Snarling Badger
Berliner Weisse brewed by Grand Teton Brewing - Victor, Idaho
Grand
Teton Brewing Company has been brewing bold, flavorful beers and
serving them from large, beautiful bottles as part of its Cellar
Reserve Series since March 2004.
We’ve always intended these beers to be wonderful fresh but also to
be “cellarable”--to improve with months or even years of proper
storage. Over the years we’ve been happiest cellaring our strong
malty beers. That’s made selecting styles for our summer Cellar
Reserve releases a challenge, since the best beers for cellaring are
not always the best beers to enjoy on a hot summer’s day.
In Berliner Weisse we think we’ve found the perfect style for our
summer Cellar Reserve. This north German wheat beer is traditionally
brewed and released very fresh. It has a light body from the wheat
and refreshingly tart acidity that make it a perfect summer
thirst-quencher. Its lemony tartness is provided by a secondary
fermentation with lactobacillus, the same microorganism that’s
responsible for yogurt’s tang. That tartness increases and improves
with age, so the people of Berlin are known to buy extra bottles to
bury in their gardens for two years or more.
 
As usual with our Cellar Reserves, we’ve taken a traditional style
and added our own twist. In this case we’ve tripled the strength
over the traditional beer, which should only increase its aging
potential. For the primary fermentation we used a traditional
Bavarian hefeweizen yeast that produces soft notes of banana and
clove. We followed that with lactobacillus and six months in
conditioning to create a complex fruity acidity that compliments the
soft sweet malt tones and a unique ale that is both fulfilling and
refreshing. ABV: 7.5%. IBUs: 15
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