It seems that these days, anything except the hazy IPA doesn’t get a lot of attention, but beers and styles come in and out of fashion. Think about IBUs. They used to be a badge of honor, and now they don’t get talked about. Hefeweizens have had their day and were a hit with craft-beer drinkers early on, thanks to breweries such as Widmer Brothers (Portland, Oregon) and Pyramid Brewing Co. (Seattle, Washington). Hefeweizen had good success because it was cloudy, it was low in bitterness, and it wasn’t what people were familiar with or used to. Sound familiar?
The keys to this beer are that yeast is number one, it has a high proportion of malted wheat, and it’s bitter.
For our No Limits Hefeweizen, we approach the recipe in a fairly traditional method but with a few modifications. A classic hefeweizen grain bill is about 60 percent wheat and 40 percent malt. We stray a little bit and add a portion of spelt and rye, which gives our beer a subtle nuance. Hops character is really light, essentially a threshold level of bitterness.