New Zealanders are among the top eaters of bananas, per capita, in the world and it is therefore a wonder we are not big drinkers of wheat beer, too, with its characteristic banana flavour.
A possible barrier to its popularity is breweries' reluctance to call it a "wheat" beer, instead sticking to their traditional German names.
If you do not know what you are buying, you tend not to reach out for it on the shelf.
Without a smattering of German, for example, you do not know whether you are getting a dry wine, kabinett (medium-sweet), auslese (sweeter) or trockenbeerenauslese (very sweet).
Nor would you be likely to reach for wheat beer labels like krystallweizen (krystall: clear, for filtered; weizen: wheat), hefeweizen (yeast and therefore unfiltered), dunkleweizen (dark), weizenbock (strong/high alcohol).
Most wheat beers are not filtered and their cloudiness appears whiter when chilled. Hence, weissebier (white beer) or witbier (Belgian for white beer) on the labels, too.
Wheat beers are made from between 30% and 70% of malted wheat instead of the 100% malted barley in most beer.
Their main characteristic is greater effervescence and a bigger and long-lasting head: always pour a wheat beer carefully or you can end up with more foam than liquid.
It is the bubble, and the fact that the beer should be well chilled to control the head, that makes wheat beers so refreshing on a hot summer's day.
But while we wait for those days, Dunedin brewer Emerson's has produced a Weizenbock for the still chilly spring evenings. The richness of its dark malt and the 8% alcohol is warming and the sediment from this unfiltered brew is filling.
Then there are the glorious flavours - chocolate, raisins and dark fruits reminiscent of Christmas cake and a touch of cloves and spices - with only a hint of banana aroma surviving all these other goodies.
(This Christmas cake character reminds me it is time to soak the fruit mixture for Christmas pies in Emerson's Old 95 - but I might try the Weissenbock this time. By Christmastime the fruit is moist and has soaked in the beer's richness.)Emerson's will produce a 5% Weissbier in November to replace the Weissenbock ($9 a 500ml bottle at the Wickliffe St brewery) when it runs out, for more refreshing summer drinking. The summer version has the typical sweetish banana and bubblegum flavours.
Fellow Dunedin brewer Green Man makes a filtered wheat beer called Krystal with more subtle banana character.
Widely available in four-packs is the Belgian Hoegaarden (named after the village in which it was first brewed in the mid-1400s). It has coriander and orange peel added to deliver a banana-free refreshing drop.
The most widely available wheat beer is Mac's Great White, which regularly wins medals at competitions. It also is refreshing, with restrained banana sweetness.
DB Breweries makes the German Erdinger (first made in the village of Erding in the late 1880s) under licence, but it is available only on tap.
It is refreshing, with little banana sweetness.
