Beer Review - Primus

Live Oak Brewing Company Primus - 8% ABV

Typically when you think of a winter seasonal you think of dark, rich, sweet beers with lots of alcohol meant to keep you warm as you sit warming yourself by the fire.  Well damn it, this is Texas and frankly we don't have many cold, snowy days that would require a winter warmer.  Actually, this is the season for outdoor activity in Texas because it is the heat of the summer that keeps us inside.  The Live Oak Brewing Company in Austin has produced a winter beer that is better suited to our climate and to our tastes.

Primus (pronounced pre-moose) is classified as a weisenbock, which is a combination of a wheat beer and a bock beer.  But this beer is a bit more complicated than that... to begin with the smell is quite subtle, but you will smell what you expect from a weiss beer... bananas, cloves and yeast... then you smell the dark fruits that you would expect with the bock... and then you get a background of earth and candy.  The cloudy amber has a large creamy off-white head due to the substantial carbonation... so much cabonation in fact that it makes the beer a bit difficult to drink.  The flavor is really, really complex and surprising.  There is a strong breadiness that goes along with the grainy texture, followed by the bananas and the cloves from it's weiss bier roots.  You will appreciate the spice, the prunes, the sweet and the alcohol, but the real complexity comes from the faint sour notes hidden in the background.  This is one of the finest beers of this genre outside of Germany and is indicative of how rapidly craft brewing is improving in Texas.  Though I am not a big fan of many of Live Oak's beers you really must give this one a try.  Gentlemen, you have a winner.

Live Oak Brewing Company
3301 E 5th St # B
Austin, TX 78702-4909
http://www.liveoakbrewing.com/