De Garde Domination

I think this is a simple case of Oregon people inflating ratings on beer to prop up trade value for these beers. Because, you know, we all trade prolifically.


snark snark snark

 

Yeah, that's why I came to the PNW forum to be a Florida homer and to try and prove that my Florida beers are better and you all should trade me all your Oregon beers for them.

 

This sounds so incredibly like the (IMO, dumb) arguments for "Cascadian Dark Ale" that were running around a couple years ago.

Splitting "Fruited Berliner Weisse" from plain "Berliner Weisse" is something that makes sense to me. Calling fruited Berliners "Florida Weisse" is silly.

(Oh, and Cascade's "Northwest Sour Ale" label is also dumb.)

 

Didn't Trevor also say that the De Garde berliners are technically not berliner weisses?

 

I've been under the impression that Floridaweisse was a nod to the use of tropical florida fruits?

 

You mean, apart from not being brewed in Berlin?

 

1. Currant Gin Bu
2. Cucumber crush
Honerable mention: hottenroth, NG berliner

 

I thought all the beer at @deGardebrewing was spontaneously fermented nowadays. Is this inaccurate?

If so, can it be labeled a Berliner Weisse? If not, how is the beer fermented? With a Sac then a Lacto? Brett v. no brett?

In all my research, the berliner weisse is not spontaneously fermented - traditional or modern.

Does somebody have some more insight?

 

thats probably why it is berlinerweisse inspired or I think they said "our version..."
granted, it is also not brewed in Berlin

 

Depends how you want to define "spontaneously fermented." Historically the Berliners were inoculated with wild yeast and lactobacillus on grain kernels by throwing some raw grain into the wort or mash. Michael Tonsmerie's (themadfermentationist) recent book, American Sour Beers, has a great description on the history of this style, and describes how most Berliners in Berlin now don't contain wheat, of the two major historical producers one utilized brett, while the one continuing brewer doesn't.

Corvallis breweries Block 15 and Flat Tail were also pushing out some good Berliners back in 2010 and 2011. If I remember right Block 15 was more traditional serving it unadulterated with woodruff and raspberry syrups you could add on preference. I do remember one attempt at a blueberry Berliner there that wound up being a diacetyl bomb. I really liked Flat Tail's Corvaller Weisse which they split between being fermented with a Lactobicillus/Kolsch yeast blend, and the other portion with 100% Brettanomyces before throwing them in barrels and blending the two with huckleberries.

 

Hopefully Trevor may pop back in to give a definitive answer and fix what I'm misremembering, but I believe Bu is pretty traditional in most regards, only differing significantly in not pitching Sacc but rather being spontaneously innoculated in the coolship. In particular, traditional grain bill, hop bill, sour mash, no boil. (Of course, "tradition" is somewhat arbitrary when talking about a style with a 500 year history, over which brewing changed dramatically.)

 

How would they historically not use wild yeast? I doubt the style was created after commercial yeast.

 

It wouldn't be a pure strain, but brewers have certainly propagated desirable yeast populations long before there were commercial labs isolating single strains.

But, yeah, for appropriate values of "historical", I would imagine that all beer had a variety of yeasts and bacteria doing their thing in it.

 

Yep, if they didn't have the means to separate Sacc, Pedio, Lacto, and Brett then I imagine de Garde is closer to historical than any of popular methods today. I don't think determining where the yeast comes from (pitch versus coolship) should affect what style you determine it to be.

 

Considering pitched sacc yeast could very well have higher viability than wild yeast but that Brett's (and maybe/probably Pedio/Lacto) viability seems to vary less (according to some stuff I've read from the White Labs guys), I'd say for the exact same cell counts coolship beers could actually be more sour than pitched beers since the sacc yeast in coolship beers could have lower comparable viability compared to the Brett/Pedio/Lacto in the two. Could be an interesting experiment...

 

Which is likely made up for by pitching sacc after the lacto is mostly done. I assume the pedio comes into play with souring for de Garde though and I don't know how many other American berliners have the pedio in their berliners.

 

Does it matter? It's all delicious anyways....

 

Hey guys,
I don't know what a traditional Berliner should be. I mean, you can pull some records from a few eras, but MY understanding is that it's a predominantly lactic bacteria soured beer with about 50% of the grist being wheat. Should be some Brett, but that seems to be missing in most current iterations. There are people out there (and on here) with a much more in depth knowledge.
We brew what we like.
Are we 'traditional' in not pitching yeast or bacteria? Maybe not. Quite probably depends upon how far back you look.
I do believe that our process produces a final product indicative of a Berliner by favoring lactic bacteria and wild saccharomyces with a touch of Brettanomyces. We do call it 'Berliner inspired' though out of respect for our brethren in Germany.
I'll counter that by saying, if we want to get silly, we may as well stop calling IPA's by that name given the removal from the original style. Really, we're pushing an oval peg into a round hole because it's really close to fitting. Seems right.
I WILL go on record as saying that the Florida-Weissen thing... well, I mean, marketing. Breweries are businesses.
I do not in any way want to disparage what the great brewers down there are doing. But there are a number of breweries still in existence doing lacto forward beers with fruit. And yes, a number doing it before anyone in Florida did it.
But really, just like we're lumping our product in with Berliner for right or wrong, style names are malleable and being created all the time. If it sticks, I have zero hard feelings. I can't imagine it being worth any negative feelings for anyone.
And the folks down there are making great stuff.
Synopsis:
Who cares? Good beer is good. Businesses, palates, breweries, history, etcetcetce.

 

Well that's an awesome response

 

Pretty sure we can close this thread now.