Wheat Beer

[eclipse]

I tried a wheat beer in a Berwick upon Tweed ale pub and it was AMAZING! Really inspired me to make one....anyone got any good wheat recipes?

[zgoda]

There are aplenty at hopville.com. Basically it's just wheat malt, Pilsner malt and noble hops to ~15 IBU, the key is dedicated wheat yeast like wlp300 or Wyeast 3068.

[smbenn]

Lots of people (including me!) have had great success with this one: viewtopic.php?t=38303

[Manx Guy]

Hold the phone....

What TYPE of wheat beer was it you tried?

There are a lot of 'English@ style wheats about in Spring Summer, which bear little or no resemblance to their German or Belgian cousins...

For example Summer Storm, Solopian Lemon Dream etc.

Can you remember what was the name of the wheat beer you tried?

If it was a German type weizen etc then there are plenty of recipe ideas on this forum and on the link provided earlier...

Good luck & happy brewing!


Guy

[eclipse]

I think it was an English style wheat beer, but I cant remember what it was called

[Manx Guy]

Hi!

Any idea of the brewery?
So if you are looking for an English wheat beer they are very different to German and Belgian wheats...
They don't use a wheat beer yeast and lack the banana and clove notes from the yeast.

You mentioned that you had the beer in a 'real ale pub', which is what alerted me to the fact it was likely not a weizen etc.

Which is why I interjected....

If you have no idea of the beer you tried then the following should get you close to the popular commercial 'English' Wheats (Like Lemon Dream, Summer Storm etc.):

Grist can be 70:30 Pale malt to wheat malt (not unmalted wheat like the others) to get you to about OG 1040-45 ish
Mash at 65-66C depending on whether you want dry or something with a body similar to UK bitter...
Hops use something like Mount Hood, Liberty, Cascade or Bobek to about ~25 IBU
Use Nottingham or other 'clean' well attenuating yeast.

Hope that helps!



Guy

[DaveyT]

Hello
At the Great Britih Beer Festival a few years back I had a dark wheat plum beer that blew me away, so I'm with Guy on this one.
I've just had a second crack at an English wheat ale. I did a Hop Back version that is my best beer to date which is like Guy's suugestion with Styrian whole boil hop to bitter to about 27 IBU then a lot of Saaz once the beers off the boil. The one I'm doing now uses a lot of EKG as flavour hops but Styrian again for the bitterness.
I've added coriander to great effect both times and even people who hate it like the beer. It doesn't add flavour in the say I thought it would. It's a lot more subtle.
I've also used wheat crystal which doesn't seem as toffee-like or even as dark as it's barley counter-part.
Whatever you do, have fun doing it.

David

[Barley Water]

I decided just for fun to make an American wheat beer (similar to what you guys would call a Summer Wheat beer) since we have a contest coming up in August I could enter it in. Anyway, I started flipping through the new Wheat Beer book (written by the same guy that wrote BLAM) and found a beer it might be fun to emulate. Basicly, this stuff is about a 1.050 O.G. beer with bitterness in the 37IBU range but the stuff is seriously hop bursted (and it's 100% Amarillo) and dry hopped. I think what I'll do is brew it up just before the contest so that I get maxium hop character along with the wheat (plus wheat beer doesn't keep all that well, it's much better fresh). Many American wheat beers are boring in my opinion but this stuff sounds interesting. It will however be right up against the edge from a style perspective so it may well not do all that well in a competition, we'll see I guess.

[yopper]

Barley water what yeast will you be using ?

[Barley Water]

Probably WLP01 but I could also work with a British strain and just ferment cool. What I like to do is get at least a couple of brews out of each tube of yeast, that way I don't need to grow up a starter every batch. You want a pretty clean fermentation if doing an American wheat, this stuff should be all about wheat flavor and this beer will have big time hop action (but really not all that bitter). I'm trying to get ready for a contest in late August so right now I'm doing my lagers (brewed a Vienna lager and I'll do a CAP this weekend, God willing). After that, two British ales (a special bitter and probably a northern brown) then the wheat beer just before the contest because I want it fresh.

The problem with this hobby is that there are so many styles to brew and only so much time and cool storage space. I really need to brew another batch of oud bruin to add to my solera and I also have a recipe for an imperial porter with vanilla and bourbon I'd like to try. Oh yeah and Octoberfest comes up in the fall so I want to make a couple of German lagers for that as well, God it just never ends.