Hopped American Wheat

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mdbassoon

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I've been looking for a wheat beer with more hops. Most of the hoppy "wheat" beers I find are really light on body, I think, to emphasize the hops. I wanted, however, to make a more traditional tasting hefeweizen but with a lot more hops. I haven't been able to try Gumballhead since I live on the West Coast. I decided to use Tettnanger because they go so well with Hefeweizens and Amarillo because they would compliment the Tettnanger while kicking up the IBU's. This is the first recipe I've made up and I don't have the facilities for all-grain so it's extract. The reason I'm calling it an American Wheat is because of the yeast, which is supposed to be cleaner than traditional Hefeweizen yeasts.

Specialty Grains (@ 155 F for 30 min):
8 oz Crystal 15
8 oz Carapils

Malt:
3 lbs Briess Bavarian Wheat DME
3 lbs Briess Bavarian Wheat DME (late addition @ 10 min)

Hops (pellets):
2 oz Tettnanger @ 60 min
.5 oz Amarillo @ 30 min
.5 oz Amarillo @ 10 min

Yeast:
White Labs WLP 320

Brewed 3 gallons and filled up to 5 in the fermenter.

Primary Fermenter for 10 days. Bottle Carb for 3 weeks.

Its been in the bottles a week now and tastes really good (in my opinion). It tastes like a traditional Hefe, but more bitter and hoppy. It's got more banana and clove than I anticipated, but I think that will drop out over the next few weeks. I might try dry hopping next time to get more of the nose feel from the hops as it's not as citrusy (yet) as I thought it would be. Again, this is my first recipe and I've only been brewing for about a year now, so any critiques or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

On a side note, I've noticed that people have been calling these types of beers Wheat IPA's, but that seems like a misnomer to me. Indian Pale Ale is a traditional name for that style, which this is definitely not. I think it should be called Hopped Wheat or Hopped Hefeweizen. I've also tried the Shneider Weiss Hopfen Weissen, but that just tastes like olives to me for some reason.

EDIT:
Just realized I posted this in the wrong place I posted this in the Wheat Beer Recipes section here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/hopped-american-wheat-452121/#post5801666
 
What I consider and I think what most folks mean by a wheat IPA is a beer that falls in the specs of an IPA and late hopped like an IPA, but brewed with a significant proportion of wheat. Your recipe looks more like a regular American wheat to me based on the gravity and hop schedule, just toward the high end of IBU. To make it a wheat IPA I would add another lb or two of extract and load up on the late hops plus dry hop.

I don't tend to get a lot of citrus with amarillo by itself either, I find it more mango fruity on it's own. Next run you might want to combine it with some cascade or centennial. Nelson is nice too in wheat/rye beers IMO. If you want a clean yeast I would suggest considering wyeast 1010. Both 1010 and WL320 are supposedly Widner's, but I've heard that 320 has more of a tendency toward light banana/clove which I have never experienced with 1010. Or maybe you just fermented too warm? Other option of course would be a chico strain.
 
Thanks for the input will definitely try a cleaner or more citrusy yeast next time. As far as the style, I guess I'm not going for a wheat IPA then. I was thinking of it as a hefe but hopped like an IPA, not an IPA with more wheat. I'm going for a more traditional Hefe just loaded up on hops. This attempt tastes good right now and was pretty close to my original concept as far as the body and the amount of bitterness, but will try to emphasize the citrus flavors over the banana flavors next time (although the mango and banana flavors taste pretty good together now that I've identified it). Also its hard not to ferment warm here, but those flavors usually drop out after a couple weeks so I'm not too worried.
 

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