Question about Brett & Wilds

Hey there, thats an interesting q, ill start by saying that while definitely being a saison, the addition of brett yeast or other wild bacteria would probably classify this as a belgian influenced wild ale (by definiton right?)
if you really want to get to know your beer you can download the free BJCP guidelines used by professional beer judges. but dont fret they are short and easy to understand, this will give you a much broader vision and a solid knowledge base.
you can download them for free on your iphone's appstore or download the pdf file here
http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf

 

if you do download it, be sure to check section 16 (belgian and french ales), 16C and 16E.
answering your question, this beer will entry as 16E Belgian Specialty Ale

 

I personally don't consider it a Wild Ale unless it is brewed with Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, or other bacteria that will make it sour.

A Brett beer like Orval or Rayon Vert do not count as "wild" in my book.

 

Arguably a beer would only truly be "wild" if you used a coolship or cultured a yeast/bacteria you found locally on fruit skin etc.

To me wild != sour. I would accept wild ale as anything that has non-sacc. in it (yeast or bacteria).

 

GABF style guidelines list American Sour Ale & American Brett Ale as two separate categories: http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/the-competition/beer-styles/

 

simple answer:

not all brett beers are wild, wilds usually consist of lacto or pedio but most/many have brett in them.

 

A wild ale is an ale that is brewed with ‘bugs’ (e.g., Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, etc.). Those ales may also contain some Brett but it is the presence of the ‘bugs’ which define the beer as being a wild ale.

Cheers!

 

Says who? http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/171

 

I could start up my own website and 'publish' my definition of a wild ale. Needless to say but it would be different from the BA website's definition.

Cheers!

 

Look at the list of examples, each of the those beers contain souring agents. Brett alone doesn't make a beer sour.

 

Chad from crooked stave has been researching brett for a long time, and has been harvesting different strains of brett that are not available to most commercial brewers. Some of these strains ferment just as clean as sacc would, some are funky little bastards. If he's calling his Baltic porter a Baltic porter I wouldn't call it a wild. There is a push to call anything brewed with brett, or lacto, or pedio a wild, and it's vague for the uninitiated. I applaud brewers like crooked stave and trinity who actually list what bugs they use. I happen to have an allergic reaction to pedio, so I certainly appreciate it. As for what the beer should be called, leave it to the brewer. I have a "wild" saison fermenting at home. It has brett, but it is still a saison based on the other yeast and ingredients I used. It certainly isn't a wild IPA. I would side with you on this argument, simply because style is still a factor when using brett.

 

http://beeradvocate.com/lists/style/171
WWBV is fermented with 100% brett.

 

I think the technical answer is that a beer is only a wild beer if it is spontaneouly fermented. Here is a brief synopsis of the Brett/bacteria section of Yeast, by Jamil Zanisheff and Chris White:

"Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff’s Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation is a thorough review of the subject of yeast, with the practical (home)brewer in mind. It is mostly a treatment of commercial brewer’s yeast but there are some interesting observations about wild yeast, too. The authors define wild yeast as yeast “that is not in the brewer’s control.” For example, commercial Brettanomcyes is not wild yeast but native strains of Saccharomyces that (unintentionally) are introduced during cooling of the wort or barrel aging would be. Of course, today’s commercial strains of Brettanomyces may still have a lot in common with yeasts that are found in the wild, but one could imagine a scenario where the use of Brettanomyces becomes so popular that commercial yeast sellers increasingly select these strains for certain properties. As a consequence, wild yeast is not characterized by its aroma and flavor properties (such as tartness or funkiness) but by its involvement in (ambient) spontaneous fermentation." (emphasis added).

For those interested in seeing the rest of the synopsis (not written by me, I stole it), see the following link: http://lambicandwildale.com/2011/11/01/wild-yeast/

 

Wouldnt a wild be something that is naturally infected whether its from yeast/bacteria in the air or from whatever is living inside the barrel, including brett?
And a "brett" beer would be one that is inoculated with brett? Such as Rayon?
A lot of these styles are blurred due to inoculation process these days. Not a lot of "wilds" are truly wilds anymore.

 

I checked the Brewers Association style guidelines, and BJCP, and neither has a style called "American Wild Ale" or any style name with the word "wild" in it, so I don't know where the BeerAdvocate style description comes from.
My rule of thumb is call it what the brewer wants it to be called. I think it's silly to call a Saison an "American Wild Ale" just because it has some Brett in it, and as a community we have nothing to gain from having guidelines so inflexible that we would feel required to do so.

 

Wild yeast (Brett) is different from brewers ale or lager yeast in many ways.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/com-lambic-brewing.cfm

 

Wild ales put out on the first date.

 

In a broad sense, people use "wild" to refer to beers that are at least partially fermented using strains of bacteria and yeast that have not been traditionally domesticated or bred, and that have occurred in beer as fermenting agents ambiently and not through direct inoculation by the brewer. These include lactobacillus, pediococcus, brettanomyces, acetobacter, and a host of other organisms.

Many of these "wild" yeasts and bacteria are now being cultured in yeast labs, and in the US most brewers who use these fermenting agents use domesticated versions, with which they intentionally inoculate the beer. So really "wild" doesn't only refer to actually wild yeasts and bacteria used in spontaneous fermentation, but a class of bacteria and yeast that traditionally were actually wild, but now aren't, necessarily.

This means that there really shouldn't be a divide between lacto/pedio beers as "wild" and brett beers as not, because both brett and lacto/pedio have been present in traditional spontaneous fermentation, and as such were both "wild."

As to classifying a beer as wild or not - if the beer is a saison (having a saison malt bill/yeast) that has been fermented at least in part by "wild" bacteria/yeast, then it is really up to the brewer which aspect of the beer he or she wishes to emphasize. Saison, saison brewed with wild bacteria, wild saison, wild ale - it doesn't really matter. Beers fermented with brett are "wild," but the brewer doesn't need to emphasize this or call it a wild ale.

 

Some brett strains can produce low levels of acetic acid. Would you call a brett beer that has some acetic sourness a wild ale but not a brett beer that has little to no acidity?

It seems like what is more relevant to it being "wild" is the fact of whether or not the fermenting agent has traditionally been used in spontaneous fermentation (i.e. has actually been "wild"). I would say that brett beers fall under this category, sour or not.