I had a few glasses of Schneider Brotzeit Bier the other day, and I was blown away. It's not very sour, just a little tart, but the flavors work together really well. It is one of the most refreshing, easy-to-drink beers I've ever had. (I like sour beers in general, so others may not find it as appealing, but as I said it's not actually very sour.) Anyway with a little digging I've only been able to find the information at the link above, which indicates the following specs: 50% rye malt 33% barley malt 20% Vienna malt (for a total of 103% malt, one of the highest percentages I've seen - this is a malt-forward beer for sure) 5 IBUs OG: 1.050 4.3-4.4% ABV The menu at the bar where I had this indicated that it was fermented with sourdough yeast (which in reality would be a mixed fermentation including yeast and lactic-acid producing bacteria), but the importer's website (linked above) states that it was inspired by the brewer's sourdough yeast starter, which makes me doubt that the sourdough starter was actually used. Anyway I am thinking about brewing it, and if anyone has any experience brewing this beer or thoughts on the recipe I would love input. I am thinking I might skip the hops entirely since the beer had no noticeable hop character, but maybe 5 IBUs is a good level to keep the acidity restrained. I don't know. I have a friend who bakes sourdough bread who could definitely give me some starter, which I guess I would ramp up to an appropriate pitching level, but I wonder if I would be better off with pure pitches of ale yeast and Lactobacillus. The beer did not (to my taste) have any of the prominent estery or phenol-y character that I would expect from bread yeast. In fact it might even have been fermented with lager yeast for all I know (although I would guess Lactobacillus would not do very much at lager temperatures). So anyway I appreciate any input.
This seems like a very cool beer all around. I'd love to taste it, and I'd love to brew it. I'm not sure how to figure out that 103%, but whatever. I guess I'd probably drop some of the rye. If I were to brew this I think I'd use the yogurt / kettle sour method and only let it go for a little bit, just to get a touch of sourness, not a full-on gosebier sourness. Ahhh, now that I think about it, that 33% is probably just a typo - I think that maybe it's supposed to say 30% barley.
