Lambic Inspired and Gueuze Inspired

I'm not sure about the lambic/gueuze inspired thing but I totally agree that we need to do something about the whole sour & wild ale thing. For example, why do we have "Fruited Kettle Sour"? Shouldn't that just be fruited sour? Not all fruited sour beers are kettle soured.

 

I'm all in on differentiating or breaking down Wild Ale by giving more identification and clarity around Lambic/Gueuze/MT style ales, as argued here.

 

I'm with ya here buddy, but as far as the whole -inspired suffix, I'm not convinced it's the best way to handle things. I'm not a huge fan of the catchall Wild Ale either, but I feel it's easy enough to discern what most beers under the category are supposed to be, you know? Or even if something like an Duck Duck Gooze is listed as a Gueuze it seems clear that it's "inspired" since it's a protected term

 

It all comes down to whether or not they spontaneously ferment, use a coolship, and follow the MT guidelines or traditional methods. If it's simply inoculated, it's a Wild Ale. There's a pretty broad spectrum of practices out there too, although spontaneous fermentation is fast becoming a global trend.

The sentiment is good, and i'd be on board with a category for spontaneous lambic-style beers, with the caveats mentioned previously in this post.

On the flipside though, the "Lambic-inspired" term can potentially be misinterpreted, by brewers and site users alike. It's a level of categorization that the average BA will probably not pay much attention to. I've flagged hundreds of fruited kettle sours and fruit beers added as "Lambic".

 

I'm no expert here but maybe our posts will generate discussion that will give us the best clarification and style names/categories.

It seems to me that all kettle sours are fruited, so that style name is redundant. What other flavors go into kettle sours? Is there such a thing as an unflavored sour?

Next, kettle sours are a short-cut way to brew a sour and aren't nearly as tasty as a sour that has spent time in a barrel, which is the 'long-cut' way, and so should be kept separate from the kettle sours for better identification when shopping for a sour beer. (Assuming the label is quiet on the souring method.)

 

Haha! Without question, NOT all kettle sours are fruited. That's how I used to make sour IPAs. Additionally, although I've never done it myself I believe that some brewers are doing kettle sours and calling them Berliner Weisse. If that's the case and they didn't add any additional ingredients it would be a straightforward kettle sour. In my mind that makes sense as kettle soured beers use lactobacillus.

A different way to brew sours is to pitch bacteria such as the very popular Philly Sour which is available as an easy to use dried yeast/bacteria blend. One of the "kettle soured" fruited beers that I recently reviewed was brewed that way. In my opinion I would call that a "wild" beer even though the beer wasn't left exposed to the air, as it would be with an actual coolship.

Then there are barrels which I would also consider as "wild", and along the same lines as pitching a yeast/bacteria blend except that the bacteria is actually stored within the wood.

I'll have to think about this as well - why not just have sour beer, and fruit & field sour? Isn't using lactobaccilus really just as wild as brettanomyces or pediococcus?

 

I've often wondered if the Berliner Weisse style was technically what we're calling kettle sour.

A controlled wild because the brewer mostly knows what bugs are sleeping in those barrels. Although I think a few miscreants occasionally spoil the party.

Unless a coolship is in use, aren't all wild yeasts cultured nowadays? And I think that a brewer using a coolship pretty well knows what bugs are living in the brewery's rafters.

 

@PapaGoose03, you are correct that kettle soured beers are essentially Berliner Weisse. Lactobacillus delbruekii is found naturally on grain and so it's right there ready to go to work although we generally pitch yogurt now to make sure we get a good start and finish it in 2 to 3 days. I should also point out that this wasn't just something that brewers in Berlin were doing. In fact, what was called "white beer" in the U.S., and commonly found available at farms across the country, was the same thing.

As for barrel, and coolships, yes again you are correct, you have a pretty good idea of what's in there. As you pointed out, however, things change. That's the reason we blend!!!

 

Count me in the camp that finds the Wild Ale category wholly unhelpful.

Kettle sour--- mixed fermentation---spontaneous ale/lambic inspired/MT.

That covers the world of sour beers pretty well

 

It seems to me that the primary difference between The Camp 1 (Kettle sour, Berlinner and Gose vs Camp 2 (Wild Ale, Lambic and Gueze…. Is that Camp 1 has a sulfuric aroma frequently and camp 2 has the barnyard funk in the aroma.

 

That seems overly simplistic. Your camp 2 has a tremendous range of flavor and aroma potentials and is primarily defined by a process. Your camp 1 is more simplistic in its flavor range, they're pretty much defined by tart acidity age nowadays are more often defined by their fruit additions.

I tend to associate the sulphuric aroma with the mixed fermentation or Farmhouse styles more then either of the other two (although the spontaneous stuff can dementia feature that character).

 

I guess after all discussion, I’m just glad we got the fruited kettle sour style catagory which took a large majority of that stuff out of the wild ale catagory and hopefully left mostly just true American made Lambic and Gueze influenced wild ales. I think that 1 addition did wonders personally.