Wheatwine vs Imperial Wheat Ale... What is the difference?
Hello CBR, how you doin?
I live in Seattle now. I think the last time I posted on these boards I was living in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana and complaining that I couldn't get decent beers. So, anyway, I've landed in beer country and have been doing my best to take full advantage of everything beer-related around here.
These last 9 months have been a blast for me, now that I live somewhere that I can dive into local places like Rogue, Hale's, Maritime, Diamond Knot, Redhook, Elysian, Big Time, and the two Taphouses to get awesome beers (and I'm on the lookout for more if you know of any). I've been going to the local beer fests, which have been a blast... But enough about all that, I have a question to ask. I'm not understanding wheatwine.
I've been homebrewing for years and I'm pretty sure I've got the understanding of barleywine down. In that I mean, I understand the brewing, long fermentation, flavor, aging, what makes it different, etc... But wheatwine? There's not much info out there on this. Is it as simple as taking what I know about barleywine and substituting wheat malt?
Locally I've had Big Time's Old Sol Wheatwine, and Pyramid's Imperial Hefeweizen. I've had to approach both of these blindly. Am I to consider these as the same style? Or is there a clear defined mark when an Imperial stops being such and then becomes Wheatwine? I figured someone here could help.
And by the way, what are the style guidelines for wheatwine? Are there any? I checked the BJCP site, but admit I may have missed them when glancing through.
Thanks,
Dave
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Wheatwine
Wheatwines are massive beers, essentially follow a big barleywine recipe and substitute 50% of your base malt with wheat. Yeast is clean and able to achieve high ABV levels. Hops should be big enough to support the big sweetness. Think big American wheat.
Pyramid's Imp. Hefe uses a low flocculating yeast strain and shows off some banana/clove character - but has a whole lot more alcohol. Hops in these are much more subdued. Think big Bavarian wheat.