a few wheat beer questions

heres a few questions that I wanted to ask about wheat beer.

1. What gives german weisse beer that slightly sour taste that differs from american wheats? I like this flavor and want to reproduce it in a homebrew. Right now I'm drinking a Moosbacher Schwarze Weisse and really like that flavor.

2. Whats the difference between Hefeweizen, Weisse, dunkelweisse, and dunkelweizen? I think dunkel means dark, but what malts are used to make the beer dark and what flavors is it supposed to add.

thanks for any info.

 

also if anyone has a good information source i could read to further my knowledge on german wheat styles i would appreiciate it

 

Here http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/im-confused-about-wheat-styles-163813/ I asked nearly the same question a couple weeks ago

 

Yeast...wheat beer is all about the yeast!

 

1- wheat malt definitely has a specific flavor. German Weiss beers tend to have higher percentages of wheat (at least 50% or more) than American styles. Like KCMO said, make sure you use yeast labeled Hefeweizen or weizen yeast. It has unique esters and phenols characteristic to that style.

2. Hefeweizen and weiss are interchangable terms. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure traditinoal Dunkelweizens just replace the Pils malt with Munich or Vienna.

For more info, see the BJCP style guides

 

German Wheat Beers of the AHA Classic Styles series is touted in the new Brewing With Wheat as a reference standard even for some German Brewmasters on how to produce with wheat.

I have both and am reading the latter now. From what I have read so far, unmalted wheat has a lot to do with said twang.

 

Not to be disagreeable and picky, but that's not what I have always heard/thought. Weizen or Weiss refers to a whole class of wheat beers, not just hefeweizen.

"Hefe" is German for "yeast." "Weizen" is German for "wheat." So, hefeweizen is wheat beer plus the yeast (aka unfiltered.) The prefix is added to indicate that the beer is bottled conditioned and has sediment.

There's also Kristalweizen, or "crystal" wheat beer that is, well, crystal clear and filtered. The yeast and some of the proteins in the beer are removed, giving the final product a crystal clear look in a glass. It's also sometimes called Kristall Weiss.

Additionally, there's also dunkelweizen, weizenbock, and weizenstarkbier, etc. etc.

 

Trouble is wheat is an ingredient not a style in itself. And many of the "wheat beers" actually have a higher proportion of Barley than wheat.

 

ForRealBeer - look at the BJCP guide. It lists what would be referred to as "hefeweizen" as Weizen/Weissbier. Krystal is kind of like a sub-sub category.

 

Another point not mentioned/explained yet is Weizen is "wheat" and Weiss means "white". This is attributed to the color of the malt and subsequent beer.

Not sure I've ever seen a "Dunkelweiss" (having lived in Germany for 9 years), but I've had plenty of dunkelweizens.

 

true, brain fart there on my part.