American Dark Wheat Beer?

[rhys333]

Plenty of info out there for brewing American wheat beer, but not a lot of talk about dark, malty, US versons of dunkelweizen. Anyone have success trying this? Should be a relatively simple conversion, but I'm thinking something like:

66% Wheat
30% Munich 10
4% C60
C-hops @ 15 & 0. 20 IBU
US-05

Due to the lack of hefe yeast character, I'm tempted to push this more into amber ale territory, up the C60 to 8% and maybe include 2% pale chocolate. Maybe this is straying too far and overwhelming the wheat character. Okay I'm rambling.

 

[saltymirv]

I like the idea. I'd use columbus or something spicy to cut through the caramel/maltiness. It is kind of a lowly hopped amber, and with a bunch of wheat.

Weyermann makes a malt called "Chocolate Wheat" that would be perfect for a dunkelweizen like this

 

[rhys333]

Sounds good man. I'm a fan of Columbus in wheat beer too. Just thought of another variant.. first malt bill, but remove the C60 and add 3% honey malt. Could also sub in some chocolate malt for colour.

 

[catdaddy66]

I just drank a Cascadian Dark Wheat ale I made from extract. I used cascade and centennial hops and it drinks like a dark APA. Very good brew and I will certainly make it again.

 

[rhys333]

So after a bit more searching, I guess this would fall into the American dark wheat ale category. I'm located in Canada, so I think what I'm going to do is make a dunkelweizen-inspired beer using regional ingredients. When I say "inspired" I mean similar malts but otherwise totally different. Something like this:

DARK WHEAT ALE (5 gal 1.050)
64% Local white wheat malt
32% Gambrinus Munich 10
4% Gambrinus Honey Malt
Chinook @ 60
0.5 oz Chinook & Columbus @ 10 & 0

I'll just stick with neutral US05, though it would be nice to go the full 9 yards on this and capture local wild yeast.

 

[rhys333]

Well, I ended up doing this today. I'm aware it may be a malt bomb due to all the Munich and honey malt, so I've upped the hops and mashed at 151F to hopefully strike a good balance. Went with 6 gallons of this at 1.050:

60.5% Wheat
35.5% Munich 10
4% Honey malt
0.15 oz Warrior @ 60 (bittering adjustment)
0.5 oz ea. Centennial & Chinook @ 10 & 0
US05

Here's hoping it doesn't suck.

 

[rhys333]

This turned out pretty good. Malt and honey flavors balance really well. Tasty tasty and foam for days.

View attachment 1494548314020.jpg

 

[rmiranda]

Looks and sounds good!!