Water & Soil

Berlin sits in a glacial valley carved by meltwater from the last Ice Age. Both above and below this valley lies mostly sand, crisscrossed by the Spree, the Havel, and numerous lakes. Brewing water here doesn't come from rock springs but from the groundwater beneath the city's buildings.

According to Berlin's water utility, drinking water is drawn from groundwater, much of it bank filtrate—river water that seeps through sand and gravel, which naturally purifies it. The water tends to be hard, meaning rich in minerals. Each brewery treats its own water, so hardness levels vary from house to house.

For a sour beer, this is no small matter. Minerals in water buffer acidity, and a Weisse needs to taste distinctly sour in the end. Brewers therefore adjust their water deliberately so the lactic acid doesn't have to fight against it later. For a Pils brewed at the same facility, it's the opposite: there, the bitterness should come across clean rather than harsh.

The terrain also mattered for storage. Prenzlauer Berg is a hill at the edge of the Barnim plateau, and the great 19th-century breweries dug their cellars deep into it. According to the Berlin Center for Industrial Culture, Bötzow had an underground storage cellar covering 5,000 square meters. The cool earth kept the bottom-fermented beer cold without machinery, long before refrigeration existed. Such vast quantities of beer were stored beneath the Schultheiß and Bötzow sites that these cellars became part of Prenzlauer Berg's urban fabric, even if invisible from the street.