Weiss Blau Weiss Bavarian Hefeweizen

Story: Seeking to brew a good wheat beer with a lot of yeasty character and tired of overdesigned recipes with too many ingredients in them, I took it back to basics for a simple, hard-working Bavarian-style hefeweizen that would be interesting but appropriately simple and easy to brew. I added one artistic flourish: splitting the hops down the middle just as I did the grain.

The name is German for “white blue” and is an homage to the diamond-patterned flag of Bavaria … but was inspired by the even split in the hop bill between Hallertau Saphir (“blue”), and traditional Hallertau (“white”).

I brought this beer to a meeting of the local homebrew club, and it was a huge hit. One guy who worked at the local homebrew shop called it “the real deal”.

Style: 15A Weizen/Weissbier

Grist:

• 5.5 lbs German Pilsen malt
• 5.5 lbs White Wheat malt

Hops:

• 0.5 oz Hallertauer (4.8% AA) at 60 min
  0.5 oz Hallertauer Saphir (4.2% AA) at 60 min
  0.1 oz Hallertauer (4.8% AA) at 15 min
  0.1 oz Hallertauer Saphir (4.2% AA) at 15 min

Yeast: Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

Mash Temp: 152°F

OG: 1.052

FG: 1.012

IBU: 18.3

SRM: 4

ABV: 5.3%