American Wheat Vs. Hefewiezen Taste

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IncredibleMulk

IncredibleMulk

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I'm brewing an American Wheat this week to enjoy in July and while I have consumed many American Wheat beers and Hefewiezens in my time, when asked what the difference between the two was, I had a hard time answering. I've Googled and read several articles, however most of them tend to focus on the differences between the Hefes and the Witbiers. So I wanted to ask the question here:

What are the (general) taste differences between an American Wheat and a Hefewiezen?

Thanks!
 
American style will be much cleaner, lighter and clearer. Most of the flavor profile of the hefeweizen comes the yeast. The banana/clove flavors wont be present in the American style. The weizens will have little hop, and use german malts while the American wheats will use american malts and little more hops which will also affect the flavor.

Just grab a UFO or something along those lines, and then try a Weihenstephan or Paulaner wheat and it'll be real obvious.

They truly are different styles of beers. I hate it when people say they don't like wheat beers, based on only tasting American wheat beers.
 
doctorRobert said:
I hate it when people say they don't like wheat beers, based on only tasting American wheat beers.
Click to expand...
Ha. I would have said just the opposite. I think the banana / clove in the german version can turn some people off to wheat beers. The wheat mistakenly gets a bad wrap for the flavor produced by the German yeast. At its best, an American wheat is a lot like an APA with the added complexity of wheat graininess. Keeping the gravity and bitterness on the high end can produce a really nice beer. The trouble is that a lot of brew pubs and small breweries use a watered down version of this style to appease American lager drinkers. Don’t fall into that trap.
 
AnOldUR said:
Ha. I would have said just the opposite. I think the banana / clove in the german version can turn some people off to wheat beers. The wheat mistakenly gets a bad wrap for the flavor produced by the German yeast. At its best, an American wheat is a lot like an APA with the added complexity of wheat graininess. Keeping the gravity and bitterness on the high end can produce a really nice beer. The trouble is that a lot of brew pubs and small breweries use a watered down version of this style to appease American lager drinkers. Don’t fall into that trap.
Click to expand...

Given the abundance of American style wheats, I think it would be pretty rare for an American to try a bavarian style wheat and to write off wheat beers than the other way around. Most beer stores near me usually only have American wheats. I'd assume if somebody ventured off to buy a hefeweizen, they'd probably know a thing or two about beer understand the differences between that and the american style. Also the pour is very important, and easy to screw up and not get the true flavor profile of the beer.
 

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