Explication Wheat Ale

My home state of Mississippi has just one micro brewery in the whole state. They are a brave lot and do well with what they have to work with, meaning a very bier illiterate state. Perhaps bier culture or lack there of is a subject for another blog entry, but for now on to the subject of this entry. Lazy Magnolia is the name of the brewery and my favorite bier they produced was a Krystalweizen named Blue Heron. I used the past tense because it is a now discontinued product, lost in the streamlining of their offering a few years back. Again reference the lack of bier culture in MS as the culprit of many of Lazy Magnolia's more flavorful offerings were among those discontinued.

What's a bier lover to do when one of your favorite brews is no longer available? Make it yourself of course! My attempt at cloning this fine krystalweizen, currently ranked as the 2nd best krystalweizen in the world on Ratebeer.com, was set in motion on a visit to the brewery last fall. I asked and the brewer gladly shared what yeast they used to ferment the bier. Blue Heron is best discribed as a maltier more banana forward version of a fresh Paulaners, only filtered for clarity.

The recipe is as follows, yes it's this simple!
6 lb 11 oz Marris Otter Pale Malt
4 lb Wheat Malt
4 oz Aromatic Malt.

.6 oz. Tradition @ 60 mins
.2 oz. Tradition @ 5 mins

Mash at 130 degrees farenheit for 30 minutes.
Raise the mash to 152-153 for 30 minutes.

I had an original gravity of 1.056 (I believe)
Make sure to include extra fining agents in the boil and or secondary and make plans to lager the bier to aid in clarity.
Voila almost instant krystalweizen.

The bier is still bottle conditioning so I don't have a final verdict, but the early returns are pretty good. Did I mention you let this bier ferment at it's own pace. The brewer said they let it go as high as 80-85, YIKES! My fermentation was at ambient temps and reached as high as 80-81 degrees briefly. My first impressions are that I've at the very least ballparked Blue Heron. Mine is certainly banana heavy but there is some nice clove and spice underpinning. Here's a video I made showing the making of the bier and a few pics of the first sample. Note the video is wrong on the amount of wheat malt, I actually used 4 lbs as in the recipe above.

This is a brief video I put together from photos of the brew day.

Final gravity was 1.011, very drinkable brew that continues to impress. Clear!!!

Another pic showing the clarity/color. It's a solid 4 srm and clear, not quite brilliant.

Of course I have to share the label with you as well. I've been wanting to do something a bit more elegant for a while and this seemed the perfect opportunity.