Roggenbier (Rye Wheat Beer)

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MVKTR2

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Anyone familiar with this style? Being stuck in Mississippi, aka beer hell, I depend on the clandestine efforts of others and Smokey and the Bandit style beer runs to neighboring states for good/unique beer purchase. Thus I ask.... Anyone familiar with beers of this style. Particularly wondering if anyone's brewed the midwest rye wheat/Roggenbier kit. It looks very good! contents listed below;

Dry Rye Roggenbier w/Wyeast 3056

Dry Rye Roggenbier: Rye is an under utilized ingredient in the brewing world, basically made most popular in the Roggenbiers (rye beers) of Regensburg, Bavaria. Rye lends a uniquely dry and bready character to the glass, and with a weizen backdrop it goes great on a warm day when dry and crisp are in demand. Our ingredients for this recipe include: 6 lbs. Wheat liquid malt extract, 12 oz. Rye Malt, 4 oz. Wheat malt, 6 oz. Caramel 40°L, 4 oz. Flaked rye specialty grains, 2 oz. of hops, priming sugar, muslin bag, and yeast.

Thoughts?
 
I brew a Roggenbier with 50% Munich and 50% Rye malt, comes out very good! It's definitely a different sort of brew, people either love it or hate it. The flavor is similar to a dunkel weizen but more "spicy". Rye has a very strong aroma, and it can become slightly phenolic once it reaches a high percentage, but this adds to the spiciness.
If you cannot do a partial mash, you might not be able to produce an authentic rye beer, because they require about 50% rye. I'm sure it will be a great beer, just not like a real German Roggenbier.
I'd say give the recipe a try, and see if you like rye as an ingredient, then you could use more of it next time.
 
Thanks for the answers guys, I love HBT! I'm almost definately going to brew this, just trying to decide weather to do this vs hefeweizen or dunkelweizen. I'm also gonna follow this up with a Berliner Weisse. Nice tart 2-3% abv. very sour summer wheat beer. I'll be posting a question about it soon!

Any other thoughts about the kit?

Schlante,
Phillip
 
I have never tasted a rye beer, but very intrigued by the description. Last week I bottled a Belgian Strong Dark that had 30% rye in the grist - tasted great at bottling, but I am eagerly waiting for the conditioning. Go for it - keep us posted on your brew and thoughts.
 
DocThirst and I brewed a roggenbier not long ago. It's finally carbonated in the bottle and I've enjoyed a few... the final result is definitely worth all the hassle we endured with the most stuck sparge I've ever witnessed!

We used 60% rye malt and 10% wheat. If you're doing this all-grain, do yourself a favor and have a bunch of rice hulls ready because that rye basically turns to glue! I had no problems using rye for 25% of the grain bill in my recent IPA, but that was with flaked rye, not rye malt.

Many thanks must go to the brewer who brought roggenbier to share at our homebrew club meeting. I'm unaware of any commercial examples of this style and I never would have considered making one without that initial taste.
 
javedian said:
I have never tasted a rye beer, but very intrigued by the description. Last week I bottled a Belgian Strong Dark that had 30% rye in the grist - tasted great at bottling, but I am eagerly waiting for the conditioning. Go for it - keep us posted on your brew and thoughts.

Rye is a great addition to beer, I'd love to get my hands on a rye IPA. The only commercial example I've gotten my hands on is Lazy Magnolia's Amberjacque. I like the idea of rye beer so much I'm gonna brew a style of beer I've never even tasted before!

Schlante,
Phillip
 
One of my new favorite beers is the He'Brew Bittersweet Lenny's Rye Double IPA.
It's BIG (10%abv), highly hopped and full of crazy rye flavor.

I believe they have wide distribution and should be easy to track down.
 
scottthorn said:
the final result is definitely worth all the hassle we endured with the most stuck sparge I've ever witnessed!

I brewed the Roggenbier recipe from Brewing Classic Styles a week ago, and while it never completely stuck, it was by far the slowest draining mash-out and sparge I've had. I had 1lb of rice hulls in there and it still set up like a rock. Just hoping my final results are worth the 3 hours I put into mashing that sucker.:)
 
i've made a few beers with rye, they were all tasty. it has a nice spiciness to it. never made the roggenbier (but planning on it!) My Rye Stout was fantastic.
 
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