New World Berliner Weisse
Achtung! The Germans are coming, the Germans are coming! As Daniel Fromson wrote in the Washington Post on August 27, 2013, “For decades, American brewers have infused foreign beer traditions with boldness and innovation — by reimagining the moderately bitter English IPA as the hop-saturated Titan of the U.S. craft-beer pantheon, for example. Now they’re doing it again with Germany’s little-known sour ales . . . reviving their characteristic lemony acidity and often pairing it with other ingredients, from fresh coriander flowers . . . to passion fruit. The result: Low-alcohol beers whose intensity of flavors are matched only by their ability to refresh.”
How true it is! American brewing, from Colonial times to the present, has always been about taking inspiration from just about everywhere and then putting a uniquely New World stamp on it. At the beginning of the North American home- and craft-brew revolution some four decades ago, the focus was mostly on British ales. These were straightforward to make and the results were satisfying. But as the new breed of brewers became more sophisticated and adventurous, they branched out, mostly into Belgian beers in all their varied glory. Next came the extreme wave when brewers pushed the envelope on all fronts: More hop bitterness, different hop varieties, more maltiness, different types of malt, different strains of yeast, alternative microbes, more alcohol, and obscure ingredients from coffee to fruits to vegetables.
In the process, such classic beers as pale ale, IPA, porter, and stout metamorphosed into double, triple, and even quadruple, super-imperialized “Stars-and-Stripes-Forever” brews, in whose flavor profiles you could still detect traces of the originals, but whose character was patterned unmistakably by a flamboyant, non-conformist, often exuberant spirit of brew freedom. The same happened with Belgian ales, which brewers took to new barrel-aged heights of microbial edginess, while pushing the envelope even of barnyard funk. The equipment and processes of these intrepid brewers became more elaborate, too, and some brewers even got into decoction and different fermentation regimens to make both authentic and adapted Czech and German lagers.
Well, after all that boundless experimentation, what’s left? Where is the next frontier? Where will experimental brewers look for their next inspiration? Perhaps the Washington Post article got it right: The next target of North American brewing seems to be the slew of mostly forgotten, sour, German heirloom brews . . . the sort of brews that were dominant in central Europe up until the Industrial Revolution, that is, during a 3,000 year-long era when making beer was still haphazard, equipment was primitive, and the microbiology of brewing was a complete mystery.
The category of traditional German sour brews is distantly akin to such Belgian classics as lambics and red ales . . . and it appears as if North American brewers are now discovering these long-buried styles and are taking them into completely new directions. German sours are often mixed-mash brews of barley and wheat malts, as well as oats and unmalted grains. Purely technically, therefore, they are generally not in conformity with the strict dictates of the German Beer Purity Law, the Reinheitsgebot. The best known of these old-style German sour beers is probably Berliner weisse, which the iconoclastic Belgian brewing scientist Jean de Clerck — in Volume 1 of his seminal work Cours de brasserie (Text Book of Brewing); Louvain, Belgium, 1948 — once likened to a witbier/bière blanche . . . even though a Berliner weisse contains neither coriander nor orange peel. Other beers in the German sour category include Leipziger Gose, Broyhan, and Lichtenhainer. As a stand-in for this category of heirloom German funk beers, let’s take a closer look at the archetype of them all, the tart and spritzy Berliner weisse.
Getting to Know a Sour Berliner
Berliner weisse is a crisp, highly effervescent, and dry brew — a favored summer drink of many Berliners. It is served in elegant, bowl-shaped chalices that are about double the volume of the beer that is poured into them. This allows for enough head space for the huge head of foam to develop and stay inside the glass. The Berliner weisse’s sparkling fizz moved Napoleon to dub the brew le Champagne du nord (the champagne of the north) in 1806. At that time, l’Empereur and his Grand Armée occupied Berlin after winning a victory over the Prussians at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt. More down-to-earth Berliners, however, just called their beer “the workers’ sparkling wine.”
In times past, Berliner weisse was made within an extremely wide range of strengths, which some sources suggest could vary from perhaps 2% to 9% alcohol by volume (ABV). Any im-bibers who needed more oomph fortified their weisse with a shot of caraway schnapps for a truly hearty concoction. Nowadays, however, the alcohol level of a typical Berliner weisse is more in the vicinity of 2.5% to 3.2% ABV. To ameliorate the brew’s exceptionally dry finish, Berliners rarely drink it straight. However, the schnapps has been replaced by sweet syrups — usually flavored with red raspberry, green woodruff, or black currant. This practice is called mit Schuss, that is, “with a shot.” While raspberry and black currant syrups tend to be readily available in North America, woodruff syrup can usually be found only in specialty food stores or online. Some homebrew shops may carry it as well.
To serve a weisse mit Schuss, pour the syrup into the glass first, and then mix the Berliner weisse with it. The Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss brewing group now offers a line of pasteurized Berliner weisse beers, in which the raspberry, woodruff, or black currant syrup is already added at the brewery. This group also offers a pasteurized version of the brew without syrup. I have tried them all and found that these “modified” industrial renditions have less character than the old-fashioned varieties. Berliner weisse has an incredible keeping quality, because of its high acidity (a pH-value of 3.2 to 3.4). In a cool and dark place, it can be stored for up to five years without suffering a loss in drinkability. Berliner weisse is best when it is served at a temperature of 46–50 °F (8–10 °C).
A Brew with an Uncertain Past
It is not entirely clear if Berliner weisse originated in the city of Berlin or was brought there by others. Because wheat beers were particularly popular in the High Middle Ages in Bohemia, an area slightly to the southeast of Berlin and now part of the Czech Republic, there is speculation that the Berliner weisse — as well as the Bavarian hefeweizen — are modern off-shoots of Bohemian beers that migrated into German-speaking territory. Other historians maintain that the beer was started in Berlin in the late-17th century by Protestant French Huguenots who had escaped religious persecution by the Catholic Sun King Louis XIV. It is true that many breweries in those days were owned by French immigrants, which is why the local beer was also often referred to as Huguenot beer. However, these enterprising Protestants most likely merely joined the weisse brewing trade rather than invented it. One key support for this theory is a remark by a Berliner physician named Johann Sigismund Elsholtz, who, in 1682, wrote a treatise on the health benefits of different foods, entitled Diaeteticon, in which he mentioned Berliner weisse as a beer worth brewing.
The early Berliner brew was almost certainly very different from our modern Berliner weisse. In the small brew houses of the day, the wort was prepared with only a little hops and then, on the first day, drained into a cool ship; pitched with yeast on the second day; fermented on the third day; and racked into casks on the fourth day when it was taken to a pub for immediate consumption. This beer did not keep long and, because of the cask’s micro-flora, definitely turned lactic, probably even vinegary, after just a few days.
Berliner weisse as an heirloom beer style was around well before glass beer bottles came into wide use in the late 1800s. If not sold in casks, therefore, the effervescent Berliner brew was traditionally sold re-fermented in earthenware crocks that were closed with string-fastened cork stoppers to contain the beer’s powerful carbonation. The crocks were often buried in sand for three weeks to three months to keep the temperature constant during the beer’s maturation. The sand would also contain any chard shrapnel if a crock exploded from overpressure.
A Standard Berliner Weisse Brewhouse Process
Both the grain bill of a Berliner weisse and the brewhouse process are fairly simple: Mix top-quality pale barley malt with pale wheat malt, whereby the amount of wheat should be less than that of a typical hefeweizen, but more than that of a typical American pub wheat. A modern industrial Berliner weisse usually has about 25% to 30% pale wheat malt, even though in the old days, the wheat portion may have been as much as 70%. A good compromise between an old-fashioned and a current commercial weisse mash is a ratio of 60/40 between pale barley and pale wheat malt. While the malts are always pale nowadays, centuries ago, they were more likely a shade of brown. There are also hints that, until about the middle of the 1800s, the Berliner weisse grist was slightly smoky. Today, however, there is no trace of smoke in the brew.
The barley base malt used in my recipe (on page 47) is a typical Pilsner malt with an SRM of 1.7–2.4 °L. For a super-blond weisse, you could use an extra pale Pilsner malt with a very low SRM of 1.2–1.4 °L. On the other hand, if you prefer a slightly darker shade of pale, you can use a pale ale malt with an SRM of perhaps 2.5–3.5 °L. Alternatively, for an earthier, more traditional flavor, you could use a floor-malted Pilsner malt with an SRM of 1.6–2.3 °L. The pale wheat malt used here has an SRM of about 1.7–2.4 °L. Specialty malts are not required in this brew, and the recipe in this article does not contain any. However, if you wish to give your weisse just a touch more mouthfeel and deeper golden color, you can replace about 3 percentage-points of the pale barley malt with Weyermann Caraamber® with an SRM of 23–31 °L.
Like most German beers, Berliner weisse used to be decoction-mashed, but today a multi-step infusion is more common. Start with a mash-in at 122 °F (50 °C) and finish with a mash-out at 172 °F (78 °C). For proper conversion of all grain compounds, give the mash four rests of 20 minutes each, at 122 °F (50 °C), 144 °F (62 °C), 149 °F (65 °C), and 162 °F (72 °C). Finally, heat the mash to 172 °F (78 °C). Recirculate the first runnings until they run clear. Add bittering hops into the empty kettle in the manner of English first-wort hopping and lauter the wort into the kettle. Stop the run-off when the kettle gravity is roughly at OG 1.028 (7 °P). A traditional Berliner weisse wort is boiled only very briefly by our standards, about 20 minutes, which is just long enough to sterilize it and to drive off undesirable volatiles, but not long enough to achieve maximum isomerization of alpha-acids and thus hop utilization.
Extract brewers can simply replace the all-grain mash with any unhopped commercial Bavarian weissbier/
hefeweizen extract, because such extracts are made mostly from a mix of Pilsner and pale wheat malts. Boil the extract briefly, for 20 minutes, with the hops. For the rest of the procedure, just follow the all-grain instructions.
After the boil, compensate for any evaporation losses by adjusting the net kettle volume for an original gravity of 1.030 (7.5 °P). Rest the hot wort or whirlpool it for 20 minutes for trub sedimentation. Then heat–exchange it to the bottom value of the yeast’s activity temperature range (usually around 0 °F or 16 °C). Before pitching the yeast, divert about 2 quarts (roughly 2 liters) of the cooled wort into a sterile container to make a starter for the bacteria; and draw another 2 quarts and refrigerate or freeze this amount as kräusen for later bottle-conditioning. You can skip the kräusen collection if you plan to make a low-gravity, mildly hopped pale brew on bottling day and use part of that wort as kräusen, or if you prefer to prime the brew with corn sugar, instead of kräusen. Alternatively, you can simply carbonate the finished brew with CO2.
Berliner Weisse Fermentation
Berliner weisse is fermented with both yeast and bacteria, whereby the yeast can be any number of top-fermenting strains. Michael Dawson, Brand Manager for Wyeast Laboratories Inc. says that Wyeast recommends their 1007 (German Ale) strain specifically because of its lower rate of fermentation (which is friendlier to Lactobacillus) and its tolerance to low pH. He also reports that Berliner weisse trials with other strains inhibited Lacto and resulted in higher finishing pH. However, do not use weissbier yeasts, because the clove, banana, and bubblegum compounds that such strains put into a Bavarian top-fermented wheat brew have no place in a crisp-tasting Berliner wheat brew. As for the bacteria, there is some disagreement as to what may or may not go into a Berliner weisse — or into any other German sour ale. However, this ambiguity makes sense, considering that, in the old days, when all inoculations of fermentable liquids were still largely uncontrolled, the micro-flora that was likely to take up a spontaneous residence in a brew was probably a variable mixture of microbes. It is also probable that this mixture was different from one brewery to the next, which gave every Berliner weisse a house character.
Among the most likely bacteria in the brew were some strains of Brettanomyces as well as a local Lacto-bacillus strain now called Lactobacillus delbrueckii, subspecies bulgaricus. This Berliner weisse-specific Lactobacillus is named after its discoverer, the biochemist and 1969 Nobel laureate in medicine, Max Emil Julius Delbrück, who isolated it in the 1930s, while he was the head of the Berlin Institut für Gärungsgewerbe (Institute for the Fermentation Trade). Professor Delbrück ran the Institute from 1932 until he migrated to the United States, in 1937.
One of the tricks for managing the fermentation of an only mildly lactic beer with funk, such as that of a Berliner weisse, is to ensure that the pitched brewers yeast gets a solid head start. Otherwise, any of the much more aggressive bacteria and wild yeasts will muscle our friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae out of contention in the struggle for nutritious saccharides. German sour brews, unlike Belgian lambics and red ales, should not be severely mouth puckering. Instead, their tartness tends to be more restrained, with maltiness and acidity in a pleasing balance. Thus, it is best to pitch the “funk” starter a few hours (or even a few days) after the yeast has commenced its vigorous primary fermentation. Some brewers even pitch the bacteria only after primary fermentation is complete and virtually the only saccharides left are the large-molecular ones, which yeast, especially ale yeasts, cannot metabolize, but bacteria can. Other authors recommend a pitching ratio between bacteria and Saccharomyces of 3:1 and 5:1, with simultaneous pitching right after the heat-exchange, to give the yeast the same fermentation advantage as a delayed bacteria pitching. No matter when you add the souring agents, they will eventually scrub the brew clean of whatever sugars the yeast has missed, and make the brew very dry.
As a general rule, the later the bacteria are introduced for feeding on wort sugars (or the lower the ratio of bacteria to yeast cells), the higher will be the finished beer’s alcohol content, produced by the yeast, and the lower will be its lactic content. Another way to slow down the sour-making bacterial metabolism, while aiding the alcohol-making yeast metabolism, is to keep the fermentation temperature close to 60 °F (16 °C). This is because microbes like Lactobacillus have a preferred activity range of about 60 °F to 90 °F (16 °C to 32 °C), while most ale yeasts, especially altbier yeasts, are much less sensitive to cool temperatures. However, do not reduce the fermentation temperature below 50 °F (10 °C), because this is the threshold when Lactobacillus start to become inactive.
It follows from the above that there is no single regimen for turning a Berliner wort into a beer. Much depends on how lactic a beer you wish to obtain in the end. Ferment the brew about four to six days and rack it into a secondary fermenter. If you wish to stop the lactic fermentation at this point, reduce the temperature to 50 °F
(10 °C) or below and hold the brew at that temperature for about two days to kill the bacteria. Rack again and allow the brew to warm up to room temperature. The yeast will still be active. For a more lactic brew, omit the temperature drop and simply keep the brew at 60 °F (16 °C) throughout, for perhaps three weeks total. In the end, because of the combination of yeast and bacterial fermentations, a Berliner weisse will always finish without any residual sweetness, and at a final gravity that is likely to be in the range of FG 1.006 to 1.008 (1.5 °P to 2 °P), or even less. Now add the optional kräusen or any other priming agent you wish. Then bottle or keg the finished beer immediately. Condition the primed brew at approximately 60 °F (16 °C) for 4 weeks to three months. Alternatively, if you prefer to adjust the beer’s carbonation with CO2, the recommended target for a Berliner weisse is roughly 3 volumes of CO2 (6 g/L of CO2).
Now Let the Fun Begin
Now that we understand the foundation recipe for a Berliner weisse, let’s inject some New World experimentation into it. Sure, we can drink the Berliner weisse straight, as was the custom in years past, or we can infuse it in the glass, mit Schuss, with any number of flavors, from the classic raspberry, woodruff, and black currant syrups to perhaps interesting liqueurs and cordials such as crème de cassis, crème de cacao, crème de menthe, orange liqueurs, coffee liqueurs, dry and sweet vermouth, Irish cream, or herb liqueurs. There is also the option of fortifying it with a shot of gin or aquavit.
One thing, however, we cannot do is turn a Berliner weisse into a hop bomb. Lactic acid bacteria are highly sensitive to alpha acids and will therefore not do their jobs in worts that contain more than 10 IBU. You could make a hoppy Berliner weiss using hop extracts post fermentation, but the beer will be both bitter and sour.
One of the hints from old texts suggests that some past Berliner beers might have been made with a small addition of oats — malted or not. Compared to other grains, oats have a relatively high percentage of protein, lipids, and beta-glucans. Therefore, replacing about five percentage points of the pale barley malt with oats, oat flakes, or oat malt would give the prickly-effervescent Berliner weisse a smoother texture, similar to the way oats can add balance to the roastiness of an oatmeal stout. Another variation would be the replacement of some of the barley malt with up to 30% rye malt. This would give the finished beer more mouthfeel, some fruitiness, a pronounced breadiness, and a slightly viniferous taste element.
For other variations on the Berliner weisse theme, we can look to other German heirloom sour beers, such as Gose and Lichtenhainer. Lichtenhainer is partially made with smoked malt. For a slight smokiness, you can replace up to 20 percentage points of the barley malt with something like Weyermann’s beech wood-smoked barley malt (Rauchmalz); and the pale wheat malt with up to 10 percentage points of Weyermann oak-smoked wheat malt. The all-barley-malt sour Gose is flavored with coriander and salt, which could be an interesting flavor twist in a Berliner weisse, too. Simply suspend about 1 oz. (roughly 25 g) of finely ground coriander plus 0.75 oz. (approx. 20 g) of sea salt per 5-gallon (19-liter) batch in a bag into the boiling wort, about 5 minutes before shutdown. Alternatively, following up on de Clerck’s observation, we can replace the salt in the bag with a few grams (perhaps 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon) of dried orange Curaçao peel for a lovely hint of spice and citrus, reminiscent of a witbier.
Then there is the possibility of adding a background (perhaps 3 to 4 cups for a 5-gallon or 19-L batch) of puréed or macerated fruit during primary fermentation. Fruit options are cranberries, currants (red or black), elderberries, mango, passion fruit, pomegranates, or watermelon (without the bitter rind). One tip: Most fruits contain high levels of pectin and should, therefore, not be boiled in the kettle. The high heat would cause the pectin to dissolve into the wort.
Finally, the modern Berliner weisse is a low-alcohol beer . . . but is does not have to be. Would it not be fun to try a “Berliner Weisse Wine?” Let your imagination run wild, mash a Berliner weisse grist until your mash tun almost overflows. Then process the high-gravity wort like a hefty barleywine, with yeast and bacteria, but don’t forget to be gentle on the hops!
Basic Berliner Weisse
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.030 FG = 1.006
IBU = 5 SRM = 3 ABV = 3.2%
Ingredients
3.7 lbs. (1.7 kg) Pilsner malt (2 °L)
2.4 lbs. (1.1 kg) pale wheat malt (2 °L)
2.1 AAU Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hops
(FWH) (0.5 oz./14 g at 4.25% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) or White Labs WLP036 (Düsseldorf Alt) yeast
Wyeast 5335 (Lactobacillus) bacteria
Wyeast 5526 (Brettanomyces lambicus) yeast
5⁄8 cup of corn sugar or 0.5 gal. (2 L) of kräusen (for priming)
Step by Step
This is a multi-step mash. Start with a mash-in at 122 °F (50 °C) and finish with a mash-out at 172 °F
(78 °C). Give the mash four rests of 20 minutes each, at 122 °F (50 °C), 144 °F (62 °C), 149 °F (65 °C), and 162 °F (72 °C). Finally, heat the mash to 172 °F (78 °C). Recirculate the first runnings until they run clear. Add bittering hops into the empty kettle in the manner of English first-wort hopping and lauter the wort into the kettle. Stop the run-off when the gravity of the wort in the kettle is 1.028. Boil for 20 minutes.
After the boil, adjust the net kettle volume for an original gravity of 1.030. Rest the hot wort or whirl-pool it for 20 minutes for trub sedimentation. Then rapidly chill the wort to the bottom value of the yeast’s activity temperature range (usually around 60 °F/16 °C). Before pitching the brewer’s yeast, divert about 2 quarts (2 L) of the cooled wort into a sterile container to make a starter for the bacteria; and draw another 2 quarts (2 L) and refrigerate or freeze this amount as kräusen for later bottle-conditioning. You can skip the kräusen collection if you plan to make a low-gravity, mildly hopped pale brew on bottling day and use part of that wort as kräus-en, or if you prefer to prime the brew with corn sugar, instead of kräusen.
Pitch the yeast and ferment at 60 °F (16 °C). Add the Wyeast 5335 (Lactobacillus) and Wyeast 5526 (Brettanomyces lambicus) hours (or even a day or two) after primary fermentation has taken off. Ferment the beer for four to six days and rack it into a secondary fermenter. For a less lactic beer, stop the secondary fermentation by cooling the beer to 50 °F (10 °C) or below for two days. Rack again and allow the brew to warm up to room temperature. For a more lactic brew, skip the temperature drop and maintain the temperature at 60 °F (16 °C). Secondary fermentation should take roughly three weeks. Bottle or keg as normal, carbonating to roughly 3 volumes of CO2.
Basic Berliner Weisse
(5 gallons/19 L, extract only)
OG = 1.030 FG = 1.006
IBU = 5 SRM = 3 ABV = 3.2%
Ingredients
3.3 lbs. (1.5 kg) liquid Bavarian wheat malt extract
0.75 lbs. (0.34 kg) dried Bavarian wheat malt extract
2.1 AAU Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hops
(FWH) (0.5 oz./14 g at 4.25% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) or White Labs WLP036 (Düsseldorf Alt) yeast
Wyeast 5335 (Lactobacillus) bacteria
Wyeast 5526 (Brettanomyces lambicus) yeast
5⁄8 cup of corn sugar or 0.5 gal. (2 L) of kräusen (for priming)
Step by Step
Heat 5 gallons (19 L) water in your kettle. When temperature rises to 180 °F (78 °C), remove the kettle from heat and add the extract and hops. Stir until all the extract has dissolved and return the kettle to heat. Boil for 20 minutes. Follow the remainder of the all-grain recipe.
New World Berliner Weisse Commercial Examples
Berliner Braun
Jack’s Abby Brewing
Framingham, Massachusetts
www.jacksabbybrewing.com
Bonnie The Rare
Jester King Brewery
Austin, Texas
www.jesterkingbrewery.com
Festina Pêche
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Milton, Delaware
www.dogfish.com
Framboise Du Nord
August Schell Brewing Company
New Ulm, Minnesota
www.schellsbrewery.com
Guava Berliner Weisse
Cigar City Brewing
Tampa, Florida
www.cigarcitybrewing.com
Hottenroth Berliner Weisse
The Bruery
Placentia, California
www.thebruery.com
Justin Blåbær
Evil Twin Brewing
København, Denmark
www.eviltwin.dk
Leuven
Funkwerks
Fort Collins, Colorado
www.funkwerks.com
Peach Berliner Weisse
Perennial Artisan Ales
Saint Louis, Missouri
www.perennialbeer.com
Solstice D’été Aux Framboises
Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel
Montréal, Quebec
www.dieuduciel.com
Tartuffe
Heretic Brewing Company
Fairfield, California
www.hereticbrewing.com
