Bloody Good Hefe

"For a quart of ale is a dish for a king," William Shakespeare, 'A Winter's Tale'.

On this wonderful Talk Like Shakespeare day, it only seems fitting to offer up a new post in addition to some wisdom from the bard himself. The topic of the day is the beer made for my little sister, who is a fiend when it comes to the wheat beers of the world. This is my first wheat beer, but I really enjoyed the process behind it, starting with my research.

I dove into texts and different websites to discern the unique aspects of the wheat beer, and I came up with some interesting points. Wheat beers could be considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, styles created by mankind. In fact, a crock was found in Kulmbach (north of Nuremberg, in the southern part of Germany) dating back to 800 BC that held the remains of a black wheat beer!

I was also blown away at another link to weissebier (white beer, due to the pale appearance), this time with the Reinheitsgetbot Purity Law of 1516. At one point, the production of weissebier was controlled by the duchy of Bavaria, until the original house's lineage and the rights passed on to another. The second noble house, the Wittlesbach, made the Purity Law, but not because they necessarily wanted the beer to be of the best quality. The law required beer to  be made from water, barley, and hops (yeast was unknown, so it is considered an unwritten but acceptable ingredient), which does in fact give a more "pure" brew to enjoy. The house of Wittlesbach, however, controlled much of the barley farming in addition to the weissebier production. So, in the end, the use of the law was more to solidify their monopoly on ingredients and a highly sought after product!

Even with the advent of the lagers in the 1800s, the weissebiers of the world not only thrive, but continue to evolve. This evolution brings me to my recipe for this offering to the masses. I wanted to take a route that will be similar to the old versions, living up to the Purity Law of 1516, with my own flair on the ingredients. I have had the raspberry,cherry, and I have had other fruit variations, so I began to contemplate the possibilities. I finally arrived at a mixture of my ideas and one I really like already: blood oranges and strawberries. The use of blood oranges is something Sam from Dogfish Head, in his infinite wisdom, decided to pair with the weissebier style, and it couldn't have been more successful. I wanted to take that and run with it by adding strawberries into secondary, offering a different aroma and a hint of extra sweetness for those summer days around the corner.

Unfortunately, Coren and I were unable to acquire the fabled blood oranges as they are very seasonal (I swear we tried!). So, to compensate for that, I used cara cara navel oranges at a lower amount due to their increased sweetness, and upped the quantity of strawberries from 3 lbs to 4 lbs for balance.

The process for this boil couldn't have been easier. The grains went in, the hops were added (2 ounces of German Hallertau, so nothing difficult), and the oranges were pasteurized  for 15 min before joining the wort in the carboy. All in all, this was surprisingly easy and quick, so it maybe a beer I try again with some other local ingredients (I have a few interesting ideas floating around up there already...he he he). The decision to go with the Wyeast 3068 is something I am very happy about, because I read a lot about the strain's wonderful esters and phenols and it makes my mouth water thinking of the banana and clove aromas mingling with the oranges and strawberries.

I am very excited to get this into secondary in a few more days, on top of the strawberries that are really looking quite tasty. The turn around on this batch may make it one I decide to turn into a year-round offering, but we shall see.

This will not be a very long fermentation, considering the amount of yeast I used, and the lower gravity of this (1.061), so updates should follow shortly.

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte!

UPDATE 1: Holy crap! This guy didn't wait at all to ferment, and what a crazy krausen! I had to take a whiff, and this is certainly getting some serious orange and bready notes. The esters and phenols are already in high gear as well. The only down side to the 3068 strain is some sulfur being produced, but this goes away in secondary and conditioning. All is looking and smelling quite nice!

UPDATE 2: The strawberries have been added to the secondary after a nice long pasteurizing session on the stove. They added so much volume to the carboy that I had to grab a second one and add about 1 gal of the original recipe to it! Oh well, I will just have to suffer through 2 wonderful German wheat beers in a few weeks. Prost!