Wheat beers for summer

O.K. When the thermometer topped 110 I'd say we could say that the summer is officially here now. In the summer months our sales of wheat beer shoot up substantially because it is such a wonderfully thirst quenching beverage. Wheat beers typically fall into three different main catagories. American Wheat, Belgium Wit Beers and German Wheat beers which are predominately known as hefe-weizens.

Whereas the secret to the Belgian Wit beer resides in its grains and the addition of coriander and bitter orange peel, the key ingredient in the German wheat beer is its yeast, which is typically still present in the bottle and contributes both a slight haziness and multiple vitamins to the beer. The Bavarian yeast in question is a curious creature which, in addition to the expected alcohol and carbon dioxide produced in any fermentation, gives the beer aroma and flavor qualities which can be variously described as clovey, banana-like or shades-of-Bazooka-Joe bubblegum. A lot of people assume it is the wheat that gives the beer these flavors but it is the yeast. The recent popularity of the style has been such that certain New World brewers have even taken to calling any wheat beer they produce a hefeweizen or weissbier, both names that designate the German style. But if it doesn't have that characteristic yeast and its refreshing flavors it's just another light-tasting ale that really should be called an American Wheat.
Of the more traditional Bavarian Wheat beers, the prototype of all German Wheat beers belongs to Weihenstephan which just won a gold medal in the International beer competition in London. Weihenstephan not only produces the beer that defines the style they sell their yeast to over half of the breweries throughout the world that make the style. The yeast itself is very delicate and the difference of only 4 degrees can make the difference between the beer tasting either balanced or predominately clove like or like a banana. Myself, I prefer more banana than clove but it is a personal taste preference. To see the differences try a Weihenstephan then try some of the other Bavarian Hefe's such as from Hacker Pschoor or Erdinger.
Every summer since we opened Belgium style Wit beers have been popular and this year the prototype of Belgium Wit beers became available to us with the arrival of the famed Hoegaarden White that Pierre Celis re-introduced to the world after the style had basically died out. It is a great quench thirsting beverage.
While the taste of these beers can be surprising or even off-putting to beer drinkers raised on a steady diet of macrobrewed swill, many North American and international brewers have discovered that once acclimated to the different flavors and aromas of white beers and hefeweizens, the public reacts very positively to them. Bert Grant's as an example has created their own hybrid which is their Mandarin Orange Hefeweizen that is a year round favorite of Papago customers.
So relish the newly-ready availability of domestic and imported versions of wheat beers and look forward to quenching your thirst with them all summer long. For a real treat try some of the other wheat beers now available here like Japan's Hitachino Nest wheat beer of Ibaraki's Kiuchi Brewery or the Berliner Kindl Weiss that you can add Raspberry or Woodruff syrup to.
Prost, Ron