There are certain breweries that can be counted on to deliver, and deliver big, when it comes to certain styles. If you’re looking for a solid fruit forward Berliner Weiss, Hidden Springs in Tampa is always a good choice.
Grab pretty much any of their uniquely overly designed cans (and I’d love to learn a little bit more about those cans in the near future), and you are sure to have something that is fruity and tart and a lot of fun.
Such was the case with Riot Juice (Berliner Weisse, 5.5% ABV).
As the introduction suggests, this is a Berliner, with additions of blackberry, lime, vanilla, and lactose.
And when it comes to both this beer and Berliners as a whole, I kind of want to put a particular focus on the lime for two reasons. First, breweries that fruit treating a Berliner, at least in Florida, tends to default to berries.
And yes, this one has blackberries in it, but you really see blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries, all sorts of berries. Some citrus shows up, but almost never lime.
I don’t know why, but out of all the citrus fruits I think lime is definitely my favorite. Call it a childhood of drinking lots of Sprite.
With that said, secondly, the lime really steals the show with this beer. As a standard Berliner, it does have some solid tartness and the blackberries tends to back that up quite a bit. It is muted and softened and made nice and velvety smooth from the lactose and the vanilla, but the lime brings a whole new dimension to the beer.
There’s sort of a sweet fruity zing over and above the electric tartness coming from the yeast and the meaty punch coming from the berries. It really makes the experience, and putting vanilla on top of that is just phenomenal.
It’s a combination I did not realize I would enjoy as much as I did, and it’s a combination I’d like to see more of. And if it’s a combination I’m going to find it a Berliner vice, I can put money down that sooner or later it’s going to come from Hidden Springs.
Drink Florida Craft,
Dave
@floridabeerblog
floridabeerblog@gmail.com
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