Aging beer with Lacto

Lacto? A beer made bugs like lactobacillus or A beer with lactose added?

 

I agree with salzar- are you talking abou adding lactic acid or lactose/sweetener? It certainly wouldn't kill you either way, but I think a better way to accomplish aging, rather than add something, is to either let them mature on their own, or abuse the beers by keeping them around 90-100 to get the same degraded effects that regular maturation brings. I read once a while back on a wine making forum that there was a controversial process of running electricity via probes through your carboy to give the same effects as advanced aging- perhaps you could wet a finger and stick I in an electrical socket while drinking your beer?

 

That then is an infection and not aging.

 

So I'm confused- is the beer you referring to commercial or homebrew. If commercial, is the lacto intentional? Either way it is impossible to predict what it will do. Bacteria does what it does when it wants to regardless of what a beer nerd wants. Can it get "better"? Yes. Can it get "less desirable"? Yes. How can you tell? You can't. Can you influence it? Yes, keep it warmer or colder than you normally would. Colder would theoretically put the bacteria dormant. Warmer would theoretically make the bacteria more active. Full moons theoretically make them more active. Unintentional wild beers (starting out an ale and then getting the "good" effects of bacteria) are unpredictable. Intentional wild ales start out funky/sour in a pleasurable or desired way, and can sort of predictably get more or less sour/funky based on the strains used. Unintentional wild ales (infected) can go either way- some people have had revolting Abyss 2009s, I've only had only slightly acidic and pleasurably cherry flavored 09 Abyss.

 

You are correct to some extent. Do you have any information that lends you to believe it is in fact just Lacto? There are many types of bacteria that can ferment beer,so if it was unintentional the odds are it was not just lacto or another bug. My guess is it won't get any better and it's a drain pour. All speculative of course.

 

I think he is asking how well beers dosed with lactobacillus will age.

 

What is this beer? Maybe someone has some familiarity with it.

 

Then just drink it. There isn't any guarantee that it will be good or bad. If you already own it, what have you got to lose?

 

I don't think that's the question you're asking. I mean, some Cascade and RR beers have lacto and they age fine, lambics obviously have lacto and they age amazingly. But those are supposed to have lacto, in your beer it's clearly a flaw. So I think you want to be asking "will lacto go away?" and the answer, as far as I know, is no, it won't. In all likelihood it's just going to get worse and worse as time goes by.

Then again, you seem to like old beer, so maybe the oxidized flavors will mingle nicely with the lacto, I highly doubt it, but I hate oxidation.

 

I'm still seriously confused here. You just tasted the beer recently, right? And you didn't think it was good, right? And so you're asking if it will get better? We can't really know that, because beer with heavy malt bases almost never have lacto added to them, because it's generally a terrible idea.

The lacto is just going to stay there. It's not going to go away and it's not going to change (though it might get worse!). If you've ever had a 5-year-old malty beer and though "man, this could really use an indiscriminate splash of lactic sourness" then maybe you'll like it in a couple years. But, dude, odds are not good.

 

I believe lactobacillus will do most of it's work in a the matter of a few weeks, though I'd need my copy of Wild Brews to be sure. How do you know it's lacto? If it is just a lactic acid presence, and it's continuing to get more sour, it may be a different lactic acid producing bacteria. Perhaps pediococcus? Is there any ropiness occurring alongside? This would indicate pediococcus. Is there a pellicle? That would indicate brettanomyces is in there as well.

To answer your general question as to how a pure lacto beer ages (some berlinerweisses for example), my experience is after the initial souring, the acidity will slowly soften over time. if there is no Brett present to scavenge the residual oxygen, it will still oxidize, but at a slower rate due to the acidity. Aged Berlinerweises (sans brett) often tend to be like a tart sherry.

 

Pedio was my first thought as well - Lacto is generally more sensitive to both hops and alcohol than Pedio, although there are some specific strains of Lacto that can survive in high-ABV/high-IBU environments. I would still bet on a Pedio infection in the specific case that OP is mentioning.

As far as general aging, the only Lacto-only beers I've aged off the top of my head are Cascade's beers, which don't necessarily fall off quickly, but I also don't think they particularly improve over time. I think that the most positive aging environment in sour beers comes from an ecosystem of multiple organisms, specifically Brett + Pedio/Lacto, as the Brett can consume dead cells and clean up diacetyl that Pedio throws off.