"Beware the kettle sour beer"

I have to assume HF's shelf saisons (Arthur, Anna, Florence, and the like) are all kettle soured correct?

 

Unless they've changed the recipes since last time I had any of them, none of those three are sour.

 

You're smart.

 

Thanks, lester619! Just so you know, I may need to call you as a witness the next time my wife and I have a disagreement .

 

:-)

That will get you precisely zero milage.

 

I guess not, but the ego boost would be nice...

 

I'd be happy to help you out but I doubt my opinion will carry much weight.

 

Geesh, James must be fun at parties.

 

All 3 are tart.

 

Personally don't appreciate Howat's words.

The guy has quotes as if his couple years (maybe 5 years? 10 years?) brewing experience gives him the authority to "diss" on a brewing process that has some historical origin.

We get it -- we know the difference between lambics/guezes and gose/berliner. We know it's brewed differently, and is a wildly (no pun intended) process. Same reason Allagash won't come out and say that their coolship beers are "lambics" or "guezes", because it would disrespect the Belgian beers, since lambic references a geographic location, in addition to the process and such.

Earn your chops a little longer, then tell us what's right/wrong.

That article is actually everything that's wrong with new breweries popping up everywhere. Every new brewery pops up, and they think their shit doesn't stink.

/endrant

 

I'm unaware that it was traditional to brew Berliners and goses using kettle-souring. Perhaps @patto1ro can chime in. My understanding is that many breweries use this technique today, but that traditionally both styles were fermented with a mixed culture of yeast and lactobacillus.

 

Tart, not sour.

 

Neither will Russian River call any of their beers lambics and gueuzes, and there are reasons to believe that in both cases its also because the brewers here recognize that the populations of wild yeast and their symbiotic bacteria (the bugs and critters) may be different in the different locations.

 

I don't know of any normal saison yeast that produces that level of tartness without kettle souring.

 

Saison yeast, brett, pH control.

 

LOL what? Kettle souring is a very recent modern technique. Old Berliner weisse was fermented with a mixed culture or a separate lacto fermentation and blended to get desired acidity. The technique of souring in the kettle and then boiling before adding yeast for a regular fermentation is something I have never seen mentioned in any historical brewing texts or books and wouldn't even have occurred to brewers to do until fairly recently in brewing history.

 

Part of me thinks that if the beer tastes great, I will pay whatever I think is fair for it, regardless of production cost. But there is a market. Never had a kettle sour beer that I would pay a lot of money for and wouldn't buy most again to begin with. Some of the better ones that I've had have been proved in line with pale ale or pilsner ow what have you and that's fait to me. If someone wants to charge twice as much for a similar beer, why would I buy it?

I will pay more for good lambics and other aged sour beers because they have a flavor that cannot be achieved any other way and have no comparisons out there. If you want that flavor, you have to pay that price and that's how the market works.

 

I contiued researching after my original post and berliner was not originally kettle soured but from what i have read the egyptians kettle soured 1000s of years ago.. Not with the intention of making it sour that is just what happened....lol

 

Beware the people who want to stop progress that can result in a quality product because 'muh history'.

 

I had a draft glass of Anna a few months ago and that batch was sour; not tart but puckering sour. I have never experienced that amount of a low pH in previous drinking experiences of Anna. My guess is that the mixed culture which is the "house Saison yeast" at Hill Farmstead has 'evolved' to where the lactic acid content is more prominent.

Cheers!