Dr. Joe Lacto
Swiftwater Brewing Company

I like my beer how I like my coffee: black, rich, and not sour. But I wanted to try a berliner weisse today before work so the Dr Joe Lacto it was. This pale fermented malt beverage was delicious in it's own right. Crisp, smooth, and very drinkable. The coffee flavor was very muted but powerful enough to detect. Had I blind-tried this, I would probably spend some time trying to decide what that subtle flavor in the background was before considering that I was drinking a coffee berliner weisse. This snifter was just sour enough to feel crisp. No detectable maleic or butyric aromas. Barely a gimmick to this American berliner weisse.

On tap at Swiftwater Brewing in Rochester, NY.

This one pours a slightly hazy golden orange color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like earthy coffee and vanilla, with a light lemony acidity and a touch of funk.

This is a tough flavor combo to pull off, and they mostly do it here. The coffee adds a nice sweet earthiness to the generic lemon fruitiness of the base Berliner. It’s odd but it does kind of work.

This is light bodied, crisp and fairly clean, with a very high level of drinkability.

Swiftwater is definitely not afraid to get weird. This is very weird and it mostly works.