E-Malt.com News article: US, WI: Berghoff Brewery releases new summer beer brand

The owners of Minhas Craft Brewery, Monroe, Wisconsin, have released a new beer brand from the Berghoff Brewery that they're hoping is exactly what the customers are looking for during the summer time - Backyard Ale, Isthmus Publishing Company reported on July, 8.

Backyard Ale is an American wheat ale. It is made with a high percentage of wheat malt, some 30% to 75% of the total. The style can be made using either ale or lager yeast, but more commonly is fermented with an ale strain. It is light golden to straw in color, and is usually hazy but not cloudy. It has a light fruity aroma and flavor from the yeast and there may be hints of banana. This style is light, bubbly, crisp and overall clean and refreshing. It ranges from 3.5% to 5.5% ABV.

Berghoff beer has been around for quite some time. The original Berghoff Brewery was founded in 1882 in Fort Wayne, Ind. After a fire in 1888, founder Herman Berghoff helped get the business rebuilt, but soon left for Chicago to open the Berghoff Restaurant, which lives on as a catering company. In the early 1960s, the Berghoff family called upon the Joseph Huber Brewing Company in Monroe to make beer for its downtown Chicago restaurant.

Huber was eventually sold to the General Beverage Group, which purchased the Berghoff brand in the 1980s from the family. When General Beverage sold Huber to Canadian investors and it became Minhas Craft Brewery, the Berghoff brands were broken off and kept by General Beverage. Although the beer is made at Minhas, the Berghoff Brewery exists as its own company, managed somewhat like a brewery within a brewery, with Gary Luther as the consulting brew master.

Backyard Ale is the first time Berghoff has used 16-ounce cans, and it's also its first attempt at a straightforward American wheat beer. However, over the past decade, Berghoff has made a few similar styles, such as a Honey Wheat, a Raspberry Wheat Ale and last summer's Heartland Hefeweizen. So far, Berghoff has released just two batches of Backyard Ale, to test the 2011 summer market.

According to Luther, who helped devise the recipe, Backyard Ale is about half wheat malt and half barley malt. Because it's lightly filtered, the remaining suspended yeast makes it appear hazy. It's fermented with an English ale yeast and finishes between 5.0% and 5.3%. Luther says he's still tweaking the recipe to bring out more of the crisp aroma and to reduce some of the beer's haziness. Backyard Ale is sold in four-packs of 16-ounce cans for around US$5.

13 July, 2011