Berliner Weisse is a cloudy, sour wheat beer

Wheat beer

Wheat beer is a beer that is brewed with a large proportion of wheat. Wheat beers often also contain a significant proportion of malted barley. Wheat beers are usually top-fermented...

 of around 3% abv

ABV

ABV is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Alcohol by volume, a measure of the alcohol content of alcoholic drinks* Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria, from its IATA airport code...

. It is a regional beer from Northern Germany, mainly Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, dating back to the 16th century. By the 19th century, Berliner Weisse was the most popular alcoholic drink in Berlin, and 700 breweries produced it. By the late 20th century there were only two breweries left in Berlin producing the beer, and a handful in other parts of Germany. The name "Berliner Weisse" is protected in Germany, so it can only be applied to beers brewed in Berlin. However, there are a number of American and Canadian brewers who make a beer in the Berliner Weisse style, and use the name.

History

Most beer authorities trace the origins of Berliner Weisse to an unknown beer being produced in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 which was copied and developed by the 16th century brewer Cord Broihan. Broihan's beer, Halberstädter Broihan, became very popular, and a version was being brewed in Berlin by the Berlin doctor J.S. Elsholz in the 1640s. An alternative possibility, given by Protz

Roger Protz

Roger Protz is a British writer, journalist and campaigner. He was an early member of the Campaign for Real Ale in 1971, and has written several books on beer and pubs...

 among others, is that migrating Huguenots developed the beer from the local red

Flanders red ale

Flanders red ale is a style of sour ale usually brewed in Belgium. Although sharing a common ancestor with English porters of the 17th century, the Flanders red ale has evolved along a different track: the beer is often fermented with organisms other than Saccharomyces cerevisiae, especially...

 and brown ales

Oud bruin

Oud Bruin, also known as Flanders Brown, is a style of beer originating from the Flemish region of Belgium. The name literally translates as "old brown", referring to the long aging process which can take up to a year. It undergoes a secondary fermentation, which takes several weeks to a month,...

 as they moved through Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 into Northern Germany. Some sources, such as Dornbusch, give the date 1572 as being the earliest record of the beer being brewed in Berlin.

Frederick Wilhelm

Frederick William I of Prussia

Frederick William I of the House of Hohenzollern, was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death...

 encouraged the spread of the beer through Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

, declaring it as "best for our climate", and having his son, Frederick the Great, trained to brew it. A popular story is that Napoleon's troops dubbed it "The Champagne of the North" in 1809.

A typical modern strength for Berliner Weisse is around 3% abv

ABV

ABV is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Alcohol by volume, a measure of the alcohol content of alcoholic drinks* Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria, from its IATA airport code...

, though strength may have varied at times. Traditionally, beers brewed in March (Märzen beers) were brewed stronger and allowed to mature over the summer months, and there is a report that this may have also happened with Berliner Weisse — the bottles being buried in sand or warm earth.

Brewing

Modern brewing methods use a low proportion of wheat, generally ranging from 25% to 50%, and deliberately create a sourness either by a secondary fermentation in the bottle (Jackson suggests that traditionally bottles were buried in warm earth for several months), or by adding Lactobacillus

Lactobacillus

Lactobacillus is a genus of Gram-positive facultative anaerobic or microaerophilic rod-shaped bacteria. They are a major part of the lactic acid bacteria group, named as such because most of its members convert lactose and other sugars to lactic acid. They are common and usually benign...

.
Records from the early 19th century indicate that the beer was brewed from five parts wheat to one part barley, and drunk young, with little indication of creating sourness with either a secondary fermentation or by adding Lactobacillus.

Brands

At the height of Berliner Weisse production in the 19th century, it was the most popular alcoholic drink in Berlin, and 700 breweries produced it. By the end of the 20th century there were only two breweries left in Berlin, and a handful in the rest of Germany. The two Berlin breweries, Berliner Kindl and Schultheiss, are both now owned by the Oetker Group and the only brand still produced in Berlin is Berliner Kindl Weisse.

Serving

Berliner Weisse is typically served in a bowl-shaped glass with flavoured syrups, such as raspberry

Raspberry

The raspberry or hindberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves...

 (Himbeersirup), or woodruff (Waldmeistersirup). The beer may also be mixed with other drinks, such as pale lager

Pale lager

Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...

, in order to balance the sourness.

External links

• Berliner Weisse germanbeerinstitute.com