The thing is (I'm 1/2 German), every letter is pronounced in German, as opposed to French where most letters are discarded. And, vowels are pronounced differently from English. Remember that, and German is not so difficult. IMHO...
Well, as in the aforementioned Wiesn, two of those letters are combined for one sound. But yeah, no waste!
Don't look up Ingenious Brewing in Houston. They have closed, but did awful...awful things. Like peanut butter/Jelly Hefeweizen...I'm sure they did some kind of stupid barrel aged version that I didn't know about. The one time I was there, had an English Mild...that tasted so off I couldn't put it to words. It was "oak aged" meaning they used oak spires, with vanilla, chocolate...AND PEEPS. None of this was advertised on the menu, I had to ask what was up with this, and I was just...I couldn't put it into words, and still can't.
One of the most fun/goofy things I ever tried was a nitro hefeweizen. It was from Dry Dock back when Bill Eye and Ashleigh Carter (now the co-owners of Bierstadt) were the brewers. They did it as a bit of a joke, but people liked it. I definitely did. It isn't something you'd want very often, but it made for a fun gag to do once in a while. If you wanna talk about something thick and "hazy" this was it. Although (kind of like Guinness) it dropped pretty bright after a few minutes.
I do love the mini trend of can-conditioning wheat beers. This new Jack's one is, and grimm made a super frothy, almost alarmingly turgid can-conditioned weisse (and Dunkelweisse!).
I fell in love with Hefeweizens when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest about 15 years ago, been drinking them ever since. I believe the haziness and lack of clarity is largely due to the yeast. Hefeweizen ale yeast has fair amount of influence on the flavor in that style. Leaving it in imparts a little more complexity and bread/citrus flavors, and is desirable in the final product. In other words, filtering out any residual yeast would likely be somewhat detrimental depending on the desired result.
Modern can mean a lot of different things particularly when you are talking about a styles that is hundreds if not thousands of years old. Many German brewers both primary ferment and secondarily ferment(either in bottle or tank) with the same wheat yeast. There has been a transition in the past generation to instead perform the secondary fermentation with lager yeast. Some breweries, like ours, always have lager wort that can be used to "krausen" for secondary fermentation, others prefer the flavor profile of lager yeast for the purpose. As far as haze goes, hefeweizen does have a range of haze. This is something we're still tweaking to find the right balance. Its fairly standard for bottles of hefeweizen, particularly bottles that weren't recently bottled, to have the yeast settle. Its common in Germany to rouse the yeast at the end of pour to get all the yeast into the glass.
Jack, I have read that the past generation brewers reason for selecting lager yeast for the bottle conditioning process was to improve beer stability (e.g., extend shelf life). Is that your understanding here? Cheers!
I've had quite a few Kristallweizens and they all carry the same unique characteristics of a Hefeweizen; clove, banana, bubblegum. Probably a little less pronounced, but definitely the hallmark of the style.
