Best Choose Your Own Sour

Best Choose Your Own Sour: Eighty-Three Brewery

At Eighty-Three Brewery, you can add a little flavor kick to your sip. The Berliner Nice wheat ale has a rare option to customize your brew: adding your choice of flavored syrups. It may sound odd, but it’s an Old World approach to a Berliner weisse.

“It’s a traditional method of serving beer in Berlin that adds flavor back to that beer,” says Chris Surak, brewer and co-owner of the brewery that opened in the former Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. headquarters in Akron’s East End in 2019. 

Choose from raspberry, tangerine lavender honey, grapefruit rosemary or woodruff. The latter is the most traditional syrup and a popular option. “The taste is herbal tea like, but it also adds a little bit of sweetness,” he says. If you can’t decide, order a flight to try each one — they all cut through the tart, citrusy flavor of the Berliner that’s more accessible than you think. 

“It’s a really good, approachable sour beer,” Surak says. “I don’t think any other brewery around here does that.”

1201 E. Market St., Suite 110, Akron, eighty-threebrewery.com