Weizenbock
Introduction
Weizenbock is a German wheat-based ale that marries Bock and Weizen styles: The rich and malty dark fruit flavours of a Bock merged with the spicy clove-like phenols and fruity banana esters of a Weizen. This strong style is low on bitterness and high on carbonation. The perfect beer for a cool fall evening.
The style has a history that dates back to the 14th century where lower alcohol Bocks were first brewed in Einbeck Germany using wheat and top fermenting ale yeast. (Eventually Bock brewing would shift to Munich in the 1600s and wheat was dropped and lager yeast was favoured, resulting in the Bock style we know today).
By the 15th century the brewing of wheat beers was controlled by the aristocratic family Degenberger, powerful nobles from Lower Bavaria. They held an exclusive monopoly on brewing wheat beer in the region, granted by Duke Wilhelm IV. Wheat beers were highly loved by aristocracy and not available to commoners. So loved in fact that when the Reinheitsgebot purity law was enacted by Duke Wilhelm IV in 1516 (only allowing the use of water, barley, and hops), wheat beers were considered exempt. Ironic, considering the purity law was introduced in part to prevent price competition with bakers for wheat and rye. Wilhelm and his royal court nobles had of course found a way to not have to do without one of their favourite beverages.
In 1602 the Degenberger family line ended without a true heir, and the rights to brew wheat beers was transferred to the ruling house of Wittelsbach (the authors of Reinheitsgebot) where it remained until 1867. With interest in wheat beers in decline, in 1872 King Ludwig II of Wittelsbach house discontinued all wheat beer brewing. That same year Georg Schneider purchased the rights to brew wheat beer from King Ludwig II, the first time "Weissbierregal" (the right to brew wheat beer) was passed to a commoner. Schneider opened his G. Schneider & Son brewery which remains open to this day, producing only top-fermented wheat beers including Weizenbock.
Our Weizenbock uses all German ingredients including a large percentage of wheat malt, various specialty malts, noble hops, and true Weizen yeast. For German malts we prefer Weyermann brand so that's what we've used here throughout. Feel free to substitute if you like. Using the right yeast however is key as it gives the beer its unique banana/clove character, just like a Weizen. Fermented warmer the taste pushes towards banana, fermented cooler and the taste leans towards clove. We ferment on the colder side and manipulate the mash schedule and pH to adjust the flavour profile to our liking (more in our Notes / Process section below).
The yeast we use is Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen yeast or White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale yeast (purported to be the same strain, but after many years of using both we tend to favour WY3068). We had high hopes for Fermentis Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast when it was first introduced as we find dry yeast convenient, and we do get excellent results with their Safale US-05 and Saflager W-34/70 strains when used correctly. No such luck with WB-06 unfortunately. To us it tastes nowhere near as good as the liquid yeast after doing a split batch comparison with our Weizen recipe. While WB-06 had some of the banana / clove character, it simply wasn't as vibrant or rich. It tasted (for lack of better words) "fake". Sort of like comparing real freshly squeezed orange juice to Tang. They both have an orange flavour, but one doesn't taste real.
The liquid yeast is quite a unique strain and requires some special care. To quote Wyeast on the usage of WY3068:
The classic and most popular German wheat beer strain used worldwide. This yeast strain produces a beautiful and delicate balance of banana esters and clove phenolics. The balance can be manipulated towards ester production through increasing the fermentation temperature, increasing the wort density, and decreasing the pitch rate. Over pitching can result in a near complete loss of banana character. Decreasing the ester level will allow a higher clove character to be perceived. Sulfur is commonly produced, but will dissipate with conditioning. This strain is very powdery and will remain in suspension for an extended amount of time following attenuation. This is true top cropping yeast and requires fermenter headspace of 33%.
Heed the warning about headspace. You'll need a lot of room in your fermenter as it develops a substantial krauzen (foam) during the first few days of fermentation. A blow-off tube is recommended as well. See our Fermenters guide for tips on this and what we do, but heads up that even our 60% headspace wasn't enough to avoid a mess (see video and pictures below).
Jamil Zainasheff gives some good advice on fermentation temperature from his Brewing Classic Styles book which we follow: Ferment at 62F. It's just below the yeast's recommended 64-75F range but it works great and produces a really clean tasting beer with a nice balance of banana / clove flavours.
Some brewers prefer to underpitch this yeast and / or under-aerate to push ester production but it's not a practice we like to use with any of our beers as it can lead to slow starts, and stalls / incomplete fermentation. Our preference is to pitch a properly sized starter of healthy yeast and control the flavour through fermentation temperature and mash schedule / pH. Mash schedule, mash pH, water profile, choice of yeast, yeast pitch rate, aeration/oxygenation level, and fermentation temperature can all be played with to change the flavour outcome. If you prefer a more flavourful Weizenbock try lowering the pitch rate and / or level of oxygen. If you prefer more banana and less clove, skip the ferulic acid rest and ferment at a warmer 68F (wort temperature).
Brew up a batch and let us know how you like it!
Weizenbock
Size: 12 US gallons (post-boil @ 68F)
Mash Efficiency: 95%
Attenuation: 78.8%
Calories: 257 kcal per 12 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.077 (style range: 1.064 - 1.090)
Final Gravity: 1.016 (style range: 1.015 - 1.022)
Colour: 18.1 SRM (style range: 6 - 25)
Alcohol: 8% ABV (style range: 6.5% - 9%)
Bitterness: 24 IBU (style range: 15 - 30)
Mash:
12.25 lb Pale (or white) wheat malt (1.5-2.4L) (42.6%)
8.75 lb Weyermann Vienna malt (3-4L) (30.4%)
2.75 lb Dark wheat malt (6.1-8L) (9.6%)
1.75 lb Melanoidin malt (23-34L) (6.1%)
2.75 lb Weyermann CaraMunich Type II malt (45.7L) (9.6%)
0.5 lb Chocolate wheat malt (375L) (1.7%)
1.4 lb Rice hulls*
Boil:
3.5 oz German Hallertau hops (4.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min [24 IBU]
1 Whirlfloc tablet (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen yeast or White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale yeast
(~847 billion cells or an equivalent starter)
*Wheat malt does not have a husk so the natural filter bed in the Mash / Lauter Tun is greatly reduced as the recipe is 50% wheat. Brewers with systems that are prone to stuck sparges should add rice hulls at a rate of about 20:1 wheat to rice hull ratio to avoid stuck sparges. We do not need to use rice hulls with our electric brewery setup. More information.
Purchasing through our affiliate links helps support our site at no extra cost to you. We thank you!
Notes / Process
- Add 500mg potassium metabisulfite to 20 gallons water to remove chlorine / chloramine (if required).
- Water treated with brewing salts to our Balanced flavour profile: Ca=50, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=70, SO4=70 (Hit minimums on Ca and Mg, keep the Cl:SO4 ratio low and equal. Do not favour flavour / maltiness or bitterness / dryness. For balanced beers.). For more information on how to adjust your water, refer to our step by step Water Adjustment guide.
- 1.5 qt/lb mash thickness.
- Start the mash at 113F and hold for 15 mins (this is a ferulic acid rest which helps promote the creation of 4-vinyl guaiacol which has clove-like phenol flavours the style is known for). This rest works best at a pH of 5.7-5.8 (relative to mash temperature) so if you add mash salts and acid you want to wait and do it after the ferulic acid rest.
- Ramp up to 131F and hold for 10 mins (high end of the protein rest range).
- Ramp up to 147F and hold for 90 mins (beta rest).
- Ramp up to 155F and hold for 30 mins (alpha rest).
- Raise to 168F mashout temperature and hold for 10 mins.
- ~90 min fly sparge with ~5.6-5.8 pH water (measured at mash temperature).
- Boil for 90 minutes, adding hops per schedule. Lid on at flameout, start chilling immediately. Some brewers choose not to add kettle finings during the boil (such as Whirlfloc) as the beer is supposed to be cloudy, but the cloudiness of this beer comes from the yeast. We still want to remove proteins, hot break material, and so forth.
- Cool the wort quickly to 62F (we use a one-pass convoluted counterflow chiller to quickly lock in hop flavour and aroma) and transfer to fermenter.
- Aerate or oxygenate the chilled wort to a level of 14 ppm dissolved oxygen. For more information refer to our Aerating / Oxygenating Wort guide.
- Pitch yeast and ferment at 62F (wort temperature). We use modified stainless fermenting buckets in wine fridges.
- Ferment until approximately 5 points from final gravity and then raise the temperature to 72F until finished. In our case we simply turn off the fermenting fridges and allow the beer to naturally rise to room temperature. Assume fermentation is done if the gravity does not change over ~3 days.
- We do not recommend using finings such as unflavoured gelatin as it helps keep as much yeast in suspension as possible.
- Package as you would normally. We rack to kegs that have first been purged with CO2 and then chill to near freezing while carbonating at the same time in a 6-keg conditioning fridge. After ~1-2 weeks at serving pressure the kegs will be carbonated and ready to serve. In a hurry? Feel free to raise the CO2 pressure temporarily to 30-40 PSI to carbonate fast over a 24 hour period, and then turn back down to serving pressure.
- Carbonate this beer to higher than normal levels, around 2.5 to 3.5 volumes of CO2.
- If you keg, you will find that over time the beer naturally clears as the protein haze and yeast settles. You may occasionally jostle or flip the keg to stir up the sediment to re-introduce a cloudy appearance if you prefer.
- While the beer is a relatively high 8% ABV, it's fairly quick to turn around given that the Weizen yeast strain does not need a lot of conditioning time. We find 3-4 weeks of conditioning just above freezing to be plenty. Try it yourself over time and decide when it's best.
For detailed brewing instructions, see our Brew Day Step by Step guide.
Enjoy!
Questions? Visit our Weizenbock forum thread.
Pictures / Videos
Interested in seeing what we're brewing right now? Follow us on Instagram for pictures and videos of our brewing activities as they happen.
