THE DRAYMAN

Where are the wheat beers?

Germany and Belgium set the standards that only a few UK brewers try to match

Unbarred’s Amazonian Zing is a 2.5% abv ginger, lemon and lemongrass tea Berliner Weiss whose flavour profile isn’t a million miles away from a Lipton’s iced tea.

There are exceptions from the UK that tend more towards an authentic wheat beer style. Samuel Smith’s Organic Wheat Beer comes across like an agreeably pimped-up best bitter with gentle spice, dried fruit and orange peel fingerprints. The almost faultless Burning Sky makes Blanche, a zesty but modest witbier with a silky soft head, wonderful freshness and –not always a given in wheat beer – moreish drinkability.

The UK brewing scene has been so exciting and energetic over recent years that it’s sometimes felt like there’s no need for imported beer at all (leaving interchangeable “world lagers” on the naughty step for now).

Even the US has fallen out of fashion as British brewers have reclaimed IPA, the style with which American craft beer made its name internationally, with more elegant beers less reliant on show-stopping hopbombery.

But there is one style that has been largely unexplored by British craft brewers and where the search for quality leads across the sea – and that’s wheat beer.

There was a moment when AB-InBev’s Hoegaarden was the hip beer of the day, appearing on bar tops across the land. Its tricky, complex flavour profile and hazy appearance were way ahead of its time. Perhaps it was consumer nervousness about the “right thing to say” when asked if they wanted a chunk of lemon putting in it, or just an inevitably short life cycle for a beer with a spicy, medicinal flavour profile, but its popularity soon waned.

It’s still out there, of course, but where pubs are still daring enough to put a wheat beer on tap, and have a free choice, they seem more likely to pick Molson Coors’ Blue Moon, with its contemporary look and easy-to-say name.

For British brewers, wheat beer seems to be more the stuff of limited-edition gimmicks, or an adjunct to add body to predominantly barley malt beers, rather than something to commit to and perfect. Brass Castle’s Kitsch Pumpkin Spice Latte White Stout is a certainly a bold beer with hefty bitterness and its constituent cocoa nibs to the fore, but the more typical wheat beer elements of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves listed among its ingredients are virtually absent from its personality. As for pumpkin, it neither appears as an ingredient nor is it in evidence as a flavour note.

But really, for wheat heaven, Germany and – to a lesser extent – Belgium are still the places to look, with names like Schneider, Paulaner and Weihenstephaner.

Schneider Hopfenweisse

Weizendoppelbock may be one of the biggest mouthfuls ever committed to a beer label, but its unfeasibly successful melange of IPA-like hop character, spices, sour tartness and white wine notes make it a joy to drink, if not to order.

Jan de Lichte’s Dubbel Witbier adds an earthy undertow to a classic Belgian wheat coriander and curaçao orange foreground.

Weihenstephaner’s Hefe Weissbier may be the top of the pile, a luxuriously soft mouth feel with a spiciness lifted by banana, roasted pineapple and subtle bubblegum.

It will be around long after many a nitro pomegranate milky tea lemongrass sour wheat has bitten the dust.