The Bruery Hottenroth Berliner Weisse

Brewed by The Bruery
Style: Berliner Weisse
Placentia, California USA

Bottle from Dasilky1.
Poured from a bottle covered in muck, presenting a most unusual lemonade yellow with a nose that drops two big ones, lemon and sun-bleached wheat- on the olfactory. I haven’t seen a head on a beer that big since this morning. Nice, white puffy cotton. Flavor really filters out the pollutants with a tart lemon juice begining and a Dom Perignon-esque finish that isn’t ashamed to told you where it came from. I love this mouthfeel, Larry; reminds me of the feeling of homemade lemonade in my mouth when I was a kid. And my dead brother. A beer that would go great with a steak sandwich and, a steak sandwich.

750ml bottle served in a tulip. Pale golden color with a light haze and a one-finger thick head of lasting off-white foam. Decent lacing. The aroma had fresh flaked wheat, sourdough bread, and light lemon. The flavor was crisp and sour. Very bready followed by a lemony tartness. Very light and refreshing. Crisp and dry. Simple, but quite tasty and drinkable.

Draft @ Stone World Bistro: Pale straw. Big-bubbled white head slowly fizzles into a tight collar. Expressively lactic aroma displays notes of lemon peel, unripe melon, peach, and dough. Fairly musty with a dab of Band-Aid, as well. Brisk prickles of carbonation turn fuzzy as it hits the palate. Considerable bready heft, upfront, with a crackery pils malt tailing which yields to a lactic tingle reminiscent of unripe peach skin. Robustly phenolic with a tangle of Band-Aid and persistent dough and toasted crackers. Succulent dabs of honeydew melon and peach manage to poke through despite the bracing dryness. Suggestions of popcorn and husks exude here and there. Pleasant fusion of crackers and piecrust is cushioned by gritty pear and unripe peach acidity at the finish. Not a whole lot of depth or complexity here. And, relative to Berliner Weiss, I didn’t find this to be a particularly characterful rendition. Middle of the road.

Courtesy of fogdog. Pours murky white rice water with white head. The aroma is a nice mix of grains, funk, some tartness and then a sense of sweet malts. The taste is crisp and fresh with some lemon acidity, a bit of yeast, some watery sweetness, a tad more tartness and then it seem to head into some grainy malts. Nice stuff.

Pours a slightly hazy yellow gold. Nose is loaded with lemon zest , yeast, and slight funk tart. Taste is really light and refreshing, not watery though, nice lemon tart, acidic, nice medium carbonation, not sour, but light.

750ml bottle from south bay... pours a semi-hazy pale yellowness with a thin soapy white head... Aroma of wheat and lemony yeast which dominate... Flavors of light refreshing lemon tartness accompanied by light yeasty notes. Carbonated and refreshing. Very effervescent and nicely done for such a very light Berliner weiss.

Bottle from SL shared by my pop. The pour was pale golden in color, weak head. The aroma was wheaty grainy notes with citrus and lemons as well as some light funk. The flavor was citrus/lemons over the wheaty base (almost seemed to have a bite level of rye character), light funk, earthy notes, faint dough. The flavor could have been a bit deeper, but this was probably pretty typical for the style, a great summer refresher, too bad I didn’t get it in the summer! Mouthfeel light and refreshing, tart sour finish.

750, only capped, from the first batch to hit Indiana’s shelves. Nose is lightly tart but very wild, sort of dusty barnyard, pastry notes, and mild but creamy yeast starter. Hazy, very pale yellow body with a creamy and dense (miniscule bubbles!), heavily lacing, sparkling, brilliantly white head. Taste is much tarter than expected but superbly balanced, a little lemon cleaner in with the lambic-y sourness, but the smooth aftertaste is the real story, waves and waves of lightly-baked bread with stronger sourdough and pretzel overtones. Extremely long-lasting milky/ lacto tone. Well-attentuated, dry goodness, slimy but full and smooth, creamy body. Avoids all of the harsh metallic notes that Kindl offers but still lacks some of the wild spontaneity of Schtltheiss. So, on the whole, YES! We finally have a great (great) Berliner in the States.