What do Widmer Hefeweizen, Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat and Three Floyds Gumballhead have in common? We call them American Wheat beers. What more would you like to know about them?
I’m particularly interested in hearing for people who drink these beers as well as those seeking advice about how to brew them well. Please leave your question as a comment.
I’d love to see a history of this style: Craft brewing in the States is relatively new (late 1970s, if I recall correctly), so this style probably had very little time to develop, but it differs significantly from its parent styles. Very different flavors, different hopping techniques, grain profiles, and even different yeasts (compared to some). How did this develop? Why? What limitations were American craft brewers working in that caused the style to develop like this?
Just please don’t let anyone call an unfiltered wheat an American Hefeweizen without a weizen yeast strain. I know I’m not the only one that has that as a pet peeve.
I didn’t see a section where you are covering the basics of working with wheat. Something I have always experienced is a significant drop in efficiency when I have any beer with significant (1/4 of the grist or more) wheat malt. For example, if I’m usually getting 80% efficiency on an American Pale Ale recipe I’ll get 70% efficiency on an American Wheat.
I’ve tried several things including adjusting the residual alkalinity of my water, using rice hulls, batch and fly sparging, and milling with a finer gap but still see the problem. I’m also careful to make sure I’m using the right malt analysis from the maltster.
Dave.
From what I’ve found out, the Am. Wheat style came about as a compromise. Not a pale ale and no phenol, in order to get tap space and quick sales.
Yeast: I had heard that “any neutral ale yeast will work,” but have not had this work out. The standard American (Ballentine/Chico) strain tastes terrible in quantity. Kolsch or other cold working ale strains tend to taste better, in my experience.
Hops are not prominent, but I’ve found that grassier varieties like Spalt or Glacier work better. For a “boring” style, it took me many batches to find a recipe I liked.
I’d like to know if my anechdotal experience is reflected in commercial practice. Also, is the rumor true that some German breweries are making the style and dropping the traditional phenol version?
This might not be in the scope of your book, but I’m interested in Wheatwines. Does the wheat change how the yeast reacts (compared to all barley malt grain bills)?
Stan,
I would also like to ask the same question as Josh B.
Another thing I am interested in is how American Wheats came about. When you read the about the whole history of why certain grains were used, you catch things that refer to barley as an inferior “bread” grain, compared to wheat or rye. Is American wheat a new thing? Something that just happened to be during a more prosperous time? Has it been around forever? Is it part of the American spirit to take a traditional belgian or german wheat and then add some of the citrusy or resiny American hop varieties as an experiment? ( as you can see, I am into the history thing?)
Also – not to change the scope of your book, but since it “kinda” fits into the category – the American Rye… Is it a bastardized version of the American Wheat (and I mean bastardized in the nicest of ways – I LOVE rye beers).
Stan:
As a homebrewer and craft beer lover I have become very fond of American Wheat Beer. As a Californian I was dismayed, but impressed by the noticable difference in Brewhouse Wheats.
On query I learned that most of what I liked was Wheat Beer made with California Ale Yeast or Chico as better known to the homebrewer. I like traditional Wheat Beers and as the taste profile follows the yeast, so goes the beer.
Wheat Beer made with California Ale Yeast, having the cleaner, neutral touch can be made with different flavor profiles. This distinction allows the wheat type, malt variety and adjunct to create something unique. Just as a homebrew example I brewed what I called California Imperial Agave Wheat. This beer wound up above 9% very flavorful and not at all what you expect of a wheat beer. The Santa Barbara Brewhouse makes a very good California Wheat Beer (sit in the sun and enjoy).
Stan Thank you for your Books, you keep writing them and I for one will keep reading them.
I am still relishing the last bottles of Farmhouse Ale I made more than a year ago.
Silvy
Stan,
1. I am pretty sure the first version of this beer style was brewed by Anchor.
2. Check with Matt Brindleson (Firestone Walker) regarding making an American Wheat. I have heard him say that he thought a Kolsch yeast was the best for a homebrewer to use to make a good American Wheat.
-Lyle
I love wheat beers. I brew a Honey Wheat from a recipe that I have tweaked myself, with excellent results.
6 lbs 2 Row Rahr
6 lbs American Pale Wheat
Wyeast #1010
2 oz. Williamette 60 min
1 lb Clover Honey 45 min
1 oz Cascade 10 min
1/4 tsp Super Moss 10 min
Approx ABV 6.5%
Please look into the history of the Choc brewery in Krebs, OK. They have a long history of brewing wheat beers. The founder was an Italian immigrant who learned to brew from the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma. They were using wheat back in the 1920′s.
http://www.chocbeer.com/
Hello Stan,
I would like to see something along the lines of what Ray Daniels did with “Designing Great Beers”. He did extensive research on recipe formulation and that is helpful for the brewer who wants to stick to the style but exercise freedom over their recipe as well. However, rather than hop or grain selection, it seems more important to me as a brewer of wheat beer to select an appropriate fermentation temperature and to ask myself, what kind of character do I want to elicit from the yeast? Perhaps I am misguided here but is it not typical of Belgian brewers to pitch warm and let the temperature of the beer fluctuate naturally while many American homebrewers pitch yeast to their wheat beers at a relatively low temperature, say around 60 F, and then ferment low as well, at around 65 F. It would be interesting to compare the American take on wheat beer (which is to use more grains, more unusual ingredients, and more hop additions) alongside its European counterparts, for which the focus is more on process than heavy-handed complexity.
Hi Nate – Sorry I didn’t see this before.
You will find quite a bit about process in the book, including what temps brewers pitch at and how high they let them rise during fermentation.
One quick note, pitching low and let is rise (often into the 80sF) is more common when brewing strong Trappist/abbey type beers and saisons than it is Belgian wheats (basically wits).