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Sour beer

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,030
5,918
borcester rhymes
Not bitter

Who like sour beer? I've been getting into it in a big way. I've tried almost everything at my local weird-beer store. I feel like it's the next big thing in brewing...now that everybody has 19 different IPA versions, they are considering what else they can sell to people, and sours seem to be the same easy-to-brew bullshit as IPA but with actual flavor? instead of MOAR HOPZ.

anyways, I'm a fan
 

Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
23,926
14,438
where the trails are
sour beers have their place, I guess.
I can stomach one, if not too over the top sour.

IPA around here pack plenty of flavorz, fwiw.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,850
9,556
AK
Occasionally I'm alright with one rotten beer. There's a local brewery that only does sour IPAs with bretts and it gets old real fast.
 

BikeGeek

BrewMonkey
Jul 2, 2001
4,573
273
Hershey, PA
I dig the classic-style sours (gueze lambic, Flanders red, oud Bruin) in a big way, but most of the "quick sour" or "kettle sour" stuff hitting the shelves in the US leave a lot to be desired, to my tastebuds anyway; they lack complexity.

Most of the sour IPAs I've had were undrinkable. The "more hops" mentality driving IPAs these days, combined with a low pH end up as a thin mess with an unbearable lingering bitterness.
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,558
24,181
media blackout
I dig the classic-style sours (gueze lambic, Flanders red, oud Bruin) in a big way, but most of the "quick sour" or "kettle sour" stuff hitting the shelves in the US leave a lot to be desired, to my tastebuds anyway; they lack complexity.
agreed, i like the traditional proper style sour. not the quick stuff, it tastes too much like something just went wrong with another style so they called it a sour.

that being said, to your original point Andy, i don't see sours being the "next big thing". they definitely aren't as easily approachable for the average beer drinker. I like sours and i can't have more than one, MAYBE 2 in a sitting. Also - to Tim's point - too difficult and time consuming to brew. for instance, Duchesse De Bourgogne is aged for over a year.
 

BikeGeek

BrewMonkey
Jul 2, 2001
4,573
273
Hershey, PA
You can get decent results from a "quick sour," but the typical "throw some grain or bacteria in the kettle and let is sit over the weekend" method isn't it. Many of the beers produced that way end up with some butyric acid formed by Clostridium butyricum that can become active if the temperature and pH isn't right. Butyric acid smells like vomit. We have a beer that we user a quicker method on, but we're doing it in a closed, co2-purged tank where we introduce a blend of 7 different bacteria at a specific temperature and pH.

Of course, we're doing some the hard way too.
 

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