Berliner Style Weisse
Troubled Monk Brewery

I was rather excited to see this in a 22oz bomber - TM's first foray into big bottles. The results are entirely pleasant - a wheaty, slightly sour, grainy weisse. It is a smooth, even keeled brew on its own accord. I tried the Woodruff syrup, on the recommendation of favorite tap gal. The addition of this syrup was lovely, adding a nice black tea-like sweetness to the overall package. Once again, my hometown brewery has concocted a delightful brew.

650ml bottle, available only at the brewery's taproom, where the chalkboard denotes this as a 'Berliner Vice-ah', apparently due to the, er, evolving beer culture in Red Deer. It also comes with a 60ml bottle of craft raspberry syrup, to be addressed later.

This beer pours a clear, pale golden yellow colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly bubbly bone-white head, which leaves a few instances of ocean upswell lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of gritty and grainy pale malt, some edgy wheatiness, subtle earthy yeast, some very ethereal milky sourness, and plain weedy, leafy, and floral hop bitters. The taste is mildly tart generic light orchard fruit (lemon/lime, mostly), a lessening lactic character, bready and doughy wheat malt, some further pale graininess, laid-back yeast, and more gentle leafy, piney, and weedy green hoppiness.

The bubbles are pretty tame in their low-key frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and mostly smooth, nothing really getting in the way of a good time here. It finishes off-dry, the general wheatiness of it all persisting, alongside some simple mixed tartness.

Overall, a well-made version of the style, however, the tartness levels are certainly restrained enough to allow for novice imbibers (even the ones who necessitated the spelling change mentioned earlier) to ease on into it. I'm not sure that the mit Schuss is even called for here, but I gotta try it nonetheless.

Round 2: the instructions call for 1/4 bottle of syrup to be added to 1/2 bottle of Weisse, so that's what I'm doing with the remainder of the bomber. It is now rendered a particulate-strewn salmon pink hue, with an aroma of fresh raspberry pie, and tastes like very sweet reduced raspberries and grainy wheat, with the new fruity tartness overriding anything in the base beer. Much more fruity, juicy and sugary with the syrup - I think I was fine without it.