Are Sours almost all the same?

No, you seem to be reacting to ph levels. If that is all sours are to you then well, that sucks. Maybe they are not your thing. Are you saying that sours with different fruits and woods taste the same??!!

Edit, BTW almanac kicks ass!

 

Well. If all you're looking for is insanity. There's your (first world) problem in a nutshell.

 

I think sours are so different from other styles, like IPAs, stouts, etc that they feel like they all taste the same. But I think there are more complex differences that would be picked up if you were drinking sours all the time. Maybe not, though.

 

Depends on what yeast & bacteria are in the beer. What you are describing seems to be mainly the work of Lactobacillus, lactic acid bacteria. But there are many different strains of wild yeast and bacteria that are employed in wild & sour beer production. As time passes and breweries establish house cultures of their wild and souring microflora, I think you'll see more unique and broadened character in your glass. The interaction of all these evolving yeast and bacteria will continue to be a subject of further study and the fruits of labor from those studies will be hitting bottles sometime down the road.

 

PH, acetobacter levels, blend, fruit additions, bacteria base ( brett, pedioc, lacto), time in a barrel or time fermenting, amount of O2 that the beer is in contact with all come into play with sours. It is not all lemon, and the biggest badest lemon bomb isnt what people strive for.

 

A lot of American Wilds do tend to go towards the "super" sour side of the spectrum. There are a lot coming out now that back off the jaw-breaking sourness and focus more on the flavors the bugs/aging contribute. My main advice, though, is to try as many Lambics as you can. American sours still can't touch Belgian Lambics. Just stay away from Lindemans (cuvee renee is good though) and the ocassional fruit-lambic that adds sugar (like mort subite framboise).

 

some people say the same thing about IPAs ("they're all the same - all i taste is hops, what the difference?"), or imperial stouts ("they all taste ashy and coffee-like to me"), or barleywines ("no matter which one I try, all i get is caramel and alcohol burn"), etc.

 

Feel free to send me some Jester King. I can taste all the funk!

 

I understand what OP is saying. To me, most Almanac beers taste the same with very little fruit flavor to distinguish them. That being said, sours in general are very much a wide array of flavors.

 

@StrongRepublican the OP mentions almanac and jester king? very different animals! one has funk, one does not IMO

 

As much all as IPAs are pretty much the same.

So yes and no, depending on how many elements you taste/ look at.

 

Sours can have vastly different flavors... Not sure if that is what you're talking about. Take for instance Wicked Weeds Grand Cru vs. Wicked Weed Black Angel. The Grand Cru is a dry sour, not as sweet (to me), where Black Angel is a cherry based Sour which is much sweeter (to me). Now from a tartness/sour only index, there could be similarities, but from a taste standpoint the difference is pretty impressive.

My favorite Sours at the Freak Asheville, Pints for Prostate, event (Sour Event) where different, from Cascades Apricot to the Atlanta based Watermelon Sour (sorry forgot who produced it), you could REALLY taste a difference.

 

I think even the most sour American wilds are different from one another. I can tell the distinct differences between any beer I've had from Jester King, The Bruery, Russian River, Lost Abbey, Goose Island, etc. Specifically, I did a side-by-side with Duck Duck Gooze, Rueuze, and Beatification, and all were their own beer. Rueuze was the most lemon-forward but also had a nice, slight malty backbone; Beat was lactic, lemony, vinegar, and very tart apples; DDG had the most depth of character with wine tannins, lemon, vinegar, musty attic funk, sweet maltiness, lactic sourness, and bready yeast.

In short, no, they are not almost all the same, and I didn't even take into account Belgian sours, which have a whole different array and density of flavors. It's possible your palate just can't get past that heavy lacto presence that you seem to be detecting; maybe practice some more.

 

"cuz" 9 out of ten texas breweries suck? There are plenty of shitty breweries here but not 90%. What breweries "suck" and what breweries don't "suck" and why?

 

Jester king is NOT the king of sours. Not even in the top 5. Sorry.

 

It might help if you specified which sours you find 1-dimensional (other than Almanac apparently) and which ones you think have character. There are definitely more than a few breweries putting out sours that just try to be extremely puckering and not much else.

Curious what your top 5 are (discounting Belgian breweries of course)

 

This. Jester king is king of sours? Nay, that is like saying Joffery is the true king of the 7 kingdoms. It has no claim to the throne. Lost abbey, side projet, drie fonteinen, cantillon, all have more honor and claim to the throne.

 

I had one sour, Russian River Supplication, could taste that it was a "quality" beer but I did not dig the vinegar sour flavor, just didn't like it, will stick to stouts, barley wines and IPAS.

 

No order, because it's too hard:
-The Lost Abbey
-Russian River
-Side Project (yeah, they're saisons, mostly, but taste one and tell me it's not somewhere between saison and the catch-all that is "sour")
-Allagash
-De Garde/Logsdon (tie, same area, leave me alone)

I think the argument is there for JK to be included in this (not definitive) top five, but the case could be made just as easily for Almanac, The Bruery, New Glarus, Hill Farmstead, Bullfrog, Sante Adarius, Jolly Pumpkin, Goose Island, Wicked Weed, Crooked Stave, etc. For those keeping track at home, that's 16+ breweries looking to be the "king of sours," and really all have a somewhat equal claim, therefore making the outrageous claim that JK IS seems a bit silly and uneducated, especially when one is asking, "Are all sours the same?" It really impacts the perceived credibility of OP to make such a blatantly unsubstantiated statement, especially since OP didn't even qualify his/her statement by keeping Belgium out of the conversation as you did.