Sours: Help for Noobs

Experiment with styles. You'll typically get more robust sour flavors with a Gueuze. Wild ales can be funky but delicious too. And then you Have Lambics, Flanders Reds, and many others. Try as many styles as you can and keep an open mind. It's a beautiful thing and you won't regret it (except maybe in the wallet, but what the hell, you can't take it with you).

 

A "sour" can be a lot of things, but typically refers to a wild ale, lambic, or gueuze. Lambic technically has to be made in Belgium, kind of like how you can only call it champagne if it was made in Northern France. Gueuze = blend of lambics. Wild ales, or AWAs, are produced by brewing with introduction of bacteria and yeasts purposefully to infect the beer and give it a lactic acid byproduct, making the beer sour and acidic. Examples include brettanomyces and pediococcus. Lambics are traditionally produced by spontaneous fermentation in "coolships", leading to unique brews every time, and an indigenous yeast population will give a brewery like Cantillon a unique flavor profile.

There are a lot of other sour styles (Berliner, Gose, Saison, Bierre de Garde, can all be sour) but the lines get a bit blurred sometimes.

There's a lot to the world of sours, and I'm still learning as well. Everybody is. Welcome!

 

Flanders, gueze, Kriek, American Wild, Lambic, Oude bruin,Gose, I may have missed some, but thats a list off the top of my head. There are many different examples within the styles, just explore and if you like sour stuff in general, you will find something you like.

 

As long as we're listing sour styles, in Belgium by tradition Flanders red (Rodenbach and Duchesse) would be distinguished -- but not by a huge margin -- from oud bruin or old brown (Petrus, Liefmans, and I love Ichtegems if you can find it). For those two, their sourness is usually part of a much fruitier and maltier structure than the lambics (sound of harps and angel choir). There are saisons with a lick of sour in there but it's not by tradition a sour style -- to my mind, it's more like a reflection that the traditional background palate tunes a bit sour, if you know what I mean. Sort of like how a lot of American food is sweet -- a foreign visitor might think our salads and breads and other random things taste sweet (I'm not making this up) but you wouldn't call those sweet foods. That's what I'd say for saisons. Sorry, I wandered off topic. Also, rereading the above, I think this point is basically made.

 

For some reason I keep drinking other sours that cost 50%-200% more and aren't as good. Sooner or later I'll give up.

 

Someone needs a beer...

 

My first sour was Supplication from RR...was hooked immediately!

 

I second Petrus and the Dutchess as good starting points. From there Logsdon has been one of the easiest to drink sour options I've had to date and a great option if you have it available in your area.

 

why not? beer is meant to be enjoyed, not stared at.

 

I know, send it to me. I'll open it for you and tell you all about how delicious it was.

Seriously though, please send me a bottle! Definitely on my wish list.

 

exactly the same here..got it as an EXTRA in a trade and it was so funky and weird i loved it

 

Things to look for in a "sour" are actually many besides the sour itself. Level of sourness in both the lactic and acetic forms, maltiness (Flanders styles are much maltier), sweetness, dryness, fruit and spice presence, hop presence, barrel type, yeast characteristics, and so many other variables that come into play.

With time you will learn to appreciate the more subtle nuances, and by then you'll be on wild spending spree to try the types of sours that you love.

Start with the more available and affordable offerings. Belgian beers seem to be the most affordable (8 times out of 10) and many of them are solid offerings. Then spend a bit more money once you know what to look for. A good way to start is by getting tasters, flights, or just pours in general at a good craft beer bar.

Before you know it, you'll be posting ISO's for Russian River and Cantillon and all of a sudden you are waiting in lines for brewery only releases.

 

My first was an "American Wild Ale" Russian River Consecration. Not sure of how it compares to legendary sours, but it is still one of my favorite overall beers.

 

I'm quite honestly, humbled and excited that you recommended my reviews when discovering sour beers. I've been quite happy to discuss my impressions of beers, but sours have always been an uncomfortable world for me in how to describe them. It means a lot to me that you found value in something I typed. Cheers and thanks!

 

Brett is getting more diversified thanks to breweries like crooked stave delving deeper into brett fermentations. From my understanding chad's beers are 100% brett fermented, and he has isolated several unique strains over his years of work. To pin down what brett tastes like now is like trying to pin down what beer tastes like. Some of crooked staves beers taste like they were fermented clean with sach, others are super funky like drinking something infused with dank cellar and barnyard flavors, and some strains throw fruity flavors. Goose island sofie uses a brett strain that throws some great fruit flavors, while I get more "funk" from matilda. Lastly, be careful, brett can also throw vomit and fecal flavors and aromas. Some of crooked staves first beers were drainpours. Blueberry petite sour was all vomit and blue cheese on the nose. So be sure to grab beers from a brewer who has experience with brett beer.

 

Well I must admit, my recommendation comes more from my enjoyment of the descriptiveness and detail with which you write all your reviews rather than a specific connection to sours. I just know that after having a beer, I will often read some of the better reviews to help educate my palate to see if there are things I might've missed. Yours are definitely some of the better, more enjoyable to read reviews on the site. Cheers!

 

I had rodenbach red...didnt really like it too much,not bad but not that great.I have an almanac sourdough im gonna try soon.....we'll see how that goes.