Weizenbock

Regular readers will know that we recently brewed a dark Bavarian wheat beer (a dunkelweizen), which we are currently still drinking and seems to be getting thicker and bananaier (is that a word?) by the day.

This was pretty successful and we skimmed some of the wheat ale yeast off during the fermentation. It seems a bit of a shame not to use that yeast before it goes off, so we looked into what other wheat beers we could brew. The obvious choice was a Weizen/Weissbier, but this is more a lighter summer drink. The other option was a weizenbock, which combines the dark flavours of a dunkelweizen with the rich strength and body of a German bock (a strong rich malty lager from Munich).

So that’s what we’re brewing on Friday. I picked up the wheat malt that the recipe requires from a homebrew shop today that I had not been to before. Slightly bizarre experience – the lad in there obviously didn’t know what malt is made from because when I asked for wheat malt he tried to sell me spray malt (which is dried malt extract). I said “no, wheat malt”. To which he said all malt is made from wheat (sigh, I reminded him that most malt is made from barley). But eventually he realised I wanted grain, and took me into the back which turned out to be a small brewery. The brewing gods had obviously smiled on me because there sat a sack labelled “Thomas Fawcett Wheat Malt”. Five minutes later I was off down the road with two bags containing totally un-weighed wheat malt scooped directly from the Fawcett’s sack. I assume I’ve got enough, but we’ll have to see on Friday!