Freshness guidelines for the Berliner Weisse?

Look one up in the database. To the right of the reviews you'll find general guidelines in the form of a recommendation about cellaring that style of beer. Most should be drunk fresh.

 

Hey what's up? Found this thread from last year.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-do-berliner-weisses-cellar.34203/

 

To quote Michael Jackson:

"In the production of Berliner Weisse, there is a blending with a wort that is three to six months old. The brew then has between three and six months' maturation at warm temperatures, is re-inoculated, and has three to four weeks' bottle conditioning....

Devotees of the style will keep the beer for a further one to two years in a cool, dark place (but not a refrigerator) to bring out the delicacy and complexity of its fruitiness and fragrance."

EDIT: of course, none of the half-ass U.S. "craft" practitioners of the style follow any of these guidelines, so if you're drinking their "Berliners," none of the above matters. Such is the state of U.S. "craft" brewing....

 

Hmmm, so what is the state of German brewed Berliner Weisse beer?

I am aware that there are a few Berliner Weisse beer brewed in Germany:

· Professor Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse

· Berliner Style Weisse - Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer

· Berliner Kindl Weisse - Berliner Kindl Brauerei

On a number of occasions Ron Pattinson has opined on the German brewed versions of Berliner Weisse beers. For example:

“In in 1980's, Berliner Weisse was sour as flip in Berlin.

Sadly, the style is almost dead in Berlin.

That's not an excuse for brewing a beer called Berliner Weisse without the relevant characteristics.”

I wonder where the “full ass” Berliner Weisse beers are being brewed these days!?!

Cheers!

 

Ron has documented the German brewers that are doing it authentically. I assume you conveniently skipped that portion of his research for the purposes of your polemic.

EDIT: also, are the U.S. versions somehow the standard-bearers of the style now purely owing to being extant? What a load of crap.

 

Do you mean the one that he has not tried yet (as of Feb. 2013)?

Thursday, 7 February 2013

The rebirth of Berliner Weisse

I'm glad that someone in Berlin has realised the sorry state of Berliner Weisse and decided to do something about it.

Bogk-Bier Privatbrauerei

I hope it's the start of a revival for this much abused beer style.

Yes, plenty of people have given Berliner Weiss a go in the US. But that's never going to have the resonance as a Berlin-brewed beer. At least not with me.

I still dream of the beer whose label you can see to the right. Of all the beers that have disappeared since I started drinking, it's the loss that saddens me the most.

Can't wait to try the new Berliner Weisse. From Berlin.

Cheers!

 

So, again, if the half-ass versions already exist, they are necessarily better than the ones that replicate the authentic processes but have yet to be authenticated?

And what does this have to do with the subject of aging/not aging Berliners?

Sounds like St. Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God...(i.e., a load of crap)

 

I bought some 9 month old Bell's Oarsman (not true BW but similar) and it was pretty close to fresh (would need to do a back to back to be sure).

 

My best advice for freshness? Go to Berlin and have some. Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss does tours and you get several free beers afterwards.

 

A properly-made Berliner Weisse will last for pretty much ever. I've had ones that were 40-odd years old and still wonderful.