What is the Berliner Weisse?
Sour beers made their comeback, tempting and intriguing the taste buds of the beer lovers. The Sour Ales are dominating, placed side by side the most known type of beers, and now we’re going to introduce you a beer that is having a great success: the Berliner Weisse.
It isn’t a random beer, in fact the Berliner Brewers Association decided to register the trademark, and it is characteristic also for its particular flavour and marked sourness. Sometimes, to sweeten the sourness, it is served mixed with raspberry syrup (with a bright red colour) or sweet-scented bedstraw syrup (bright green) and sipped with a straw in wide bowl shaped glasses.
Berliner Weisse: characteristics
It is produced from wheat and characterized by a high fermentation, an Ale thus, maintaining a low alcoholic proof (around 2,8%). In the glass it is quite clear, whereas the foam is white and solid. The sourness is evident and smelling it you can recognize traces of citrus fruits, like green apple but also yeasts and bread crust. In the mouth, the sourness stands out, it is developed thanks to the lactic bacteria living in the wheat and the ones introduced on purpose. In the palate it is pleasant – if you like the sourness! – sparkling, light and chill.
Berliner Weisse: history
This sour beer isn’t new at all, it was already known in 1600 in the North part of Germany and in Berlin, where it has had a particular success, becoming the most drunk beer of the city a couple of centuries later. This beer is strongly related to the Berliner history and its working class that enjoyed the pubs after their working day to sip alcoholic drinks. In centuries it was produced with fermented yeasts and submitted to a first lactic fermentation and a second bottle fermentation; this double fermentation allowed to increase the preservation of the beers which, also after years didn’t lost its taste.
If in the XIX century there were almost 700 brewpub offering the Berliner Weisse, now in the German capital there are only a few. Only two breweries, bought by the Oetker Group, are sill producing it, the Berliner Kindl and the Schulheiss. If you are around do not forget to taste their productions!
