Best Practices - Traditional Berliner Weisse

Looking to make a traditional Berliner Weisse? Follow our guidelines below.

Recipe: We recommend this recipe from Wilder Wald: https://wilder-wald.com/2017/12/08/historic-berliner-weisse-homebrew-recipe/

Strains:

• Clean ale yeast (House Ale EL-D1 or Kölsch will work great), at 50% of your usual pitch rate
• Brett blend containing mild strains (we recommend Berliner Brett Blend), at secondary pitching rate
• Hop resistant Lactobacillus blend, no Pediococcus (we recommend Lactobacillus Secondary Souring Blend), at secondary pitching rate

For pro brewers, we recommend ordering the individual components from us and pitching everything together into the primary fermentation. Acidity will develop over 1-2 months.

Make sure to use minimal hops (2 IBU to start) for best results.

For homebrewers, we do occasional limited releases of a Berliner Weisse Blend product containing Saccharomyces, Lactobacillus, and Brettanomyces.

Accelerated Berliner Weisse:

This alternative method works nicely to produce a mixed culture Berliner Weisse on an accelerated time scale:

• Pitch Kveik yeast (e.g. Laerdal Kveik or Hornindal Kveik) and Lactobacillus Secondary Souring Blend into 30-32 °C wort (2 IBU) and hold for 3-5 days or until desired acidity is achieved and beer is at or near final gravity of the Saccharomyces strain.
• Cool to 18-20 °C and pitch Berliner Brett Blend and a small dry hop (1g/L), hold for 2-3 weeks until the beer has developed subtle Brett character
• Bottle condition

More Information

For more background information on traditional Berliner Weisse, check out our YouTube video with Berliner Weisse expert, Benedikt Rausch: