Trying to clone a "hoppyweizen" I had at a brewpub

[Bosh]

At the best brewpub I've been able to find in Seoul I had a beer they made called a "hoppyweizen." Tasted like a German hefeweizen and was very gentle on the bittering hops but had a whole big mouthful of American-style citrus hop flavor and a wonderful smell. 5.5% ABV so pretty standard.

Was pretty good and SWMBO liked it. As far as I can tell with her, she really hates a prominent bittering hop bite but likes citrusy flavor hops as long as there's some sweetness to balance them out (for example she won't touch Pilsner Urquell because it's "too bitter" but loves Lost Coast Brewery's Indica IPA).

So for a clone recipe I'm thinking standard hefeweizen yeast and grain bill but I'm kind of groping around for the hops. Want lots of flavor but as few IBU's as I can get away with but not so much hop flavor that it overpowers the standard hefeweizen flavors, want a nice balance. It's hard to measure this since there isn't any kind of standard measure of flavor hop intensity AFAIK.

So use some noble hops for a 60 minute boil and then throw big handfuls of American hops in for the last 20 minutes? Is it even necessary to use bittering hops at all if I'm going to be doing heavy late additions and don't want many IBUs? What sort of hops? Thinking Willamette and Centennial hops. Or just lots of Cascade?

Want to avoid dry hopping unless absolutely necessary because I'm lazy and hops are so expensive in Korea but will do so if it's needed for the flavor.

Oh one last thing, normally I keep the beer in the primary for three weeks then bottle. Would bottling faster for this kind of beer be a good idea?

Many thanks! If this one works it might become a regular in my rotation as I need something I can share with other people but I need some hop flavor or I get bored.

 

[JKaranka]

Use noble hops for bittering and add the rest as a hop stand once the boil is off. Should work.

 

[amcclai7]

I did a hefe ipa recently that turned out well but I thought it would have been better with less bitterness. I would keep it around 20 ibus and just slam it with late boil additions. Do some research on hop stands if you don't know about them already. IMO that is the absolute best way to get loads of hop flavor into your beer. dry-hopping is great for aroma but without it, you should still get a really good beer. Mangrove Jack makes a dry Hefe yeast that is awesome!! If you want it to express the banana its known for (which I think you would want as it pairs well with the tropica/l citrus flavors of american hops), underpitch (1/2 pack per 5 gallons), don't oxygenate and ferment it warm (75F+)

 

[Bosh]

Hmmmm, OK so try keep the IBUs low, use really weak bittering hops and a whole bunch of hops right at the end. Using a mix of American hops, how many ounces approximately should do it?

And yeah, I think about 20 IBUs would be perfect for this one.

 

[FatDragon]

Don't do any bittering hops if you want a lot of hops and little bitterness. You could either focus all the hops in the 20 to 0 minute range and then immediately cool/pull the hops or do a hopstand after flameout, or I suppose even a bit of both if you want to complicate things a bit more.

As for getting hops - I live in China and have a similar situation where they're expensive (and the selection is limited, though not exactly bad). You might find that ordering a few pounds from a US/NZ vendor will cost less than buying locally while opening up a wider selection. If you can get a few people in on a group buy like I did, you can get the shipping price per pound even lower and get more varieties by splitting pounds. In the end, I probably didn't save a ton versus buying hops here in China, but I've got tons of stuff that virtually nobody else in China is using, which is pretty cool.

 

[Bosh]

Selection of hops in Korea is better than it used to be. The online place with the best selection has 19 different hops, which is pretty good. They just cost too much for me to consider doing three oz dry hops all the time and stuff. I can order some and send it to my parents' house and have them bring it over when they come to visit the grandkids this summer though...

The main problem is I've been out of the homebrewing loop for the last few years due to kids and in that time the popularity of post-boil hop additions seems to have exploded. I'm not at all clear on when you should do a hop stand vs. late additions vs. dry hopping except it seems that the later you go the more of the subtle flavors are retained (right?) and that the more extreme IPAs seem to do all of them (which sound delicious, I love hop flavor, but more beer that have hops AND something else you can taste, like say Arrogant Bastard, rather than just hops flavor dominating everything).

Will have to consider which to do with this beer. I hope I can get away with only using 2-3 oz. of hops, but will get what I need...

 

[joshesmusica]

have you thought about just taking a visit to the brewpub again and asking them for their recipe?
i've been wanting to try something like this actually. i make a damn good hoppy american wheat, but i also really like hefes. gonna have to try this for sure.
i know it's probably really hard to get, but there are some new hops out of germany that are attempting to mimic the strong aromas that you get from american and new zealand hops. will be trying hallertau blanc today in a brew, so won't be able to comment on that one for a few weeks. haven't tried any of the other two. but all three sound very interesting.
hallertau blanc
hull melon
mandarina bavaria

 

[FatDragon]

Whirlpool/hopstanding gets you a good mixture of all three hops contributions: bitterness, flavor, and aroma. It's a good alternative to, say, a 20 minute addition for flavor and light bitterness and a five or zero minute addition for aroma, though I'm not really sure how the two techniques stack up against each other - I've made good beers both ways. My impression is that late additions may be a bit more mellow whereas hopstanding is a bit more in your face, but you can go mellow or in-your-face with either method. That said, I would probably suggest late hops for a hoppy hefeweizen because you don't want it to be a total hop bomb. If you're using Cascade and Centennial in a five gallon batch (as an example so we've got some approximate AA% for calculating IBUs) and trying to keep it to three or four ounces total, maybe mix them equally and add an ounce at 20 minutes, two ounces at 0-5 minutes, and optionally an ounce of dry hop?

Dry hopping is pretty much all aroma and adds little to no flavor or bitterness. It's hard to get a lot of hops aroma without a dry hop. If aroma fades over time and can be scrubbed out by fermentation, it goes without saying that the best aroma is going to come late in or after fermentation and closer to the time you drink the beer. For that reason, the vast majority of hoppy beers are dry-hopped, but if you're looking for a moderate aroma boost, an ounce of something for 4 days to a week would be better than nothing.

 

[joshesmusica]

it's hard to separate the idea of flavor/aroma into two distinct categories.
for example in the book about hops, they talk about someone who made two beers that were exactly the same, except that one was dry hopped heavier than the other (maybe the one wasn't dry hopped at all). the one that was dry hopped was perceived by the tasters to be more bitter, even though the IBUs were exactly the same.
for a couple of experiments you can try at home, go grab something that you know to have a good flavor and aroma. then plug your nose and take a bite.
or go take a couple of hop pellets and soak them in a glass of water for a couple of days. then try to tell me that the water doesn't taste like hops.
point being, you're going to get some flavor from dry hops as well.

 

[Jonkl]

Would FWH give you the lower harshness for the bittering hops?

 

[joshesmusica]

that's what they say helps.

 

[JonM]

If it helps, a Wisconsin brewery (New Glarus) just released a hoppy hefeweizen, and it's really, really good. The label says they use a hefeweizen yeast and Amarillo hops.

 

[Bosh]

Would FWH give you the lower harshness for the bittering hops?

Read that article linked upthread and it was very interesting. But the thing is the taste from FWH got compared to pilseners and while I love the kind of bitter aftertaste a nice pilsener has my wive HATES them and won't drink anything close to one except for Kozel Black, so that made me a bit leery.

In the end I wimped out and did pitched a hefe today with just Sorachi Ace and Williamette with no bittering hops and everything quite late in the boil, by my calculations that should have an IBU of 15 which is lower than I like but want to be careful with the hops since I want to make sure SWMBO likes this one.

If this works I'll crank up the late addition hops to hit an IBU of 25 and then up and up from there until I get something I like/my wife starts to think they're too bitter.

Yeah I know that 15 IBUs isn't going to come anywhere close to a "hoppyweizen" but want to experiment with not using any bittering hops first before I start throwing in fistfuls of hops at the end of a boil. Will use some Amarillo hops next time, maybe with Centennial and Simcoe or somesuch...

 

[joshesmusica]

Read that article linked upthread and it was very interesting. But the thing is the taste from FWH got compared to pilseners and while I love the kind of bitter aftertaste a nice pilsener has my wive HATES them and won't drink anything close to one except for Kozel Black, so that made me a bit leery.

Yeah I know that 15 IBUs isn't going to come anywhere close to a "hoppyweizen" but want to experiment with not using any bittering hops first before I start throwing in fistfuls of hops at the end of a boil. Will use some Amarillo hops next time, maybe with Centennial and Simcoe or somesuch...

don't go off of what style they're comparing. if you're wanting to test something like bitterness a pilsner is a pretty good style to do so in, because you have some bitterness coming through there. so if they want to test if the fwh give a smooth bitterness vs. a biting one, that's a good style to test it in. in my opinion, if you tried this in your hoppyweizen, it will lend itself some smooth bitterness and allow the characters of the yeast and the late hops to come out. it's beer, so you still want some bitterness.

15 IBUs isn't bad, depending on what you mean with the hoppy part of your weizen.
dunkelweizen - 10-18 ibus
weizen/weissbier - 8-15 ibus
weizenbock - 15-30 ibus

so if you're going for a weizen that just has more hop aroma to complement the characteristics from the yeast, but low bitterness from the hops, i'd say you're headed in the right direction.

 

[Bosh]

don't go off of what style they're comparing. if you're wanting to test something like bitterness a pilsner is a pretty good style to do so in, because you have some bitterness coming through there. so if they want to test if the fwh give a smooth bitterness vs. a biting one, that's a good style to test it in. in my opinion, if you tried this in your hoppyweizen, it will lend itself some smooth bitterness and allow the characters of the yeast and the late hops to come out. it's beer, so you still want some bitterness.

15 IBUs isn't bad, depending on what you mean with the hoppy part of your weizen.
dunkelweizen - 10-18 ibus
weizen/weissbier - 8-15 ibus
weizenbock - 15-30 ibus

so if you're going for a weizen that just has more hop aroma to complement the characteristics from the yeast, but low bitterness from the hops, i'd say you're headed in the right direction.

Yup. Baby steps while I work off the rust of my long baby-induced brewing hiatus.

Fermentation went off very fast and seems to be mostly done already. Hard to taste much aside from yeast since the sample I tasted is so packed with yeast but will keep an eye on it.

 

[joshesmusica]

Yup. Baby steps while I work off the rust of my long baby-induced brewing hiatus.

Fermentation went off very fast and seems to be mostly done already. Hard to taste much aside from yeast since the sample I tasted is so packed with yeast but will keep an eye on it.

i'm sure this is going to taste great in the end. i like to taste things throughout the process, but just be sure not to be quick to come to any conclusions about it until you reach the final product.