Bamberg-Style Weiss Rauchbier

The smoked wheat beer of Bamberg — a Bavarian weissbier carrying the city’s signature beechwood smoke. Built on at least 50 percent wheat malt and fermented with weizen yeast, it combines the banana-and-clove character of a wheat beer with the smoky, bacon-like flavor of malt dried over open beechwood fires. Typically 4.9–5.6% ABV, with color ranging from pale to chestnut brown.

In the glass

Appearance

Pale to chestnut brown, very cloudy when served with yeast, capped by a tall off-white head.

Aroma

Smoky beechwood malt aroma, ranging from low to high, layered over the weizen yeast’s banana ester and clove phenol. The smoke should be smooth and suggest a mild sweetness rather than reading as harshly phenolic. In darker versions, a low roast-malt note may appear without becoming aggressive. Hop aroma is not present.

Flavor

Beechwood smoke and the banana-and-clove yeast profile interweave over a soft wheat base. The phenolic character is often described as clove, nutmeg, vanilla, and smoke; banana esters run from low to medium-high. The smoke stays smooth and integrated, never acrid. In darker versions a restrained roast note may be detectable. Bitterness is low; the beer finishes well attenuated.

Mouthfeel

Medium to full body, very highly carbonated, soft and fluffy from the wheat with a lingering gentle smokiness.

Origin

The Bavarian wheat beer tradition reaches back to the 1520 brewing privilege held by the Degenberg family under the Wittelsbach dynasty and the royal monopoly that followed, while the smoke comes from Bamberg, in Franconia, where beer brewed with beechwood-smoked malt survived as a regional specialty after indirect kilning stripped smoke from mainstream beer in the early 19th century. The smoked wheat beer brings those two traditions together.

The canonical example is made by Schlenkerla, the Bamberg brewery whose legal name is Brauerei Heller-Trum and whose flagship smoked Märzen defined the modern rauchbier. The brewery’s smoked wheat ale uses smoked barley malt together with unsmoked wheat malt and is fermented with a traditional Bavarian weissbier yeast; because only part of the grist is smoked and the yeast contributes its own balancing aromas, the result is gentler than the classic Märzen-based rauchbier. A smoked wheat beer is likewise produced by Bamberg’s other principal smoke-beer house, Spezial. Smoked wheat beers appeared as a recognized form during the broader expansion of smoked styles in recent decades.

Notes

This is the wheat-beer member of the Bamberg smoke family — paler and lighter than the Märzen-based rauchbier, and softened further by the weizen yeast’s banana and clove. Because the smoke and the fruit-spice yeast character balance each other, and because typically only the barley portion of the grist is smoked while the wheat is left unsmoked, the smoke reads as milder here than in a full smoked lager. That makes it a frequent gateway for drinkers who want some smoke but not the assertive intensity of classic rauchbier. It is served and poured like any wheat beer, in the tall vase glass and roused when yeast is present.

Defining examples

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchweizen·Brauerei Spezial Rauchweizen

Sources

BA 2026Bamberg-Style Weiss Rauchbier

Oliver, Garrett, ed. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Schlenkerla (Brauerei Heller-Trum). “Smoked Lager Beer: Schlenkerla Smokebeer: Varieties.” Accessed June 13, 2026. ↗