Sour beers

I think the entire group of sour/wild categories needs to be looked at and fine-tuned. For example, the categories of Brett Beer and Wild Ale have some overlap since Brett is mentioned in both. In my opinion, Kettle Sours should definitely be kept out of any other sour category such as Wild Ales or specific Lambics such as Faro, Gueuze, etc. because I think there is a world of difference between kettles and 'all other' sours. I think most of the 'all other' sours have been aged for a period in barrels which makes them so much better tasting (and expensive) than the kettle sours.

BUT, so often when a BA member is going to add a new beer there is no info on the label or the beer menu to confirm whether it's a kettle soured beer or if it has seen the inside of a barrel to be able to properly categorize it without further searching the brewery's website. Many members may not be willing to do this, so I'm wondering if just a "Sour, unknown sub-style" category needs to exist just as a catch-all place to put beers to later be edited by those who know where it belongs. Unfortunately it's a double-handling but it will keep things accurate in the long run.

Further discussion is needed.

 

I know it won't happen because it's too long established, but count me in for nixing Wild Ale completely anyway. I hate the term. I personally view it as a catch all for American breweries that were doing anything they could think of to emulate lambic and spontaneous fruited ales without knowing how. But the most annoying part is that it ended up vacuuming up too many other beers that more closely matched existing styles in the process, which has partly been remedied since then, but I wish we could turn back time a little more...

 

I always thought of it (when used accurately) as a term that american brewers used in lieu of lambic. Synonymous with spontaneous fermented ales in my mind.

I do agree that it has become a terrible catch all for every sort of weird beer in the BA database.

I'd say there ought to be 3 overarching sour categories; kettle sour, mixed fermentation, and wild ale.

 

Wild Ale is a broad catch-all category, but it works for that purpose. Any beer that incorporates wild yeast and bacteria (souring or not), applied to any kind of base style, or even blending multiple styles. The result can be a seemingly infinite amount of experimental frankenstein beers, hence the broad "Wild Ale" category.

Wild ≠ Sour, which is why it doesn't say "Sour - Wild Ale" in the category listings.

Methode Traditionelle is distinct from Wild Ale, in that it follows strict methods used by the traditional Lambic brewers. Spontaneous fermentation, coolship, turbid mashing, etc. The term was introduced a few years ago, but still isn't widely adopted. Lately i'm seeing "spontaneous ales" used more often to define Lambic-style beers made outside of Belgium.

Mixed-fermentation is a hybrid that often is used as a modifier of the style a brewer defines it as. In other words, a mixed fermentation Saison can still be listed as "Farmhouse Ale - Saison" if defined by the brewer that way. A mixed-fermentation Saison category is long overdue at this point.

Philly Sour is a commercial yeast blend sourced from an isolated wild yeast, so it's technically a Wild Ale. While it produces lactic acid found in Fruited Kettle Sours, it skips the kettle souring step which saves 24 hrs. in the brew kettle.

 

It just dawned on me that you're proposing a mixed-fermentation sub-category under the Farmhouse / Saison style category, thus a sour that has escaped the Sour / Wild category and is 'hiding' elsewhere away from one of that beer's primary taste characteristics.

However, if a brewer calls a beer a Farmhouse Ale or Saison but no hint on the label that it's sour or funky, I respect the brewer's intent, but feel that the consumer who is looking at BA reviews should be warned, so a sub-category would do that. Something to consider.

 

I don't think they is a useful definition of "wild ale". All yeasts are wild, until we capture and culture them. To me, wild ale and spontaneous ale are synonymous while what you are describing is mixed fermentation.

 

Mixed-fermentation Saisons fall on a fairly wide spectrum. Not all are sour, although many examples are. Some could also fit under Wild Ale or Brett Beer, but it makes more sense to have a "Saison - Mixed Fermentation" category to differentiate them within the Saison category. I'm wary of categorizing beer simply by "taste characteristics" as it's too subjective.

Wild and spontaneous are different processes entirely. Inoculating with a commercial "wild" yeast blend and spontaneously fermenting with unknown airborne yeasts landing in a coolship aren't the same method, and produce different results.

Mixed fermentation uses a clean yeast in primary fermentation, then uses wild yeast/bacteria in secondary. Yes, some Wild Ales are made this way, but not all.

 

Only if we accept your definitions of those two words. That's what I'm disagreeing with. I think that any beer inoculated with multiple strains of yeast or bacteria is better described as mixed fermentation. To me, the delineation you are drawing requires way too much specific information about techniques used by the brewer to be useful in a consumer generated database. It would be impossible for most consumers to identify whether most beers were wild or mixed fermentation in the system you're proposing.

I do agree that spontaneous ale is a better term than wild ale for those types of beers

 

They aren't my definitions. BJCP defines wild ales pretty clearly. "The word Wild does not imply that these beers are necessarily spontaneously-fermented". They're two different styles based on two different production methods, it's not an arbitrary opinion. Put simply, wild ales have a degree of control over the yeast, spontaneous ales don't. There's a ton of documentation out there, the book Wild Ales is a great resource.

Mixed fermentation is defined as containing Sacc yeast plus an additional wild yeast. For the sake of argument, "any beer inoculated with multiple strains of yeast or bacteria" could also be 100% wild, and wouldn't always be mixed fermentation.

Wild/mixed-ferm/spontaneous are common terms used in commercial beer descriptions, it's not some elaborate guessing game on the part of the consumer. It's up to them to educate themselves on what the terms mean, if they care to. I'm just trying to clarify the differences since @NeroFiddled asked, and arguing for accuracy in the style definitions.

 

It is though. There is a reason that the BA style database doesn't just follow bjcp guidelines. It serves a different purpose. In this case, if I (an extremely well informed consumer) pick up a beer whose label informs me that it is a barrel aged sour ale how would I decide whether it is a wild ale or a mixed fermentation ale? I could try to contact the brewer and see if that could answer that question, but that makes the likely engagement with this user generated database much lower thus making the database less useful.

If we, instead, call anything that has been inoculated with cultured microbial communities beyond S. Cervacae "mixed fermentation" and reserve the term wild or spontaneous for beers that are inoculated naturally by the microbes in the environment we have a system that's fairly easy to use for consumers. Almost all spontaneously fermented beers state that on their label (I don't think I've ever encountered one that doesn't) so any consumer can identify that distinguishing feature.