BEER STYLES
Cottbus which is Brandenburg’s second city south of Berlin. Here Kotbusser Bier is another German beer which de es the Reinheitsgebot . It is very similar to top fermented Broyhan except it is not all barley malt but has oats and wheat with honey or molasses added before fermentation. It is now brewed in the States rather than at home and is a rich dark sweetish altbier . Another interesting top-fermented survivor against the onward march of pale lagers is gose. It is a similar brew to Berlinerweisse but with more wheat content, some oats and additions of coriander and salt with a slightly higher pH at around 3.6. It was traditionally lled into long necked bottles called a bocksbeutel . Again its history is a bit mysterious but its brewing predates the imposition of the Reinheitsgebot in this part of Germany from 1906 (it was appar- ently a condition of Bavaria joining the newly-uni ed country) and even the Bavarian original in 1516, so its brewing is not restricted. References to deliberate souring in gose brewing do not appear in nine- teenth century brewing texts but there are stories of stone bottles having stoppers well secured with string and being buried while the microbes did their work. The River Gose runs through Goslar which is some 200km west of Berlin near Hanover. Goslar was a prosperous city in the Middle Ages due to silver mining in the nearby Harz Mountains. The river water used for mashing was saline but the beer gradually became associated with Leipzig to the southeast where they had to add the salt. The style was extinct by 1966 when the last brewer closed down and its revival is due to Leipzig pub owner Lothar Goldhahn. He had the beer brewed in Berlin at the Kindl brewery
COOLSHIPS
…at Cantillon in Brussels.
…and at BrewDog’s OverWorks in Scotland.
apparently nd mainly L brevis in current fermentations. Modern micros have a lot of archaic practices to resurrect but the easiest method is separate pitching of Saccharomyces and Lactobacillus and combining later to control acidity. Remember that many German brewers have lactic acid plants to add a low pH component before fermentation when adding salts to the mash or mineral acid to the wort might violate the rules of the Reinheitsgebot . The dryness of Berliner Weiss makes it the beer very refreshing on a summer’s afternoon unter den Linden. It is rarely served neat but usually mit Schuss , that is with a dash of either raspberry syrup – Ein Rotes – or Ein Grünes which is green from woodruff syrup and gives a newly-mown grass, clover avour. A wide mouthed bowl-shaped chal- ice glass is used which helps to allow pouring without excess foaming of the highly carbonated beer; I am at a loss to explain why it always comes with a straw. Many US brewers have already infused fruits, herbs and spices for you, there are even IPAs although bitterness and sourness do not really mix do they? The Berlin breweries are said to have acquired yeast supplies from
by the Hanseatic League. A certain Conrad Broyhan is well documented as brewing lowish strength wheat beers in Hamburg during the 1500s so news could easily have spread. Broyhan Altbier was brewed by the Gilde Brauerei until quite recently but it is unclear how that beer related to one brewed four centuries earlier. There were two surviving producers in Berlin when the wall came down – Schultheiss and Berliner Kindl – but the latter closed in 2006 as both fell under the ownership of Radeberger and dwindling sales could not justify keeping both. It renamed the remain- ing brewery Berliner Kindl Schultheiss but its largest output is pale lager, premixed cans of Weisse mit Schuss (see below) leaving the oor open to a clutch of experimental micros. The beer enjoys a European Appelation d’origine controlee as long as it is brewed in Berlin. In the old days there was more wheat content and higher strength. Wort was fermented in trade casks which simply frothed over to cleanse the yeast from the green beer. Publicans bottled their own so the yeast for pitch- ing was apparently collected from other breweries. Hops were added to the mash which helped ltration with high levels of wheat or else were boiled in a ‘hop tea’ which was used to raise mash temper- ature without the bother of decoction. The wort was not sterilised and much wooden equipment allowed bacteria to ourish and diastatic action to continue leading to a fully attenuated beer. Even smoked malt was used in some places up to 1860 and Brettanomyces thrived in any beer stored in wooden vessels. Max Delbruck from what is now VLB did a lot of work in the early 1900s and had a strain of Lactobacillus named after him although modern researchers
A modern pack of Berliner Weisse from the Berliner Kindl Brewery and the red and green colours from the addition of Schuss
october 2019 I BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL ● 31
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