April 30, 2009

Real Time

Trying out Summer of Beer's homebrewed Belgian wit

Notes: Nice nose, fresh bright lemony-ness, a touch tart in taste, excellent body not too watery, exceedingly sessionable and fun. Nice work Steve!

His notes: all-grain, no extract

OG 1.060
FG 1.014
6% ABV

Belgian Pilsner grain, flaked unmalted wheat, flaked oats

Hallertauer hops .75oz ~ 16 IBU

Naval orange zest 0.5oz
Lemon zest .25oz
Coriander 0.4 oz all added last five minutes of boil

Fermented at 66-68F bottled after 10 days in primary fermentor, bottle conditioned

4 comments:

Steve said...

couple comments here- first is you dirtied the beer by putting it in front of a Neuter Dame player.

second- glad you liked it, hope you weren't just being nice. I encourage and relish any criticism because that's what makes for better beer in the future. I thought the body on the beer was actually a little higher than it should be, I accidentally put the whole 1lb of oats I had instead of 0.5lb, and I think the mouthfeel came out a bit more slick because of that.

Thanks for trying it out!

BeerGuy said...

No I liked it, I mean it was different from any wit I've ever tried, had a (very) mild Berlinerweisse aspect to it, just something tart about it but I liked that, I think you got it right balancing that out with a sturdier body instead of something more watery. I'd actually even maybe make it a bit more goopy but that's just my tastes.

The lemony-ness was fun, it wasn't over the top but obviously present, again a different taste from the standard stuff, I found I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't go any more tart than you've made it, but it was right at a level where it was palatable and noticeable and fun.

Steve said...

Interesting. I don't really get any tartness out of it, though I know people tend to describe the flavor that comes from a large percentage of wheat as "tart," though I've heard multiple professional brewers and craft beer authorities say it's completely bogus to call that flavor "tart"....

but anyway, I wonder if what you're perceiving is the flavor combination from the Belgian yeast (the wit strain is in a class of it's own IMO) in combination with the wheat? I'd tend to think it might be due to the lemon zest but there really wasn't much in there and I can't detect any lemon in the beer personally.

Strange thing though our palates.

Steve said...

just had another bottle yesterday, totally picked up on that lemony thing, and I think I got the coriander for the first time ever.