That could be because you’re a good boy and don’t add things like melanoidin, special roast and fruit to your Berliner. I’m not even allowed to call my beer a Berliner. I get stuck with the moniker of sour fruited wheat beer. :-\
The commercial Berliners from Germany produce ample head, but I wouldn’t call them sour. Tart and refreshing is more like it.
I had another bottle of New Glarus Berliner Weiss today. It poured almost as high and rocky, but definitely was highly carbonated. I had to stop and top off the glass at least four times. Head retention was good and left moderate lacing. The beer did not give the impression of added lactic acid, but was lightly sour and very clean. It reminds me of Berliner Kindl, but I haven’t had one of those for at least a decade.
Not many Floridians get to taste New Glarus beer. They only distribute in Wisconsin and they are easily the finest all around brewery in the state. They are famous for making fruit beers that actually taste like the fruit on the label without using flavor extracts. They have very reasonable prices and make a good effort to conform to style.
Their recent beer called “Sour Wild Ale” was partially spontaneously fermented in barrels and was every bit as good as other sour wild ales that cost 4x as much. They plan to produce a wider variety of sours in the future. They produce a silly amount of beer for a craft brewery, but don’t intend to sell out of state. Wisconsin can drink your state under the table and has been doing so since 1856.
Yes, I think New Glarus has an awesome business plan as well as great beer. You can find Spotted Cow at every corner bar in Wisconsin, but their sour fruit beers are internationally famous in spite of only local availability.
I got these beers in a trade for some Cigar City and other Florida beers at NHC.
