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The Summer Joy of Wheat - June 2000In the culinary scheme of things, one fact remains unarguable and inevitable: climate and cuisine are irrevocably intertwined. It is the great maxim of food and drink, the one rule upon which you can stake both your reputation and your appetite. It's what brings us thick, fatty sausages from countries where a body could benefit from a little extra insulation during the cold of winter, and light, spicy tapas and mezzes from regions where the summer's heat discourages big feeds. In wine-making, they even have a name for it: la terroir, the combination of climate, soil and circumstance which lies at the soul of a wine. In a rather odd twist of the rule, this same linkage has also prompted the cool climactic regions of Germany and Belgium to brew what are perhaps the ultimate in warm weather brews: wheat beers. Though it might seem strange that cooler areas rather than warmer ones are responsible for these hot weather refreshers, the logic of the situation becomes clear when you consider that summers along the 50th parallel can be as hot as winters are cold. As a Canadian, I well know that when you have to endure as many as five or six months of miserable cold each and every year, your appreciation of that summer heat rises in direct proportion to the nastiness of winter's wrath. And so it is only natural that this pair of beer-loving countries would produce the perfect beers with which to enjoy the summertime. Of the two, the Belgian wheat beer is probably slightly superior as a summer refresher. Known variously as white beer, biËre blanche or wit, it is a light-bodied and light-tasting brew flavoured with orange peel and spiced with coriander and, depending upon the brewer, sundry other spices. It is also brewed from a mix of malted barley and unmalted wheat, a trait that affords it a uniquely spicy, citrusy and paramountly quenching character. Whereas the secret to the Belgian white resides in its grains and seasonings, the key ingredient in the German wheat beer is its yeast, which is typically still present in the bottle and contributes both a slight haziness and multiple vitamins to the beer. The Bavarian yeast in question is a curious creature which, in addition to the expected alcohol and carbon dioxide produced in any fermentation, begets the beer aroma and flavour qualities which can be variously described as clovey, banana-like or shades-of-Bazooka-Joe bubblegum. The recent popularity of the style has been such that certain New World brewers have even taken to calling any wheat beer they produce a hefeweizen or weissbier, both names that designate the German style. But if it doesn't have that characteristic yeast and its attendant qualities, it's just another light-tasting ale. While the taste of either of these beers can be surprising or even off-putting to beer drinkers raised on a steady diet of big brewery lagers, many North American and international brewers have discovered that once acclimated to the different flavours and aromas of white beers and hefeweizens, the public reacts very positively to them. Unibroue of Chambly, Quebec, for example, launched the company in 1991 with the highly successful Belgian-style wheat, Blanche de Chambly. And no North American beer aficionado needs reminding that the man who rescued the white beer style from obscurity, Pierre Celis, chose Austin, Texas, as the home for his second independent brewing venture. (Although Celis' eponymous brewery has since been bought out in its entirety by Miller.) On the German side of things, Tabernash Brewing of Denver, Colorado, has received great acclaim for its Tabernash Weiss, as has Toronto's Denison's Brewing Company with it's Weizen. Even the Japanese have taken to the German style of wheat beer, led by the Hitachino Nest wheat beer of Ibaraki's Kiuchi Brewery. With the arrival in North America of the famed Hoegaarden White and the explosive popularity of the style among brewers from the United States to the Netherlands, the Belgian style appears to have taken the popularity lead in the world of beer. And while beer aficionados still hope that it is not too late for its German cousin to catch up, we relish the newly-ready availability of domestic and imported versions of both beers and look forward to quenching our thirst with them all summer long.
Feedback?We're very interested in your news, notes, comments and questions, so please feel free to contact SBWoB by clicking on the link below. Or you can add your comments when you sign up for the World of Beer Update, a mid-month e-mail newsletter that brings even more of the world of beer to your computer. Send Feedback To: beaumont@worldofbeer.com Bright Beer - Kitchen Table Tastings - Feature - Taste of the Month Copyright 1997 - 2006 © - Stephen Beaumont |