1885 article on Berliner Weisse

Great Post.

Thank you for translating, lol.

To convert the Balling measurements to ABV, try this out:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/brix-converter/

 

Interesting stuff, especially about the mashing regime.

In more modern times Berliner was classed as a “Schankbier” so the gravity couldn’t exceed around 8º without the risk of ending up in a different tax bracket.

But in the 1930s there was still a stronger version of Weisse being occasionally brewed with a gravity of 16–18º Plato, Imperial Berliner Weisse as the kids would say nowadays. This beer was said to be best after a year of bottle aging.

 

Very interesting. Andreas Bogk published a manuscript from the brew master of Groterjan-brewery, which he wrote in 1947, but never published. It's very detailed and goes into depth of the different sorts of Weisse they brewed back then. You can find it here.

 

Great stuff, thanks for posting. Looks like all the Berliner Weisse brewers had different techniques, unlike how some BA's portray the style's tradition. Apparently one of the three cited may even not have used decoction, "...the third holds the kettlemash to be the most advantageous."

 

*Sigh.* Please point out where I ever said all Berliner Weisse brewing involves decoction. (Matter of fact, I don't think I ever mentioned decoction in the context of Schultheiss's process at all, but it is interesting to see that some brewers did, in fact, use it.) And, yes, while there were various traditional methods for brewing the style, all of them are considerably more complex that those being employed by U.S. "craft" brewers. I'd be thrilled to see a U.S. "craft" brewer employ any of these....

 

I have been on a huge berlinner wiesse beer kick for the past year. This is all really interesting to reading about! The history of beer styles that are some of my personal favorites are always interesting to learn all the in's and out's about those styles! Thanks for the interesting read OP!

 

Great example of märzen as a process before it became a "style."

 

The point, of course, is that each brewery makes a style they enjoy to make and that their customers enjoy to drink.

There are no correct ways of brewing a beer, even though there are those who insist there are, no right and wrong. It is, and always has been, an ongoing experiment in making a style to meet the expectations of the brewer and the customer base. Crusader documents there were many roads to get there, with major differences in amount of wheat and how the mash was done. And your comment about a "complex process" is a ludicrous remark in the face of this info., e.g., I used to have to write on paper with a pen, now I write with a word processing program and computer screen, therefore, according to you, the words I now write aren't as good as they could be if I started to use a pen again.

The fact that you don't enjoy any American version you so far have tried means nothing to the rest of us who are loving the many delicious versions we drink, and the fact that there were many, constantly changing "traditional" ways to brew a beer that customers enjoy to drink means everything to the rest of us, both in Germany back then, and America now.

Perhaps I have this wrong, and you will explain how it isn't just about your fond memories and longing for a remembered beer?

 

Do not some even call this "style" a sour? Though I sort of think of Belgium for sours, I guess its not locked to 1 area.
GOSE is sour to me also. yea and salty...

Can you even try to image making beer before knowing was was really going on in the beer, it must have been like magic....one book I just was reading said in 1 culture the used to place the "boiling" beer next to the others so it COULD teach it how to boil....lol. of course all beer was magically taught to boil....

better known as fermentation of course.

thanks for the post!

 

Is there an english version of this available?

 

Could 'high wall' be the hot break when the beer jumps?

 

Actually, my desire to see brewers (U.S., German, or otherwise) employ as many of the traditional processes as possible stems more from my own homebrewing experience. If there's one thing I have learned from brewing, it's that process -- and not equipment, experimentation, etc. -- produces great beer. When attempting to brew the beers I love, I have found it is of paramount importance to dial in my process by learning from the originators/protectors of those processes if I hope to get anywhere close to my goals -- with my goals being to create classic German styles that, while not clones of the originals, would fit more or less seamlessly in with the culture that produced that style. If one believes in, and chooses to commercially market a beer as belonging to, a certain accepted style, it becomes IMO all the more important to understand and employ the process(es) that was/were developed by the originators. Why? Because IMO beers brewed this way taste better. But maybe that's just me. As you correctly point out, if enough people enjoy the taste as is, something about the beer must be "good." It's just an unending source of astonishment to me that this perspective -- which would seem better suited to mass-produced, processed food/drink -- has somehow become the mantra of something calling itself "craft" beer.

 

Never mind that it can be (and often is) better with a little research and development.

 

Great stuff, and your translation makes perfect sense. Of the three mash schedules, one starts off with a protein rest while the second one doesn't. Both of these are decoction mashes, while the third doesn't use decoction at all. These differences could all be the result of the equipment and raw materials that each brewery had to work with, and as was pointed out, didn't really matter in the end product as they were all able to produce a high quality beer. I thought the part about boiling hops in water and using that to raise the temperature of the beer was interesting too. This was a necessity since the beer was never boiled prior to transfer to the coolship, and that would have added the small amount of bitterness and preservative qualities of the hops to the beer. The high residual extract in the finial beer definitely indicates that the Berlin brewers were working with very poor quality/highly under modified malt. This is probably the biggest difference between modern interpretations of Berliner Weisse, and the ones described in this article. These beers probably were no where near as sour as what we see today- at least the ones served fresh, which is probably how most of it was consumed. In your second post talking about fermentation- the beer was finished in 3 days, which is fast, but not that abnormal for a ale fermentation. When lacto is used as part of a mixed culture with an ale yeast, the yeast will actually out compete the lacto for simple sugars, resulting in a fairly mildly acidic beer. 8-14 days to condition and then it was served and drank fresh. It mentions that it keeps for 4-6 weeks in a cool cellar- the high amount of residual sugar would have been plenty of food for the lacto and brett to work on, which is why it needed to be kept cool. This would have kept the micro activity and sourness to a minimum. The high amount of residual extract would have been a fair amount of sweetness that was probably nice with a little sourness. Over time though, as it continued to ferment in the bottle, it would have became drier, more sour, and highly carbonated, which is probably closer to what we associate it with today.

 

I wouldn't interpret that to mean that the beer is "finished" after 3 days, only that primary fermentation is done then. Also, the passage mentions that after 8-14 days the beer is "drinkable," which I wouldn't interpret to necessarily mean it was typically served and drunk then (although I'm sure some places did do this). I believe the 4-6 weeks refers to a common maturation period, and not that the beer will simply "keep" for this long. Of course I am basing this on Schultheiss's processes, which Michael Jackson described as the "traditional and painstaking way" of brewing the style.

 

I feel obligated to tag @stakem

 

Yes, Mr. Burgess, Schultheiss was that last brewer of traditional Berliner Weisse. They did do an long, extended aging with their Weisse, but this article would pre-date the work that was done by Dr. Schönfeld on Berliner Weisse. Prior to his research, very little would have been know about bacteria and brettanomyces, and how they affected the beer. It wouldn't have been until after his research that brewers really understood what was going on with their beers. And when pure yeast and bacteria cultures became available to brewers, and they were able to control their fermentations, then the extended bottle conditioning would have probably come into favor because they understood that was how long it took the brettanomyces character to develop. Before that, and especially modern sanitation practices, the beers would have been contaminated with all sorts of other organisms other than just yeast and bacteria, which would have caused the beer to go bad in a relatively short amount of time.