SomeGood Wheat Beer: Observation – 5/25/07
This beer still needs some aging. Because I had to use all of my hops to bitter this beer, it has absolutly no hop aroma or flavor. Another first for me. The only thing that comes through in the aroma is a a bit of maltyness. The malty flavor is substainally reaffermed in the flavor of this beer. It is very different. I attribute most apparent maltyness to the use of Maris Otter; but it could also be out of balance. This puppy only has a BU:GU of around .30 ( I didn’t quite hit my target).
The mouthfeel of this beer is unusual. It is pretty thick on the tounge like one would expect with all that wheat and the 1 lbs of dextrine malt. The beer seems to mask the carboonation a little bit. Even after carbonating to just over 2 volumes, this beer still feels a little flat. Maybe that effect is commong for heavy mouth-feel beers?
For as much protien in this beer, I also expected it to be a little easier to produce a nice, thick head. I have to pour from the tap directly to the bottom of the glass to get it churned up. With my American Ale, also on tap, I can pour down the side of the glass till half full and then tip straight up fill the rest to generate a good head.
At this point, I don’t think that I would recommend brewing this recipe exactly as written. The mouthfeel is too thick. I would suggest that one of the following things be changed: use some more bittering hops ( pick one with more alpha acid) , swapping some basic 2-row for the Maris Otter–Idon’t normally think of malty wheat beers, or drop the dextrine malt.
I bet this one will benifit from aging. I will give it a couple of more weeks to see if it improves a bit.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Do you bottle? The reason that I ask is that I have had good luck with DME for priming. On BA there were a lot of complaints about priming with DME in bottles, people saying that it was inconsistent, but I keg and I have been very pleased with the head that I am getting since I stared to use the DME.
I didn’t bottle this one but the mouthfeel finally came around. It has cleaned up quite a bit in the last few weeks; the mouthfeel has improved. I can only guess that the carbonation was not right last time.