Hefe Weizen

Tasting Notes

Hefe weizen is the beer of choice in Bavaria. Some weizens are bottle-conditioned and contain some yeast sediment; accordingly, they are labeled as "mit hefe" ("with yeast") or as "hefe weizen." These beers are pale-to-golden colored, light- to medium-bodied, and highly effervescent, with a slight maltiness. Typical of hefe weizen is its phenolic taste and aroma. It is most commonly described as clove-like, which is particularly noticeable because weizens are traditionally hopped very lightly.

Ingredients

Typically, the malt grist consists of at least 50% wheat malt and a smaller amount of malted barley. Pale malts help achieve a light color, but many brewers use a proportion of dark or caramel malts to increase flavor and body.

Brewing Techniques

Following maturation, the beer is filtered before bottling, at which time wort, kraeusen, or priming sugar, as well as more flocculent lager yeast, are added for natural bottle conditioning. The bottles are subjected to a warm phase (4-7 days) to ensure secondary fermentation starts, and are then lagered for about 4 weeks at 5 to 8ºC. The carbon dioxide content is usually 3.1 to 5.1 percent by volume.

The information on this page was provided by beer-brewing.com (http://www.beer-brewing.com).