Vital Statistics:
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Recipe: 5 lb wheat malt 3 lb rauch malt 1 lb Breiss midnight wheat 4 oz peated malt 5 AAU (10g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 60 10 AAU (19g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 20 20 AAU (39g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 5 Wyeast 3056 - Bavarian What Blend | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tasting Notes: Tasting notes taken 27 August 2012, 48 days after kegging. Poured from tap into a tulip. Appearance: black in color with some brown around the edges. Head poured a couple of fingers of creamy tan foam which leave a nice lace on the glass. Color is not really indicative of a normal Grätzer, but I like it: looks like a porter, but with the head of a wheat beer! (4) Smell: smoky, with a hint of roasted malt aroma. The midnight wheat malt was supposedly just going to contribute color, but there's definitely a porterlike aroma here. A light fruitines can probably be attributed to the hops. Hop aroma seems surprisingly light, considering the nearly 1.33 ounces of Citra at 5 minutes; however, they have to contend with a lot of smoke. A bit bizarre, overall, but interesting and enjoyable. (4) Taste: smoky and porterlike with a roasted malt flavor and a little bit of a dark, astringent bite. Surprisingly, there is not much in the way of that vegetal hop character which often shows up in hoppy, dark beers. I may want to look at this midnight wheat for coloring porters in the future. Bitterness is not terribly high, although there is a nice light hop fruitiness. Overall, a successful experiment! (4) Mouthfeel: medium-light body with a decent carbonation and a good creaminess. Lowish mash temperature has rendered a pretty light body here, which is fine considering its purpose as a session quaffer. (4) Drinkability: this is a highly drinkable beer to me. The smokiness is just about perfect, and keeps this beer interesting sip after sip. Bitterness is surprisingly low, especially considering its IPA-level calculated IBUs. I could quaff this all day. (4.5) Overall score: 4.05 (A-). What an interesting beer. I definitely want to make another Grätzer without the midnight wheat, to get a more authentic experience. Also, I want to try a little more characterful yeast; the 3056 is decent but it didn't seem to add a whole lot here (or, at least, what it did add was hidden by all the smoke). And, as I said above, I definitely want to employ midnight wheat in a more traditional porter; I think that would really take the edge off. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hops Table
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