One of my favorite parts of brewing is how creative you can get once you’ve learned the rules of the process. As brewers, we have hundreds of ways to manipulate the flavor of our brews. We have our choice when it comes to malt, hops, and yeast, we can add minerals to our water or take them away, and we can even choose between different bacterias to create unique and exciting flavors.

I believe it was my friend Caton that originally told me about using yogurt as a way of souring a Berliner Weisse. I was intrigued by the idea because it made complete sense, but I had never considered it before.

Yogurt has the same combination of souring bacteria that we need in brewing, so why would I spend a few hundred dollars for a lab grown pitch when I could just go to the store and spend a few bucks on some yogurt?

I was running the pilot program at a brewery in Dallas when I used this method for the first time. I didn’t use enough yogurt, so the souring process took nearly 3 days before I reached my desired PH, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. For this recent batch I brewed for Brlog, I got more than enough yogurt, and it was pleasantly tart in less than 24 hours.

This beer is traditional in most ways, but the added yogurt means it does not qualify as beer under the Reinheitsgebot (Bavarian beer purity law from 1516). It still has all the key elements of a Berliner Weisse that was brewed in a more historically accurate way. It is light, crisp, refreshing, and has a lemonade-like quality that makes it perfect for the warm summer days ahead. At 4%abv, you can feel free to enjoy a few of them while the sun goes down over the
taproom.

Personally, I would recommend enjoying this beer with some locally produced sausage and cheese from Tržnica Zadar, something spicy, or even a quattro formaggi pizza from one of the many exceptional pizzerias.