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Beer Styles - Other Wheats

Styles & Seasonals June 23, 2005      
Written by Oakes


Richmond, CANADA -

American Wheat:

Wheat has been used in beer for millennia. However, a stretch of decades occurred without a wheat beer in North America. Anchor Brewing changed this in 1983 when it introduced its Wheat. Rather than using the traditional Weihenstephan or other Bavarian yeast, and rather than spicing the beer in the Belgian style, this beer was unspiced and made with a clean yeast. Over the years, many other examples of this have emerged over the years. Some of these are cloudy, some are clear. They are brewed with a multitude of yeasts, just not Bavarian ones. The style can be brewed anywhere, and has been brewed in several countries, including Germany. (The wheats at the altbier houses in Düsseldorf are in the style, and the yeast from Zum Uerige has gone on to produce one of the most famous American Wheats, Widmer Hefeweizen). The name American Wheat can refer to pretty much any wheat beer that doesn’t fit the more traditional styles.

American wheats are golden and of session strength. Their character is light, and usually has some wheat flavour though acidity is less common than in German hefeweizens. Hop character is usually low but not necessarily - it is not inconceivable to have a hoppy American wheat, though it shouldn’t be bitter. Character is sweet or neutral and while it could be tart, usually isn’t. Body is light.

Most popular examples: Samuel Adams Summer Ale (USA), Bell’s Oberon (USA), Widmer Hefeweizen (USA), Sierra Nevada Wheat (USA), Pyramid Hefeweizen (USA)

Some of my favourites: O’Hanlon’s Wheat Beer (England), Rogue Half-E-Weizen (USA), North Coast Blue Star (USA), Maritime Pacific Clipper Gold (USA), Widmer Hefeweizen (USA)

Colour: 0.5 – 1.75
Flavour: 0 – 3
Sweetness: 2.5 – 4

Belgian White

The concept of spiced wheat beers is not a new one, and at the turn of the 20th century, there were still some local styles in this family on the European continent. As the events of the 20th century – WWI, WWII, the rise of industrial brewing – lead to the decline of regional beer and breweries, white ales were among the hardest hit. The local style in Hoegaarden, Belgium disappeared in 1956. In 1966, Pierre Celis, in one of the most well-worn stories in modern beer lore, revived the style at his De Kluis brewery.
The style, which had a generation before fallen out of favour, began to become popular again. The purchase of Hoegaarden by future global powerhouse Interbrew and the plethora of other witbiers to hit the market has firmly restored this style to the beer world’s pantheon.

Belgian White, or Witbier, is a cloudy wheat beer that is spiced with coriander seed and dried orange peel. Other spices will occasionally be used, such as grains of paradise, but this is the standard form It is a session style of moderate strength. As is typical of wheat beers, hop bitterness is slow, but with the spices this probably doesn’t have to be the case. Hop flavour and aroma, provided by the likes of Saaz or Styrians, will be noticeable but subtle. Yeast character should impart an estery character, but not nearly to the intensity as that found in German wheat beers. The overall character is sweet, but with a hint of acidity from the wheat.

At one point, Hoegaarden-style white beer was a specific type. However, with all the other variants now disappeared, there is room for the style to stretch out a little, and make itself at home. From time to time, examples have appeared that are variously too strong, too sour, too hoppy or too dark to be a strictly Hoegaardenish interpretation but which fit the looser modern definition of a coriander and orange-spiced wheat brewed without a German yeast.

Most popular examples: Hoegaarden White (Belgium), Blue Moon Belgian White (USA, Blanche de Chambly (Canada), Allagash White (USA), Wieckse Witte (Netherlands)

Some of my favourites: Brugs Tarwebier (Belgium), Hitachino Nest White (Japan), Victory Whirlwind Witbier (USA), BFM la Salamandre (Switzerland), Blanche de Brooklyn (USA)

Colour: 0 – 1
Flavour: 1 – 3.5
Sweetness: 2.5 – 4.25

Berliner Weisse

Once a very popular style in Berlin, now relegated to two main brands, plus whatever sporadic product emerges from North American microbrewers, much of which is only vaguely authentic.

Berliner weisse is a very low-gravity, extremely sour wheat beer. It is hardly hopped at all, and deliberately soured to achieve maximum tartness. Traditionally, the beer is then cut with raspberry or woodruff syrup, though aficionados take it neat. Even so, several of the existing examples are pre-mixed versions of the style.

The body is light, the flavour sour, wheaty, and at its best very complex. However, it is not a lambicy, funky complexity, but a clean acidity with underlying herbal, citrusy and celery notes.

Most popular examples: Berliner Kindl Weisse (Germany), Schultheiss Berliner Weisse (Germany)

Some of my favourites: Schultheiss Berliner Weisse (Germany), Berliner Kindl Weisse (Germany), Dieu du Ciel Solstice d’Été aux Framboises (Canada), Baron Berliner Weisse (USA)

Colour: 0 – 0.75
Flavour: 3.25 – 4.5
Sweetness: 0 – 0.5

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