Berliner Weisse beginnings...

I've been thinking heavily of Berliner Weisse lately. I've only had this style of beer a few times, the last time being last year on vacation in Jersey.. we hit up a place called the Tun Tavern that's a brew pub, and they had one on tap. Never really seen that done before in a brew pub. Sour beer, on tap in a brewery? Most would run scared. In either case, the beer was fantastic. Tart, dry, crisp, and very flavorful. At only 3% abv, you could drink this like fruit-juice and enjoy it all day long. It was awesome.

Anyway, I've been struggling with what to put on Tap #4, which at my place, has almost always been a sour or wild beer yeast tap line. I need something to replace the Brett Pale Ale that's running out of time there now.. and Berliner just popped into my head the other week and I've been thinking about it ever since. It's a weird beer. It's fermented with lactobacillus for the tart, sour notes it has and then finished up with a clean ale strain. The lacto continues to work it's magic until it nearly dries right up to nothing for final gravity. I've had lots of fun with Brett beers in the past year, and I enjoy them.. but they're no sour beer, which are my favorite. I also don't seem to have the patience for Flanders style hard core sour beers (think Rodenbach Grand Cru) and the ability to keep them in rotation all the while. Berliner Weisse, tho.. this seems to be a fairly quick turn around beer, because the lactobacillus is a faster acting souring mechanism. It throws out a bit of acid pretty quick, and then kicks the bucket because it can't tolerate alcohol very much. This style also has the distinction of being so obscure, and so weird to brew, that people just don't seem to want to brew the damned thing. Finding info on this process is not easy like it is for Stouts and IPA's. Which is to say, it seems like it was made just for *me*. Gotta be different, you know.. ;-)

Anyway, I got an old packet of lactobacillus (WYeast #5335, I believe..) from the brew shop in East Hartford, Brew & Wine Hobby, from the just-about-new owner there (sorry, I forget his name at the moment..) who is buying out the old owner. This packet was out of date by almost 5 months, so nearly a year old.. but the shop owner there gave it to me for nothing and said to give it a try, and that it would probably still work. Some emails exchanged with WYeast about this strain has me fermenting it in a bucket with a heat lamp suspended over it to hold the temperature at 80+ degrees to hopefully grow up a starter for this thing big enough to do a split batch of 10+ gallons. WYeast was very helpful with information for this weird bugger, and I think I' might have given up or just failed without them assisting me. I'm very grateful to their customer assistance program right about now. Before I get too far, I'd like to give a shout out to the new owner of the above-mentioned brew store. He's a younger fellow from the previous owner and seems MUCH more personable and beer friendly. The last fellow seems a little wine biased and a touch grouchy.. but this new fellow is certainly a pleasure to speak with. My future brew shop business will more than likely be in his direction. Give him a look-see, eh?

So, to bring this to a close, I turned to a trusted and valiant home-brewer from past beers, Geoffrey Dobos, to kick around the idea of brewing this funny beer. Geoff seems highly interested and we have plans to go forward with it's creation starting tomorrow afternoon.. wish us luck. This should be a good learning experience. I can tell already that this beer will be one of those that I brew over and over until I get it right.. so, if we don't get it just perfect this time, we'll hone in on it until we do.. keep an eye on this space for details of the brew coming in tomorrow.

Take care..