Break out the tall glass
After several more laid back brews, here’s a beer with some nose to it. As soon the beer get near my face it’s clear this is a weizen with all the spicy banana aromas that entails. The same flavors come through the strongest. To me the banana notes are clearest and the clove notes are more secondarily – conveniently, my preference in a wheat. There’s no trace of hops although they’re definitely in there somewhere since it’s not overly sweet. I think it looks great in a glass but the malt is fairly subdued. There’s a little bit of bread or biscuit to it but nothing in the way of caramel or roastiness. This would be an excellent choice to disabuse people of the notion that dark is distinct beer flavor.
Appropriately, 5.75# of wheat malt makes up over half the grain bill. Two and half pounds of contributes the dunkel. The grain is rounded out with 1.5# of pilsner, 6 oz of special B, 5 oz of caramel 40, and 2 oz of Carafa II. A simple 0.87 oz of Hallertauer at 60 minutes cuts the sweetness. We seem to use a whole lot of Hallertauer. Perhaps it’s nobler than its siblings. We used a normal mash without a protein rest or anything else special to account for all the wheat but did extend the boil to 90 minutes. The OG clocked in at an under target but acceptable 1.046 and fermentation finished at 1.015. I believe this is the third time we’ve used White Labs Hefeweizen yeast (#300) for beers where yeast is a player in flavor instead of just a processor and I’ve been pleased with the results every time.