Beer went bad? Sour

Bacteria.. Probably was bottled with it, unintentionally.

 

Totally reasonable question!

I am still pretty new, and am not sure of the exact technicalities, but my hunch is that you probably got an infected bottle. People tend to freak out a bit at the word infected, but basically some wild yeast (or undesired yeast) gets into the bottle and slowly ferments the residual sugars and gives sour notes.

Some brewers pasteurize before bottling to avoid infections but this can impact the beer flavor. It can happen, and it is worth contacting the brewer so they can identify the cause and fix

 

It's the worst when a brewery tries to pass of an infected beer as a sour.

 

When has that happened? I'm not being a dick, I'm seriously curious about it.

 

Not sure what a Belgian Strong is, but what was the name of that beer?

 

Try Darkhorse for starters. Ask the question. I'll bet you get hundreds of responses.

 

All beer has bacteria but it's controlled. When it's not control correctly it grows and spoils the beer. If the beer was drank super fresh you might not of tasted it or not as much but the longer it sits the more the bacteria will grow.

I would let the brewery know for sure so they avoid other infections.

 

Lost Abbey used to be notorious for this, along with "it's supposed to be flat, just like cask beer!" for a beer that was carbonated on cask and draft but not bottle.

 

This one? http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/31398/92671/

 

It would be strange if you didn't notice it tasted sour until halfway through the bottle...but regardless, beers marketed as Belgian dark ales, strong dark ales, dubbels or quads are normally not sour. If it is, a lactobacillus infection is likely. It's harmless stuff, might make your stomach feel a bit strange, but nothing that will hurt you. Some beers are intentionally inoculated with lactobacillus or other bacterial species to deliberately sour a beer; others are intentionally exposed to outside air in the hope they will get bacteria into the beer, again so that it becomes sour.

Both of these things are very rare in the grand scheme of things, and for the most part a beer that isn't labelled wild ale, sour ale, or lambic is not intended to be sour. It's not possible for a non-infected beer to become infected in the bottle, but it is possible for an infected beer to not taste sour at bottling time; if the infection hasn't "spread" throughout the beer, if you follow me, then taste testers won't pick up sourness before they send the beer to store shelves.

 

One little point... replace bacterial with microbiological. The microorganisms that cause beer spoilage can be many things that are not bacteria.

 

I had a similar experience last night actually with a bourbon barrel quad.

Not a ton of bourbon or barrel, but there was this slight hint of sour in the finish that made me think there was something in there - a bit of lacto or some wild yeast from the barrel We only had 1 bottle, but I had a hunch it would get pretty sour if we had a spare to age.

It wasn't necessarily bad - just not what we expected. If the brewery is a good one, they will look into it and do testing, and perhaps even recall the batch. Some brewers have even discontinued popular special releases simply because they couldn't control the wild yeasts and would rather not make the beer than keep releasing beers that sour over time.

 

Bingo! Whenever you drink a beer that you doubt is as the brewer intended, your first step should be to reach out to the brewery. We want to hear about your experience and are the best equipped to provide information.

I can't speak for what other breweries do, but all QA/QC complaints we receive are forwarded to our Quality Lab Manager. In cases where you're able to provide batch ID codes, we pull library samples from those runs and perform the same analytical tests we do at the time of release to compare the two. We also taste the beers side by side. Should we determine that the beer has been compromised by a beer spoiler, we test it with our PCR to determine what it was:

http://www.boulevard.com/brewing-toys-real-time-pcr/

Should we find anything, we're quite open and honest in the response email we send.

 

Yep - this.

Central Waters went through a horrible process with batches of Peruvian Morning having infection / yeast issues but they were completely honest and up front, and recalled the beers because although it was very slight, they new the beers would age poorly (and many people buy that beer to age).

We are buying and drinking a hand made, crafted product, so there is variation and natural yeasts messing with the process sometimes - it is all about how the brewery responds.

 

Not to be contrary, but if the bottle is not properly cleaned and sterilized it can be the source of the quality issue.

 

It sucks, but it does happen. I was depressed when it happened to my first six pack of Stone's Go To IPA...luckily my second sixer was all good!