Look at that rocky head on Holy Mountain Brewing’s The White Lodge Witbier

A good friend of mine who enjoys my homebrew recently has been pushing for some beers that he can share with more folks that enjoy more mainstream styles. I really like focusing on funky, sour, dry beers as well as hoppy, juicy and dry IPAs.

His suggestion was to put together a Witbier. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to do that but decided that it was worth the effort to see if I could build a recipe that I enjoyed coming from the styles I prefer. In Brewing Like a Monk there is a chapter discussing Witbiers in which they interview Ron Jeffries from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. He describes his process where by he imagines how the beer should taste and then works backwards to arrive at a recipe that should deliver the experience.

I’m attempting to do the same here. I recently had a really fantastic Witbier while I was in Settle, WA, The White Lodge from Holy Mountain Brewing Company. When the glass arrived there was this rocky mountain of imperfect off-white head that looked to include some bits of yeast. The nose had a nice spicy, bready, citrus character that begged for me to take a sip. It had a super soft mouthfeel that was a wash of malt and bready flavors with just a bit of banana, lots of orange, and; surprise, surprise; a bit tart.  Maybe that’s what captured my attention.

All of that together in a beer was just amazing.  I’m attempting to capture much of that in this recipe. This beer will be compared to a local Witbier (which doesn’t look or taste like The White Lodge), however I’m interested in how it fares.