Highly Hopping a Wheat Beer -- Do It?

[elpenoso]

I love this offends some people.
I think to maintain a refreshing beer you should concentrate the hop additions toward the end. Bitterness and hot days dont mix well.

 

[unionrdr]

My thoughts as well. I want the flavor of the hops. Not the bitterness so much. I just thought a wheat IPA would create a new category.

 

[thegerm]

Yes, do it. Style is great if you're entering a comp or exploring the traditional history of beer. I love the schneider/brooklyn collaboration beer. Make what tastes good to you. And then send me some

 

[timmb76]

I made an American wheat with 5# 2 row 5 # wheat and .25# honey malt. Hopped to around 40 IBU's with centennial and cascade, and dry hopped with 2 oz. of cascade. I used wyeast American wheat. It's been in the keg for 2 weeks, and I love the aroma and flavor. I say go for it.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

As people above have mentioned, there are a few of American styles of wheat beers that are highly hopped. In addition to hopfenweisse, gratzer is a fairly hoppy beer (for wheats, at least) but fermented with neutral yeast so there's not a lot of interplay with yeast flavor and hops. I did make a wheat wine using a dunkelweizen base and lots of Saaz for flavor/aroma and 3068 as the yeast. (Then I added oak in it.) I hopped to about 45IBU. It is hoppy for sure but it doesn't clash with the yeast flavors.

I would probably stick with using either Saaz or something citrusy like styrian when using a weiss strain for a hoppy beer.

 

[scottland]

I've got an India Wheat Ale on my short list to brew. I'm planning on fermenting with WLP007, OG around 1.066-1.068, IBUs around 50, and a TON of late hops.

 

[mustangracer]

My friend's microbrewery makes a REALLY good one. He calls it Wheat Freak. Here is a link if you wanna see.

http://2ndshiftbrewing.com/Items.html

 

[Kult0007]

How about making a Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin clone? There's almost 50% wheat in that beer. And if you home toast some of the wheat (which I highly recommend) you may help distract from any objectionable flavors in your wheat. Here's a link to a HBT forum post that has a Little Sumpin Sumpin recipe that was discussed on a Can You Brew It episode.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/little-sumpin-sumpin-ale-149836/index3.html
I brewed the recipe that's about halfway down the third page an I really enjoyed it! I wish you lots of success with your wheat, sounds like a fun experiment.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

I have brewed several hoppy wheat beers (wheat IPA's if you will) and they have all turned out great. In fact, I have found myself hitting the wheat IPA taps more than my centennial IPA tap lately. I have made several versions with a variety of different hops. In my experience so far with this style, the more citrus flavored hops work very well. I use a lot of Amarillo (ala GumballHead), Citra, and Cascades with this style. I totally agree with earlier posts that later hop additions and dry hopping lend to a much more balanced, refreshing beer. I love very hoppy, and bitter American IPA's (70+ IBUs), because the fuller body and malt profile balance well. On the other hand, I have found that getting too carried away with early hop additions and driving up the IBUs on wheat beers does not lend as well to the style. I find that enough hops to hover around 40 to 50 IBUs is plenty with this style....for me it's the hop aromatics and flavoring I'm after with a wheat IPA, not the bitterness. Regardless it's one of my favorite styles. My 2 cents.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

I've got an India Wheat Ale on my short list to brew. I'm planning on fermenting with WLP007, OG around 1.066-1.068, IBUs around 50, and a TON of late hops.

Sounds Great! What hops are you using for the late additions? I'm brewing another batch this weekend, as my Citra/Cascade Wheat is about to kick and I'll have a free keg very soon. I'm always looking to try something new. Let me know when you get a chance! Enjoy your India Wheat, trust me, it will turn out great.

 

[scottland]

Sounds Great! What hops are you using for the late additions? I'm brewing another batch this weekend, as my Citra/Cascade Wheat is about to kick and I'll have a free keg very soon. I'm always looking to try something new. Let me know when you get a chance! Enjoy your India Wheat, trust me, it will turn out great.

Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra.

1oz Citra @15
1oz Amarillo@10
1oz Simcoe@5
1oz Amarillo@0

 

[koaps]

I got this in a secondary right now:

http://hopville.com/recipe/681825/specialty-beer-recipes/buzzed-wheat

Tasted it during the racking and it was really good, hopefully it will keep that good flavor once bottled, it's been a little hot lately, had to use a wet t-shirt on it.

Beer Calc has it at about 89IBU and I'm still debating about dry hoping it, might pull a gallon, dry hop it, then blend it back in for bottling if it comes out ok.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Amarillo, Simcoe and Citra.

1oz Citra @15
1oz Amarillo@10
1oz Simcoe@5
1oz Amarillo@0

Great combination!!!! Did you use any hops for bittering early in the boil or all late additions. Any dry hopping?

PS....how did your 90 min. DFH IPA turn out? I'm considering it for my next IPA. Is it the recipe from Sam's Extreme Brewing Book or is it an all grain recipe?

Good luck with your 120 minute when you get around to it. Cheers.

 

[scottland]

Did you use any hops for bittering early in the boil or all late additions. Any dry hopping?

I haven't brewed it yet, but ya, I was planning on a 1oz addition of Amarillo @60, and dry hopping with Amarillo & Simcoe or Amarillo and Citra.

how did your 90 min. DFH IPA turn out? I'm considering it for my next IPA. Is it the recipe from Sam's Extreme Brewing Book or is it an all grain recipe?

It turned out incredible. I took a couple creative liberties(drier and hoppier), but it's spot on other than the changes I wanted to make. The popular all grain recipe for 90 minute is pretty spot on. PM me if you want the recipe(s), I don't want to clutter up this thread too much

 

[Justibone]

The gumballhead clone in my signature was SWMBO's favorite homebrew *ever*.

'Nuff said.

 

[MuddyMo]

Boulevard Brewing has a Hoppy Wheat test brew they have been making available to target audiences.

Description: "Falconer's Flight dry-hopped Unfiltered Wheat - 5.2%; sessionable wheat beer with an herbal & citrus hop character"

I tried it at a craft brew festival last week. The way the citrus hops meld with the tartness of the wheat makes it a completely different and very enjoyable brew.

 

[Justibone]

Description: "Falconer's Flight dry-hopped Unfiltered Wheat - 5.2%; sessionable wheat beer with an herbal & citrus hop character"

A "session" is anywhere from 6 to 8 beers. Six beers at 5% alcohol is equivalent to 3.6 oz alcohol (6 * 12 * .05 = 3.6). That's equivalent to six 1.5 oz shots of straight vodka (3.6 / (1.5 * .4). I don't know what kind of alcoholics are in St. Louis, but calling a 5% beer "sessionable" seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Seems 3.5% would work out a bit better. (Equivalent to about 4 shots.)

 

[Dgonza9]

There are a few commercial examples out there (like Southern Tier's 422 Pale Wheat Ale). The banana/clove flavors can be kept in check by using a lower fermentation temperature and a cleaner non-Hefe yeast strain. I just made a heavily hopped wheat ale and it turned out great, very tasty. I didn't use a whole lot of wheat though because it was an experimental batch and it only had about 1/3 of the grain bill dedicated to wheat.

I think Three Floyd's Gumballhead is another example of this style. Delicious!