brewing is located 11545 Sorrento Valley Road in Sorrento Valley.