Jumping back in where angels fear to tread, Don Russell, who writes the Joe Sixpack column every Friday in the Philadelphia Daily News and the Beer Radar blog, just posted an interview with Fred Kline, a medal-winning Pennsylvania homebrewer. Why, he asked, do American brewers have such a tough time with hefeweizens? Part of his answer pretty well summarizes why I don’t like Widmer Hefeweizen very much:
The Germans let the yeast be powerful giving big banana and clove while staying balanced. They’re just the experts at the right fermentation temp, yeast strain and pitching rate etc. to get the most. I bottle mine right after the primary is done to capture the most fresh might of the yeast.
3. Maybe a lot of our breweries still possess a mentality that because a Hefeweizen is considered a light, refreshing summer type of beer, they error on the lighter side of the spectrum to hit a broader market. The Germans have been drinking good beer a couple of centuries long than us. Their palates expect bold, complex grain bills. READ THE REST OF THE POST…