"100% Brett. Sours"

I completely understand the lactic fermentation going on. I've seen slight gravity drops due to the lactic producing in sour mashing.

My point is, while you guys continue to argue the specifics here, it is what I said earlier. If they kill the lacto, as the example, and PITCH their yeast, thats when majority of brewers will consider what is used for fermentation. If they do a lacto fermentation in a no boil beer, then it's noted.

Some will say they bottle conditioned with brett.. Others say champagne yeast.. Technically the Black Ops would be a champagne fermented beer, no? But thats not really the case. Brett will continue to change flavors in the bottle, so fermentation happens "again" in the arguements sake, yet the beer could have been fermented with a sacch strain before bottling. I"d consider it's sacch fermented beer..

Semantics is what it boils down to as well.

I understand the whole 100 percent labeling, perhaps if they said brett fermented, and didn't give you a number, would it still bother you? I don't argue the whole point of someone saying it's all 100 percent anything, it's more marketing than anything I bet.

Which again, it's a number on a label, or worksheet, and it's up the brewers take on what they made. If you want to be scientific, or enjoy it for what they made it, the choice is yours. I'm open minded enough to understand the reasoning for some labels, and get where both sides come from.

 

FWIW.. Going to see if anyone else responds to this.. I think it's above most peoples interest as a wide audience in this sub section, so I'll be moving it to homebrewing if it continues on this track, to keep it together, and keep the discussion on point.

 

FWIW, while I cannot make an educated comment, I found reviewing the OPs science and coursing through the comments to be quite fascinating. Thanks to you all for helping me become just a bit more enlightened about some of my favorite beverages.

 

I'd feel better if the '100 percent' disappeared when there's been a significant fermentation occurring at some other stage of the brewing. But of course—I don't think everyone should think like I think, I just wish they would.

 

This is a big problem that brewers need to start addressing. I can't fathom how someone could just write this off and claim to care about the science of brewing at the same time. Brewers in the US right now are guilty of perpetuating a lot of ignorance about brewing science and history and it's pretty annoying for brewers who know better. Marketers will be marketers I guess. A lot of breweries will always put what they think sounds best on a label, even if they know it's wrong. They're going to have to get over that bad habit if we are really going to make progress in this area as an industry.

 

OP, our friends at google seem to think that "100% Brett" is overwhelmingly used to in the case that brewer wants to emphasize that they did not knowingly put a volume of liquid containing a non-brett yeast and/or bacterium into the beer. Probably some are abusing the idea in their marketing, but is there really widespread malice that needs to be stamped out?

I also don't think one needs a PhD to understand that unless (and sometimes if) brewing in a cleanroom there will be more microorganisms in the beer than you intended, and depending on equipment and technique some of these will be present in such number as to contribute to flavor and/or sugar consumption and/or alcohol production.

I appreciate the educational aspect, but maybe less PhD student rant, more tenured professor chill. Or were you browsing associate prof openings when you started this thread?

 

For what it's worth, glad this was posted in the beer talk forum. I would have never read it in the home brew forum and enjoy the debate. Can't reply on the science part as I am not a scientist or a brewer but I am following the discussion.

On the marketing side of things I would like to see brewers think about the education aspect of labeling/marketing these types of beers. I don't feel the brewer is deceiving or has any requirement to explain in detail how the beer is made but as someone that would be their target audience I would like to know more about the beer. While satisying my needs of curiosity, they could also educate someone that is just starting to enter the world of sour and brett beers. This isnt required by the brewer but would be a nice touch. I can't comment on if sour mash or wort is fermentation or not but if they say 100% brett fermented then I would at least like to know what type of brett.

Kettle souring seems to have become popular here in Florida with many of the breweries.

 

The core of the issue to me is the "100%" label or implication of it through the lack of mentioning other organisms that are obviously there. Don't put "brett fermented beer" on your label and not mention that the beer is also soured with LAB because it would take an idiot not to know that someone is likely to assume that the brett did the souring. That's just lazy. Ya, it pisses me off, and ya, this is my job. If you are going to choose to do something with your life, it should probably be something you're willing to get passionate about.

 

I don't think brewers are necessarily obligated to say anything about their beer (besides the legally mandated stuff) on a label, but I would hope that they would not say things that they know are wrong or know are going to mislead through selective omission. If you are going to make mixed-fermentation beers and sell them to the public, you should at least have a basic understanding of the microbiology of what you are doing and be able to communicate it clearly and correctly to your customers if need be.

 

If the mods are going move this to "homebrewing" permit a word from a lurker. The thrust of the initial discussion was not around the "100% Brett" claim being the next "All Natural" or "Organic" label (misleading the consumer as to which microbes have been fermenting the product) but rather confusing the consumer about 1) what Brettanomyces is and what Brett fermentation produces and 2) how sourness is produced in beer. The entire community needs to better appreciate what microbes are producing their beer, and what those microbes are. Brewer included. I've spoken with a number of brewers at established breweries that don't understand the microbes involved in their fermentation. And a pet peeve- a local beer reporter for a nationally-respected newspaper who does understand the difference between a bacterium and a yeast (and what that difference means) and doesn't seem to care. A part of this is, undoubtedly, due to public perception that bacteria=bad (Purell syndrome) and yeast=tasty (Grandma's-fresh-baked-bread syndrome). Breweries seem to “wash their hands” of bacterial contributions. As example, those well-respected coolship brews (such as Cantillon), who ignore the initial fermentation contribution from Enterobacteria (where might that have come from?) to the final product. Or brewers putting brews in cask without appreciating the microbial contribution from the cask.There are a number of Brett fermenting breweries capitalizing on the growing consumer awareness and appreciation (best wishes to Hidden Cove), and their beer aren't sours. They are Brett fermented versions of all the Saccharomyeces standards. An exciting addition to the beer repertoire, and looking forward to the next leap (why no S. pombe beers?).

 

@CLevar please do be passionate. The first post was great, just the tone of some replies was trending negative and ranty. But I'll stop critiquing your lecture technique if you're not planning on it as part of your career

I'm in the camp that does want more info on yeast (and bugs) but I don't need to know the ratios, etc. of everything that might be contributing, just the brewer's intent. So while anytime I see "100%" on a label of anything, I think "bs," I'm not taking it that seriously with beer. I mean, it's not beef. And if something is off, I'm fine on picking up on that myself. As a consumer, I want to understand why it smells and tastes as it does, but still want some unknowns when the cork is popped.

Not to rant myself but I feel like we're at a saturation point with information on labels of hoppy styles now. If you're familiar with the trendy varietals and the contributions of various hopping techniques, you've already smelled and tasted the beer in your head before opening it.

 

How is Hidden Cove? Going to be driving from Boston to Portland and an all brett brewery sounds like a good stop.

 

Good example, because we recently found out that Continental Malt in old English recipes was actually barley grown on the continent, but malted in England. I am sure the equivalent of CLevar was around back then giving shit for calling it Continental Malt when **gasp** it was only grown on the continent, but malted in England.

Convention, common sense, and knowing to whom labeling is directed are the key factors of this discussion that aren't enhanced, nor clarified, by trying to claim that there is a fermentation of the beer by lacto when it is only a small fermentation of the mash. I am sure the claim isn't that the mash is the beer, so it is splitting hairs for the sake of splitting hairs, since the beer is, likely, 100% Brett fermented. My .02

 

I remember back in the day when I thought brett fermentation equaled (funky) sour. I was just getting into sours, and prob heard that somewhere. It certainly wasn't the case that I was misinformed because of a label. It didn't take long and took very little effort for me to learn more about brett, and bacteria--and the difference between funk and sour. That education came from brewers, some product labeling, and the WWW.

With regard to brett fermented beers, personally, I have never felt duped by product labels or brewers. Admittedly, I spend very little time now-a-days reading labels, but I'm struggling to think of a beer that says "100% brett sour". No doubt they exist, I'm just struggling to think of one. It is fashionable to be sour, after all, and give a marketer an inch with labeling laws...

Outside of directed research for a specific beer/brewery to better understand their products, is this really an issue worthy of a science project? A quick google--or, gasp, literature--search would have yielded the same results.

 

This is mostly to my point. There's a fine blend of marketing, and audience.

The existing example, is that if a brewer sours their mash, then runs it through their process, technically, the beer or wort was never fermented by anything BUT what the brewer pitched. Understanding, yes, it was soured with bacteria, and fermentation was taking place on a small scale in the mash, but it wasn't beer, and it wasn't fermented to terminal gravity.

The brewer could argue, that the mash was soured, through the process the resulting BEER was never fermented with bacteria.

Semantics, yes, I think thats where the folks arguing the 100% have the issue, but as someone has said.. Hard for me to think of any bottle I've had that says 100% Brett fermented Sour.