Few beers are perfectly suited for drinking all year long. Sure, you could enjoy a piney IPA in the middle of winter or a crisp pilsner on a frigid day. But both of those beers hit the best during the summer months. Wheat beer, however, manages to seamlessly bridge the gap between the warmer and colder months. Especially Belgian witbiers, German hefeweizens, and American wheat beers.
This top-fermented beer style is known for having a larger percentage of wheat than the usual barley. This gives the beer a sweet wheat, fruity, gently spicy, sometimes banana-forward flavor, depending on the style (beer is so freaking diverse it’s nearly impossible to ever generalize). The sweet, winter-spiced flavor makes it a great beer for the cooler months.
To help you find the right winter wheat beer for you, we selected eight flavorful, wintry wheat beers and ranked them based on how well they drink during the colder months. Keep scrolling to see them all.
- The Most Underrated Breweries in America, According To Craft Beer Experts
- The Best Beers Of 2023, According To The Tasting Alliance Beer Judges
- The Best Oktoberfest Beers On The Market, According To Craft Beer Pros
- The Best Under-The-Radar Pilsners, According To Craft Beer Experts
- We Made Craft Beer Experts Reveal Their Favorite Hazy IPAs
8.) Avery White Rascal
ABV: 5.6%
Average Price: $13 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This award-winning Belgian-style wheat beer is unfiltered, and hazy, and gets its traditional flavor from the addition of Curaçao orange peel and coriander. The result is a beer that pays homage to the European beers that came before it with classic, memorable flavors.
Tasting Notes:
You’ll find notes of coriander, orange peels, sweet wheat, and yeasty bread on the nose. The palate continues this trend with a ton of sweet malt and wheat upfront and candied orange peels, coriander, and other light wintry spices.
Citrus, spice — what’s not to love?
Bottom Line:
This is a great interpretation of the traditional Belgian-style wheat beer. Yeast, wheat, orange peels, and spices. It does it right.
7.) Upland Wheat Ale
ABV: 4.7%
Average Price: $8 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
This year-round Belgian-style witbier was brewed with Belgian wit yeast, Pilsner malt, wheat, as well as Cluster, Vanguard, and Mt. Hood hops. This yeasty, unfiltered wheat beer gets its classic, European flavor from the addition of organic coriander and orange zest.
Tasting Notes:
Wheat, cereal grains, freshly baked bread, coriander, and orange peel are prevalent on the memorable nose. The palate is filled with hints of fresh bread, sweet wheat, yeast, coriander, and a nice kick of orange zest to tie everything together nicely.
Bottom Line:
This beer has everything traditional Belgian-style wheat beer fans love in a sessionable 4.7% ABV package.
6.) Troegs Dreamweaver
ABV: 4.8%
Average Price: $12 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Brewed with malted wheat, Pilsner, and Vienna malts as well as German Wheat yeast, it gets its hop presence from the addition of German Northern Brewer hops. The result is a classic wheat beer with notes of yeast, wheat, banana, clove, and gentle wintry spices.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is a mix of bread, yeast, wheat, bubblegum, pepper, and bananas. Drinking it reveals a lightly tart beer with notes of cracked black pepper, cloves, bananas, yeasty bread, sweet wheat, and lightly floral hops.
Bottom Line:
This is an interesting take on the classic German wheat beer. It’s lightly tart, spiced, and fruity.
5.) Ommegang Witte
ABV: 5.2%
Average Price: $13 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Ommegang is well-known for its traditional Belgian-style beers. It’s Ommegang Witte is one of its best. Brewed with flaked oats, and unmalted, and malted wheat, it gets its hop aroma and flavor from Hallertau Spalter Select hops. It’s spiced with coriander and sweet orange peel.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a lot of spice on the nose. Cloves, coriander, and other baking spices are followed by wheat, yeasty bread, and light floral hops. Sipping it brings forth notes of coriander, orange peels, cloves, cracked black pepper, ripe banana, and wheat.
Bottom Line:
This beer is heavily spiced in the best way possible. It has the warming spice of winter along with the classic flavors of European wheat beers.
4.) St. Bernardus Wit
ABV: 5.5%
Average Price: $18 for a four-pack
The Beer:
This beloved 5.5% ABV unfiltered Belgian witbier is hazy, cloudy, and known for flavors like wheat, cloves, and banana. It may have been created with St. Bernardus’ former master brewer Perre Celis in the 1960s, but it’s still extremely popular among Belgian beer fans today.
Tasting Notes:
You’ll find aromas of candied orange peels, cracked black pepper, coriander, cloves, yeasty bread, and wheat on the nose. The palate is lightly acidic, tart, and filled with notes of wheat, fresh bread, coriander, pepper, cloves, banana, fruit esters, and orange zest.
Bottom Line:
This is a classic Belgian witbier. It’s the kind of beer that American brewers from coast to coast attempt to recreate every day.
3.) Unibroue Blanche de Chambly
ABV: 5%
Average Price: $11 for six-pack
The Beer:
When it comes to Canadian beer brands for drinkers looking for Authentic European-style beers, it’s tough to beat the appeal of Unibroue. While you can’t go wrong with any of its beers, Blanche de Chambly is an outstanding Belgian-style wheat ale. Named for Quebec’s Fort Chambly, it’s known for its Sweet, citrus, and spiced flavor profile.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is a bouquet of yeasty bread, cloves, coriander, candied orange peel, and sweet wheat. The palate continues this trend with a ton of fruit esters, yeasty bread, wheat, orange peel, clover honey, and wintry spice. There’s also a memorable tart acidity throughout.
Bottom Line:
Drink this beer with your eyes closed and you’d assume you were drinking something from Belgium. Heck, drink it with your eyes open and if you’ve never heard of Unibroue, you’d think it was located in Belgium instead of Quebec.
Regardless, it’s delicious — that’s the point.
2.) Allagash White
ABV: 5.2%
Average Price: $10 for a six-pack
The Beer:
When it comes to American-made wheat beers, there are none as respected and beloved as Allagash White. This award-winning Belgian-style wheat ale is brewed with malted wheat, raw wheat, and oats. It gets its traditional flavor profile from adding coriander and Curaçao orange peel.
Tasting Notes:
A lot is going on with this beer’s nose. There are scents of candied orange peels, wheat, freshly baked bread, cereal grains, bananas, and coriander. Drinking it reveals hints of coriander, clove, yeasty bread, orange zest, lemongrass, cracked black pepper, and sweet wheat. The finish is yeasty, sweet, and lightly crisp.
Bottom Line:
The hype is real. When it comes to American wheat beers, you’ll have a hard to finding one better than Allagash White.
1.) Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier
ABV: 5.4%
Average Price: $12 for a six-pack
The Beer:
To say that the brewers at Bavaria’s Weihenstephaner have mastered the art of brewing is a bit of an understatement. Not only is the brewery old. It’s the oldest brewery in the world with a genesis of 1040. It’s the type of brewery that creates nothing but award-winning brews. Our favorite is its Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier, known for its fruity, spicy, banana-like flavor profile.
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of cloves, wheat, yeasty bread, bananas, citrus peels, bubblegum, and gentle spices make for a very welcoming nose. The palate only adds to this start with yeasty bready malts, bananas, cloves, fruit esters, honey, orange peels, and more warming spices. It’s a perfectly balanced sweet, fruity, lightly spicy wheat beer.
Bottom Line:
If you only try one beer on this list, make it Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. This is as traditional as wheat beers get. Everything fits together in perfect unity.
