Tag Archives: Wit

Tasting Impressions: Summer Wit

I kegged and bottled our Summer Wit around two weeks ago, so today I thought it was time to try a bottle. This was one of our stranger experiments, as the basic wheat beer malt bill, was hopped with large amounts of galaxy, spiced with lemongrass, lime peel and Szechuan pepper, and fermented with WLP566 Saison II yeast. We had some huge problems with fermentation temperature, as first it dropped to around 16 degrees C after 24 hours, when we forgot to turn on the heater, and after that it rose to around 32 degrees C, as the sensor probe had at some point fallen from the fermenter to the cooler concrete floor (thermostat set at 24C). Hopefully this is drinkable at all. We were aiming for a refreshing and easy-to-drink beer for the summer. Let’s see how it does!

summer_wit

The color is pale yellow, and almost has a grey taint. The beer is hazy, as the style calls for. A firm white head is formed, that stays on top of the beer for a while, leaving nice drapes of lacing along the glass as it falls. Overall, the appearance is pretty spot-on for the style. Really inviting a warm summer evening as this. The aroma is really fruity, featuring a blend of yeast-derived esters and lemon-like tones, which I believe are from the lemongrass. The lime peel, and why not even the Szechuan pepper, could also be contributing to the citrus aroma. The aroma features some spicyness as well (more of the phenolic kind), which the yeast has brought with it. An interesting and quite refreshing aroma, but it somehow feels a bit off (the lemon tones and yeast products makes me think of the traditional Finnish sima). While the aroma was dominated mostly by the fruity tones, the flavor instead begins with more spicy notes, combined with a honey-like maltiness. The fruity tones become more evident as the beer lingers in the mouth, lending lemon, grapefruit and even some slight resiny hoppiness. The finish is surprisingly sweet, even though this finished with quite a low FG. Perhaps a result of the Saison yeast. The bitterness level feels quite low, even though the calculated IBUs were around 40. Pleasantly surprised about the flavor, mostly because the fermentation temperature rose to whooping 32 degrees C during peak fermentation. The body is light and the beer has a medium carbonation level. Despite the light body, it doesn’t feel thin and it still leaves a slightly sweet impression. Nothing spectacular, but should be a nice thirst-quencher for the summer.

Homebrew: Summer Wit

Yesterday we brewed up a 28L batch of a witbier/saison/pale ale hybrid. The brewday did not go smoothly at all, and we had a ton of problems with the mash (too low temperature, poor flow rate through the bed, and poor efficiency). I think most mash problems were a result of us using raw wheat. A cereal mash might have helped? The beer will most likely ferment very dry, since our mash temperature was really low for most of the mash (60-62 C). We couldn’t recirculate (and thus raise the temperature) throughout most of the mash because of poor flow through the malt bed. We also must have measured the sparge volume wrong, since we ended up with closer to 40 litres pre-boil volume, instead of the intended 30 liters. This resulted in us gaining 7 liters more wort in the fermenter, and a gravity of 1.046 instead of around 1.060-1.065. The problems did not end there, as we cooled the wort to around 23C, pitched a healthy starter of WLP566 Saison II, and set the vessel in the fermenting cabinet with the thermostat set to 24C. The next day I realized the heater was not on, and the wort temperature had dropped to 16C. I turned on the heater, and hopefully something drinkable will at least come out of this batch. The spice mixture (Szechuan pepper, lime peel and lemongrass) was smelling really nice and ‘refreshing’ at least. Hopefully it transfers well to the beer! We hopped the beer with Galaxy in ‘APA amounts’, so this should get a healthy amount of bitterness (~40 IBU) and some nice hop aromas to go with the spicyness from the yeast and the citrus from the spice mixture. Anyways, here is the recipe:

[beerxml recipe=http://beer.suregork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/summer_wit.xml metric=true cache=-1]

Mikkeller Not Just Another Wit

  • Brewery: Mikkeller
  • Country: Denmark
  • Style: (Imperial) Witbier
  • ABV: 7.6%
  • Size: 750 ml
  • Bought from: Alko, 10.99€
  • Beer Advocate
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    This is Mikkeller’s attempt at a ‘more extreme’ witbier, with more hops and spices than usual. This is brewed at De Proef Brouwerij (Belgium), is hopped with Goldings, Amarillo, Saaz and Cascade, and spiced with coriander and orange peel.

    [easyreview title=”Mikkeller Not Just Another Wit” cat1title=”Appearance” cat1detail=”The beer has a yellow-golden color, and is hazy. The beer has a slight white colored head, that leaves some traces of lacing along the glass.” cat1rating=”3.5″ cat2title=”Smell” cat2detail=”The beer’s aroma is dominated by spicy belgian-style yeast and citrus (orange and grapefruits) tones.” cat2rating=”3.5″ cat3title=”Taste” cat3detail=”The flavour begins with some light sweetness, and is then joined by the spicy tones already encountered in the aroma. There are hints of coriander, cloves, orange, lemon and grapefruit. The taste ends with a slight bitter aftertaste, a quite dry finish and a tiny presence of alcohol. An interesting witbier, but nothing very overwhelming.” cat3rating=”3.5″ cat4title=”Mouthfeel” cat4detail=”The beer is smooth, with a medium-light body and moderate carbonation level. The drinkability is good, and the beer is quite well balanced.” cat4rating=”4″ summary=”A better-than-average witbier, with some nice strong flavours. I find the beer a bit too expensive to really recommend it, but it is worth a taste. A refreshing beer to have in the warm weather. I didn’t find the ‘extra’ hoppiness too dominant, but there are definitely hop tones present.”]