Texas Wheat, from St. Arnold

Modern Brewery Age,  August 15, 2005  

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Saint Arnold Brewing Company, of Houston, TX, has announced it is finishing the first batches of Saint Arnold Texas Wheat, a filtered wheat beer that will shortly join the brewery's collection of year-round brews. Saint Arnold Texas Wheat will replace Saint Arnold Kristall Weizen, a wheat beer which was introduced in 1994.

The new Texas Wheat is a permutation of that original recipe. Brewery CEO Brock Wagner said that the reason for the name change was a simple one-Americans didn't know how to pronounce Kristall Weizen. "People don't like to feel uncomfortable, so they won't order a beer if they're not sure how to pronounce its name," Wagner said. "The name 'Texas Wheat' is straightforward and reinforces that we're a Texas brewery, a fact which a lot of Texans are surprised to learn." Wagner said that, in keeping with the traditional German wheat beer style, Saint Arnold Texas Wheat offers a light flavor and crisp body. "The recipe has a light hop profile with light fruitiness," he says. "Saint Arnold uses 50 percent malted wheat and 50 percent malted two-row barley in this recipe. Malted wheat is expensive and difficult to mash because of its lack of husk. Therefore, it is rare in the U.S. for wheat beers to contain more than 30 percent wheat or to be brewed with two-row barley. We used Pacific Northwest hop varieties. A small addition of Perle early in the brewing process balances its sweetness, while two additions of Liberty contribute floral character."

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