{"id":5037,"date":"2014-02-07T20:20:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T02:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=5037"},"modified":"2014-03-07T16:36:11","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T22:36:11","slug":"the-session-84-hefeweizen-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/5037\/the-session-84-hefeweizen-sort-of","title":{"rendered":"The Session #84: Hefeweizen, Sort Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Session\"<\/a>I had to admit, the packaging was a little different. Hefeweizens usually showed up in, well, hefty bottles, that I normally poured into glasses as tall and curvy as a Fr\u00e4ulein\u2019s calf. But this, this was a delicate little pouch, though colorful to be sure.<\/p>\n

I also had to admit, that at four calories per each Jelly Belly Draft Beer Flavor Jelly Bean, this was going to be less filling than the usual Hefe-, even if the taste proved to be not so great. Even better: the beans were fat free, peanut free, dairy free, gluten free, even gelatin free. They were vegetarian! They were OU Kosher certified!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Jelly<\/a>What they come nowhere near is adherence to the Reinheitsgebot, not with additions of sugar, corn syrup, modified food starch, natural and artificial flavors, food dyes, beeswax, Carnauba wax and a confectioner\u2019s glaze.<\/p>\n

Still, they should know what they\u2019re doing. The original Goelitz family candy business dates back to 1869 in Belleville, Illinois. The jelly beans didn\u2019t come along until the 1960\u2019s, and the Jelly Belly beans as we know them today in 1976.<\/p>\n

\"Ronald<\/a>

Ronald Reagan jelly bean portrait<\/p><\/div>\n

When Ronald Reagan\u2019s fondness for Jelly Bellys became known in 1980 it didn\u2019t hurt sales one bit. The company shipped two and a half tons of Jelly Bellys to Reagan\u2019s 1981 inauguration.<\/p>\n

By 2001 the company officially became known as the Jelly Belly Candy Company, and had introduced over 100 different jelly bean flavors, including a few cocktails like Pi\u00f1a Colada and Mai Tai (like the Draft Beer, non-alcoholic). The company was the real-life embodiment of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans from the Harry Potter series.<\/p>\n

Actually, in 2000 the company began making Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, which included the ones you didn\u2019t want to get, flavoured like dirt, earthworms, boogers or vomit.<\/p>\n

But, I thought, if they can do vomit they ought to be able to do Hefeweizen. The creation of the Draft Beer bean is said to have taken three years. Rob Swaigen, the vice president of marketing for the company, said, \u201cAnyone who enjoys a good, cold beer will enjoy Draft Beer Jelly Belly beans for the simple fact that it tastes just as you\u2019d imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t scan well for me grammatically or in its reference to a good, cold beer. Sounded like something from a mid-20th<\/sup> century beer ad, and made me wonder if I should cool the beans in the refrigerator.<\/p>\n\"The<\/a>\"IMG_1074\"<\/a>\n

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 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\"IMG_1091\"<\/a>\"IMG_1094\"<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally I just decided it was time to rip into them, pour \u2018em out and take a gulp. But the pour, as tinkling as it was, called into question the whole \u201cDraft Beer\u201d nomenclature. No draft beer I ever had had piled up in a glass with quite such a sound.<\/p>\n

\"20140208_120404\"<\/a>

Down the hatch!<\/p><\/div>\n

I had only two .5-ounce servings, so I wasn\u2019t likely to go legless after downing the whole glass, which appropriately looked a little like beer nuts. But a close-up look shows a glistening orb that almost appears to contain a golden swirl of beer in a Weizen glass. Down the hatch:<\/p>\n

The company says it was aiming at a mildly bready aroma, an effervescent, crisp flavor with notes of wheat. Nothing about cloves or banana esters.<\/p>\n

Well, about all I\u2019ll say is this: A jelly bean it is. Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier has nothing to worry about, at least in the short run.<\/p>\n

But once there\u2019s a Jelly Belly Draft Beer IPA Flavor jelly bean, all bets are off.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Session is a monthly effort where beer writers around the interwebs respond to a topic question. This is the 84th installment, so it\u2019s been going on for quite a while. The list of responses this month can be accessed here at Oliver Gray\u2019s always entertaining Literature & Libation<\/a>. Oliver asked for alternative beer reviews, reviews that never mentioned a beer\u2019s taste, reviews that tapped into any creative impulse one cared to let loose. And he\u2019s getting them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related posts: The Session<\/a> posts<\/p>\n

\"Jelly<\/a>

Jelly Bean on a Pedestal<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had to admit, the packaging was a little different. Hefeweizens usually showed up in, well, hefty bottles, that I… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,594142,18],"tags":[975848,833,975850,975851,975852,975853,675,975854,174713,975855,1045971,975856,975846,975857,660604],"class_list":["post-5037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-the-session","category-lifestyle","tag-jelly-belly","tag-harry-potter","tag-draft-beer-flavor","tag-reinheitsgebot","tag-goelitz","tag-bertie-botts-every-flavour-beans","tag-president","tag-rob-swaigen","tag-hefeweizen","tag-weihenstephaner-hefeweissbier","tag-the-session","tag-oliver-gray","tag-jelly-beans","tag-literature-amp-libation","tag-ronald-reagan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2014\/02\/IMG_1097.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5037"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5069,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions\/5069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}