DUNKELWEIZEN
AKA:
Dunkelhefeweizen, Dunkelkristallweizen, Dark Wheat Ale
Pronunciation guide for English-speakers:
"doonn-kel vite-sen" (pronounce the "oo" short as in "foot")
Definition:
Dunkelweizen is the dark version of the regular golden-yellow Weissbier or Weizenbier (more commonly called Hefeweizen in North America), the spritzy, creamy Bavarian wheat beer with pronounced clove, vanilla, banana, apple, bubblegum, and sometimes nutmeg flavors. Dunkel means dark in German (as opposed to weiss, which means white) and Weizen means wheat. Like a Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen is made from a mixed mash of wheat and barley malts, but unlike a Weissbier, it also contains a large array of lightly to thoroughly caramelized or roasted malts that give it both its color and its complexity. A Dunkelweizen, therefore, has all the characteristic and differentiated flavors of a sophisticated wheat ale, overlaid with chocolatey to roasted flavors. Dunkelweizen is a very complex beer style with endless variations on the same theme. There are dozens of brands of Dunkelweizen in Bavaria, each with its own, very individual, flavor orientation, and several brands, inlcuding Schneider Aventinus and Erdinger (depicted) are exported to the United States. For more on German wheat beer brewing, see Weissbier.
