Your first sour and/or brett beer experience

Russian River- Consecration, still one of my favorites

 

I think most of the first sours I had was at the Barrelworks room at Firestone Walker in Buellton. They make some intensely tart sours. It was almost too much for me! I've since come to realize most sours are more balanced, but man, their ZinSkin kicked my booty! They were all good, but I couldn't get through more than a few tasters.

 

First ever sour beer was a Petrus Oud Bruin. Really liked that one, but sadly I haven't seen it (or any other Petrus) show up on the shelves of my local beer store ever since... there was a variety pack of various Belgian sour beers there one time, but it was $30+ for what I think was only eight bottles so I passed up on it (but apparently someone else didn't, as it was gone when I was in there today. XD)

Since then I've also tried a Berliner weiss (six-pack) and a gose (on tap) from local breweries and enjoyed both. Haven't gotten around to any lambic/gueuze yet, though I do see the Lindeman's fruit lambics around sometimes.

As far as Brettanomyces go, the only beer I've had with them (as far as I'm aware) was Goose Island's Matilda.

 

First "sour" was DFH Festina Peche. Pretty sure I tried to drainpour it or return it to the store. This was years ago, over a decade... and I need to revisit it.

First Farmhouse/Saison... much tamer. Definitely easier to take a saison vs a sour.

 

A few years back I had the Rosy Barl Sour by Anderson Valley. That was the first time I had a beer that smelled of acetic acid, but tasted like pure raspberry pie.

Nowadays I love sours.

Barrel, Brett, Bacteria!

 

My first sour beer was Russian River Supplication, and I hated it. But because I paid $14.99 plus tax and CRV, I drank it. I then avoided sour beers for months knowing that I did not like them. When I did revisit sours again, I tried Duchesse de Bourgogne and loved it. Sours are now some of my favorite beers to drink besides stouts, IPA and IIPAs.

 

I miss Rayon Vert. It's not as good as Orval, but it was way cheaper when you wanted that brett fix. I have a 2012 bottle in my "cellar" and I don't know if I'll ever drink it.

 

Brett: Orval

Sour: Cuvee des Jacobins

 

Russian River Supplication. Game changer. At first I wasn't sure. But little after I found myself craving for it more than anything. Now sours and brett beers are pretty much my favorite style, alongside IPAs.

 

I was in my cousins wedding this past August and before the ceremony he cracked open a 14 Supplication for the starter followed by a 3F OG, etc. Three months later I found myself in Santa Rosa at RR and now Im a BeerAdvocate.

 

Had a 2012 2 months back. Now is the time if you are going to drink it.

 

The original New Glarus Enigma. My wife and I were vacationing in Wisconsin and were not yet into craft beer, had a Spotted Cow, a Two Women, Fat Squirrel, fell in love with craft beer, and bought hundreds of dollars of every kind of NG beer on the shelves. One of those was a 4-pack of Enigma. When we opened the first bottle, it was so amazing it drove us to the local craft beer bottle shop in search of something that might taste like an Enigma.

 

My first bretty beer was a saison. It was sofie I think. That beer had sweated. It bit me a little.

 

Funk is funky. It can range too so don't laugh but sweaty, sweat socks, barnyard, horse blanket. I have had it so refined it was like sweet earth and so brash it was like the floor of a barnyard. Musty cellar.

 

*** UPDATE ***

I was just reminded that my first experience with a Wild/Sour beer was...


...my second batch of homebrew. Damn pedio...


.

 

First Brett Beer: Orval
First Sour: Lindeman's Cuvee Rene Gueuze

 

I don't remember what my first sour was, actually. What I remember is that I drank it in 2010 after coming home from West Africa, where I had been living for two years. I told a friend of mine, a biologist and homebrewer, about the fermented palm wine that everyone has been drinking there. I told him it smelled and tasted a bit funky and sour, and a bit like an old latrine, or possibly a sewage treatment plan. He told me it was probably that "barnyard smell" that comes with many wild yeasts used in sour beer brewing. He took me to a bar in midtown Manhattan that was known for their collection of sours, and he gave me the funkiest, tartest, most yeasty, horseblanket-smelling thing they had on the menu...and it still wasn't as noxious as that African palm wine. That said, my taste buds at that point had developed an appreciation for what most Americans consider utter crap (two years on African bush food will do that to a man), and I immediately decided that I adored the style.

 

My wife's first "sour" was supplicatuon. She really enjoyed it. Her second (perhaps a half-hour later) was Consecration. She didn't like AT ALL. I love both, but I get it. Consecration is a big-ass sour for a developing palette.

 

First tart beer was a green Gose at Schlafly.

First Brett experience was a week later at the Midwest Belgian Beer Fest in St. Louis.... Where I had about 20 funky sour beers.

 

lindemans cuvee renee, as it should be