Thursday, August 27, 2009

Strawberry Short Weisse

Oh, the exciting and ever unpredictable world of sour beers! Bugs - they’re not just for fly fishing anymore. We’re a bit late entering into this aspect of the brewing world, but I like to believe that our pace of experimentation is mindful and deliberate. Or we may just be a bit slow. That being said, we’re about to send out our first sour beer: Strawberry Short Weisse. This started as an attempt to brew a Berliner Weisse for the 2008 Extreme Beer Fest in Boston. The beer didn’t quite make it in time - in fact it’s a year and a half late. However its tardiness is no indication of its tastiness (or something like that).

The original thought was to brew 25 barrels of an 8° Plato wheat beer. Separate off a third of it for souring and ferment the rest with a traditional hefe strain. The soured portion was pitched with a mixture of Chico and Lactobacillus. We hoped to blend the two portions, but after a few months it became clear that the sour part wasn’t going to be sour enough to make the whole batch interesting. We ended up dumping the wheat beer portion and focused on the remaining third. Over the last year we added several additions of first runnings to give the lacto a bit more food to consume. Once we finally reached the sourness we liked we decided to add 300 pounds of frozen strawberries, mostly just for the hell of it. Luckily, when Peter saw all those strawberries he kind of just walked on by with naught but a raised eyebrow. The berries kicked off a bit more lactic activity and added flavor and a real delicate and beautiful aroma. The final beer has a nice clean sour character and is extremely drinkable at 3% ABV. Hopefully you get a chance to try this unusual and rare offering.

Cheers,

Dave

Specific Gravity: 8° Plato
IBU: 5
ABV: 3%

Grain Bill:
Pale Malt
Wheat Malt

Hop Bill:
Saaz

4 comments:

Rob said...

The only beers my fiancee will drink is Kasteel Rouge and something called Fruli. This sounds perfect for her. Is it available in NH anywhere? I know these short batches are hard to find.

RunawayJim said...

You should totally make this one a regular seasonal. It's awesome and there are far too few Berliner Weiss beers available.

Unknown said...

PLEASE make this a regular seasonal- it's delicious!

Bryan said...

Had this on tap last week at Redlight Redlight, the best beer bar in Florida. Holy cow, this stuff is awesome! I ended up having 5 glasses of it that night. I love Berliner Weiss and wish more brewers would take note. Examples like this one and those of New Glarus and The Bruery are a definite step in the right direction.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make more of this and send it down here to Redlight Redlight. In fact, any of your experimental brews would be welcomed with open arms down here!