Berliner Weisse
New Ridge Brewing

New Ridge Brewing "Berliner Weisse"
$8 / 32 oz. crowler from the brewery on 26 August 2020

So this is an easy beer to review, but let's start with the lesser points to make it easier to cover. It's not as sour as the two remaining "original' Berliner weisse from Germany, nor is it as carbonated. The carbonation is easy to understand as this is not a bottled product and getting up above 2.7 volumes of CO2 per liter would make it difficult to pour, and thus extremely difficult to put into a growler or crowler. The acidity is a little bit harder to understand, but... OK, let's face it, Berliner weisse is not a very accessible beer. It's not popular in Germany, nor in Berlin itself, and this is being produced for the masses so... DONE... let's move onto the good points. It's a mostly clear light gold in color which you'd expect, and due to the restrained sourness the bright white head holds longer than might normally be expected. I should also point out here, for those that are unaware, that this style of beer was actually fairly common in the United States at one point with farmhouses across the country producing it as an inexpensive roadside quaff. Back to the beer itself, Berliner Weisse can be a little funky because there's a lot going on besides the lactobacillus delbrueckii that's already found on the wheat or barley - there's basically always some wild yeast and other lactose-bacters on there as well - but this is remarkably clean. I'm guessing that they're using WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii from White Labs as opposed to doing a more traditional kettle sour. That's OK by me!!! I love a super funky beer but they can easily get way out of hand and then you just have a disaster; and on a hot day sitting outside this works just fine. I get the tartness, the wheat, a tiny bit of funkiness, and some apple-like fruitiness ~ it's refreshing and interesting (particularly for those who have never had a Berliner Weisse before). I'd love to give this higher marks, but yeah, stylistically it falls a bit short. Still, I really enjoyed it and I'd go back for more.