Berliner Weisse (part four)

We're now up to the late 19th century.

Berliner Weisse retained its popularity in, managing to keep the new-fangled Bavarian beer - Lager as we would call it - at bay, at least for a while. It was consumed in specialist pubs, called "Weissbier Ausschank". These were mostly hidden away on quiet side streets and frequented almost exclusively by regulars.

Here’s a description of such an Ausschanke by a British journalist:

“Before every one stood a gigantic tumbler, containing a liquid, pale and clear as Rhine wine, and surmounted by a huge crown of froth. This was the famous "weiss". The liquor being ordered and duly brought, we observed that the quart bottle filled not more than one-third of the large glass, the voluminous bead of froth not only occupying the remaining space but foaming over the sides. Hence the necessity for such capacious tumblers, which a novice is only able to raise to his lips by the aid of both hands. Not so however, the experienced weissbier-drinker, who by long practice has acquired the knack of balancing, as it were, the bottom of the glass on his outstretched little finger, while he grasps the side with the remaining fingers and thumb of the same hand. A preliminary nip of kummel (aniseed) is considered de rigueur, and, this disposed of, the Berliner will drink his four quarts of "kuhle blonde" as weissbier is poetically termed by its admirers - as readily as his native sand sucks in a summer shower;”
Aberdeen Journal - Wednesday 26 February 1879, page 8.

The glasses in which Weissbier was served were indeed enormous, looking more like a small fish tank than a drinking vessel.

Unlike today, Berliner Weisse came in a variety of strengths. In addition to the usual Schankbier – 8-10º Plato, 3-3.5% - there were also ones at Vollbier (12º Plato, 5% ABV), Märzen (14º Plato, 5.5% ABV) or Starkbier strength (16º Plato, 6.5% ABV).

One last surprise, according to Schönfeld, a brewing scientist based in Berlin and who spent his career studying the style in great detail, until 1860 Berliner Weisse was brewed with smoked malt.

You can see from this table that there was a considerable variation in strength in the second half of the 19th century:

Berliner Weisse 1850 - 1908
Year	Brewer	country	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenua-tion
1850	Unknown, Berlin	Germany	0.85	1032.5	1015.9	2.13	50.12%
1850	Unknown, Berlin	Germany		1037.8	1022.3	1.98	40.00%
1887	Berliner Actien Brauerei	Germany	0.363	1022.6	1019.3	1.18	14.21%
1890	Berliner	Germany		1051.05	1013	4.89	73.95%
1895	Berliner Export Brauerei	Germany		1043.5	1009.8	4.40	76.65%
1895	Berliner G	Germany		1039.9	1011.4	3.64	70.60%
1895	Unknown, Berlin	Germany		1040.9	1007.1	4.41	81.97%
1898	Unknown, Berlin	Germany		1038.2	1011	3.52	71.20%
1908	Herman F. Wilms	USA				1.56	0.00%
Sources:
“Archive der Pharmacie”, 1855, pages 216-217
Wahl & Henius, pages 823-830
Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie by Justus Liebig, Johann Christian Poggendorff, Friedrich Wöhler, 1858, page 1038
"Handbuch der chemischen technologie" by Otto Dammer, Rudolf Kaiser, 1896, pages 696-697
Brockhaus' konversations-lexikon, Band 2 by F.A. Brockhaus, 1898 http://books.google.de/books?id=oZ5PAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA999&dq=bierdruckapparat+konversationslexikon#PPA1000,M1
"Pure products" published by The Scientific Station for Pure Products, 1909, page 212

There have been some pretty wild assertions about hundreds of Weissbier breweries in Berlin in the early 19th century. I won’t name names, but the source of this story is a writer not renowned for historical accuracy. The reality was somewhat different, as this table shows: 

Number of Weissbier breweries in Berlin (in brackets limited companies)
1844	12	1872	17	1895	34 (4)	1916	23 (2)
1849	13	1875	17 (3)	1899	49 (4)	1918	11 (2)
1855	12	1877	19 (3)	1905	51 (4)	1920	9 (2)
1860	13	1880	25 (3)	1909	39 (5)	1924	12 (3)
1865	13	1885	35 (4)	1912	38 (4)	1928	14 (2)
1870	16	1890	40 (4)	1914	25 (2)	1933	14 (2)
						1940	10 (1)
Source:
"Die Berliner Weisse", by Gerolf Annemüller, Hans-J. Manger and Peter Lietz, 2008, page 319.