What do you look for in a good sour?

I look for a balance of flavors. I, personally, have the best success with the lambic breweries and blenderies of Belgium.

 

If your beer smells like feet and cheese it is contaminated, probably with a member of the Clostridium sp., and should not be held out as something that should be duplicated.

 

What I don't enjoy is intense band-aid/rubber notes. I like fruited sours as long as they're balanced. In terms of shelf beers, I enjoy Allagash sours. Farm to Face was a highlight this year.

 

It needs to bring some careful funk. And it doesn't have to be sour.

 

Beers that are sour (to me) are best when they are not bitter from hops or too sweet from added fruit.

 

There are sours and there are sours.

With a clean kettle soured beer I'm just looking for balance, and that's a teetering edge of acidity depending on the beer. It should not be too sour for the base, or too soft for the base. There are still a lot of other variables such as fruit.

As far as funky sour beers go, that's what I love. I want that funk. I love that Brettanomyces barnyard stuff, and I don't mind when it stretches the boundaries, especially if there's fruit involved to balance it out. Again, however, I'm looking for balance.

To note as well, depending on my mood I might want something more aggressive and acidic, or I might want something smoother. It all depends on the mood you're in.

 

Balance. And if it's made with fruit, I want to taste it.

 

With sours, something that’s just fun to drink.

Whether it is a bright acidity with intense fruitiness, a nice funkiness, barrel/oak character, etc… I can have a sour that is enamel ripping and love it, if balanced with the proper flavors and depth. Or one that is just lightly tart, but with wonderful tannins, for example.

Sours, compared to beer, I tend to judge on this type of scale… How interesting and exciting is this to drink? If it tastes like “horse blanket” or bile, no thanks. If I get raspberry seeds stuck in my teeth after enjoying a raspberry sour, well, that can be pretty awesome.

 

I look for it to taste exactly like what it claims to be.

If it's fruit forward; the aroma and taste better line up. Atrial Rubicite is a perfect example of that. It's all about the raspberries; and its so raspberry forward; that it tastes more like raspberries than just eating raspberries. It's basically a high-class lambic.

In a geuze, I want funk. I want to taste the aging, the barrel, the bacteria farts. Like the best cheese.

Another example is Bruery's Sour in the Rye. Most friends i have can't handle it. Too funky. Me on the other hand; reminds me of a really good aged Brie. Funky, fruit back-end; oaky, woody.

So I guess it depends on the style and how consistent it is.

 

I think a lot of us would say we love balance. (Myself included.) It's just that our notions of balance change as we go along. Is there such a thing as acidic shift?

 

I do, too, but it's important to know that how fermented fruit tastes is not like fresh fruit tastes.

 

Yeah, you can definitely get to a place where a very sour beer doesn't taste as sour to you any more. More sour, however, is not a good direction for sour beer production to travel, IMO.

 

Not really wanting to be a pedant, but I'm going to pick apart what you've said.

How so?

When have you tasted a sour beer where the aroma and taste did not line up? How can a beer taste more like a fruit than the fruit itself? I'm confused by both of these statements.

Oh, and Atrial Rubicite shouldn't taste like lambic, because it's not lambic.

If you're tasting barrel or cheese in your gueuze, you aren't drinking gueuze.

Why anyone would want wood character in their sour beer is beyond me.

Finally, I can agree with something you've said.

 

Yeah, that's true. Had a strawberry Lambic and it was disgusting. Tasted and smelled like vomit and dirty/rotten feet. There's was nothing strawberry about it. Rotten, soured, moldy strawberries, maybe.

This one - https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/636/5586/

 

You DIDN'T like that beer? I've had it a bunch of times and it never failed to deliver, just like anything from Hanssens, really. It is possible, however, that you are simply more sensitive than most to certain phenolic compounds, as strawberries are very high in p-coumaric acid, which is a precursor to 4vinylphenol and 4ethylphenol. They give the following aroma and flavor characteristics: Musty, Medicinal, Band-aid, Plastic and Barnyard, Horsey, Spicy, Smoky, Medicinal, Band-Aid respectively.

 

Didn't like it at all. Can't remember if I was able to finish it.

 

As time goes on I'm less interested in the kettle soured beers and more interested in ones that include funky and fruity brett notes in addition to the sourness.

 

Aroma - the more horse-blanket, nasty funky smell the better I like it
Taste - complex with alot going on...not 1 dimensional...generally light-moderate sourness, with fruit and funk all bouncing around in harmony
Mouthfeel - the best of the best I find always finish super clean...no syrupy sweet fruit lingering in the mouth.

The use of Brett- Its a very fine line with the bug. Had so many that turn the beer extremely dry and almost medicinal bitter and kill any sour or sweetness that may be present. Don't care for those.

That's how I roll with sours.

PS: I've had a few outstanding fruit pureed/kettle sours (i.e. the Answer's stuff). But those are the rare exception and most brewers fail at these light sour options.