Breakfast beer of champions? General Mills to make Wheaties beer

Wheaties inspired beer is coming soon to Minnesota. (General Mills)

Long before the craft brewery boom elevated beer to gourmet status, it was consumed as a breakfast beverage.

Centuries later, cereal giant General Mills is tapping into the beer market by teaming up with Fulton brewery to create a limited-edition Wheaties ale called HefeWheaties.

There are no actual Wheaties cereal bits in the Hefeweizen—a light wheat beer that’s often cloudy—but the idea seemed like a natural fit for the two companies to create a brew from their common shared ingredient.

The can of HefeWheaties was inspired by the signature orange cereal box. (General Mills)

“We were intrigued from the get-go on this idea for many reasons, including that we’re both Minneapolis companies, and that the beer and the cereal both started from the same place in terms of raw ingredients and the same city,” said Ryan Petz, president and co-founder of Fulton, in a press release about the new item.

HefeWheaties will be the first Hefeweizen style beer brewed by Fulton and will be made with “malted wheat, malted barley, hops from Germany, the U.S. and Australia, and a yeast strain specifically developed for fermenting American-style wheat beers.”

The beer was developed earlier this summer and will be available in Minneapolis and St. Paul starting Aug. 26 in 4-packs of 16 oz tallboys. HefeWheaties will not be available for shipment or purchase outside of Minnesota, but starting late August, the brewery will host several tasting events for the brew.

“We’ll see how people react to it,” says Petz. “If it’s something everybody loves, we’ll obviously consider doing it again in a bigger and more widely distributed way in the future.”