bavarian weizen brewing

Extract or AG/ it's not very hard, actually. Just use a wheat extacrt and hop to about 20-25 IBU with noble hops. The key to the flavor is the yeast. I like Wyeast 3068, but just make sure you get a genuine Bavarian hef yeast. That's where the banana/clove flavor comes from.

------------>Denny

Thanks Denny for your reply. I am just getting started in this because I like this kind of beer so much and cannot find it in my area. I will look for this yeast online. Any suggestions for sites? Thanks again, Joe

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Also, if you are in Maryland you've got access to some great Bavarian Hefes - Schneider, Paulaner, Hacker Schorr - Plus many micros have got excellent examples. Isn't the Wharf Rat around there somewhere? I think I had a good hefe there one time.

_Randal

I am not as fond of Hefe Weizen as much as straight Weizen. I live in a very rural area in southern maryland and there are no micro breweries here. I was visiting Frederick the other day and found one there that does produce a weizen that was the best I have tasted since my last trip to Germany. Thanks for your help! Joe

I've never heard the definition before...what's a "straight weizen"? One without yeast in it (which is what the "hefe" refers to).

------------>Denny

This may be a dumb question - but what is straight Weizen? Filtered like a KristalWeiss or something? Or do you just mean any beer that contains a portion of wheat malt that may not be fermented with traditional 'hefeweizen' yeast therefore being more flocculent and dropping out of the beer?

_Randal

I don't know. All I do know is that this time was the first really strong flavored weizen that I have tried, other than in Germany. They did not call it Hefe, just weizen. So, I thought that was the difference. There was a beer I used to drink in Texas called Celis White that was very good. Small brewery that will not ship their beer very far. It was very tasty! Thanks for the info. Joe

Ah. Celis White is the Belgian interpetation of a wheat beer or "wit". Pierre Celis started Hoegaarden in Belgium and then moved to the states and started the Celis brewery which suffered an untimely demise at the hands of Miller. A company in Michigan has bought all the old Celis equipment and recipes and is once again producing Celis White, and I think has plans to make the Pale Bock asswell. I think Peirre Celis has moved back to Belgium and is making some sort of radical grand cru aged out in ice caves or something.

There is quite a difference in the Bavarian & Beligian "weizens". Belgian wheat beers tend to be brewed with spices such as coriander and dried orange peel, Bavarian wheats get their clovey/spicy flavors from the yeast. The "hefe" term just means "yeast" -hefeweizen is a cloudy beer with yeast still in suspension if fresh although the yeast settles out given time. Some people like to "rouse" the yeast by swirling the bottle a little and dumping it in. Count me as one of those people!

So I think you would be safe to assume that weizen = hefeweizen. There is also a filtered version called Kristalweizen which is less flavorful. Also there is an American interpetation often called "American Wheat" basically a wheat beer fermented with a regular ale yeast so you don't get all the cool funky flavors - this may have been what you got from a local micro.

_Randal