Aging sours

Some will get more sour, fruit in some of them will fade off, etc. It really depends on what kind of beer it is and what the ingredients are.

 

Previous thoughts from me, from the old forum (and again... can't overemphasize how much it really does vary from beer to beer. This is a really rough guideline):

To my palate, it varies quite a bit from sour to sour. My experience has been that in a broadly general sense, true lambics age much better than American Wilds made from microbial cultures, particularly over the >3 year timeframe.

Gueuzes seem to lose some of the tart, bright citrus flavors and effervescent/juicy mouthfeel and develop a deeper overall sourness with a lot of musty floral notes, earthy/mineral flavors, and a more velvety/dry mouthfeel. The flavors do fade in fruit lambics, and my experience has been that they end up more "sour" than gueuzes/unblended lambics, possibly due to a combination of additional acidity resulting from long-term fermentation of the fruit sugars and astringency from the tannins. It also seems like different fruit flavors age in different ways -- I've found raspberry to be very inconsistent, while cherry seems to be a more regular process.

Many un-or-less-fruited American wilds seem to "come into their own" in the bottle sometime in their first year, initial harsh/biting sour flavors fading off and marrying with oaky/earthy components. I would put e.g. Cuvee de Castleton, Temptation, and JP Bambic in this category. Many fruited American wilds really do showcase the fruit flavor as the primary component, and are not blended to have a strong sour backbone (much like a DIPA that has the malt bill to support aging, but is intent on showcasing the hop flavor and so is not "designed" to have a quality flavor profile once the hops vanish). The Upland fruit lambics and Cascade beers fall into this category for me, as does Red Poppy.

Flanders reds/oud bruins are another story and I posted some of my thoughts on them previously here (tl;dr, oxidation seems to play a more prominent role, likely due to the darker malts): "...A typical flavor progression is a muting of up-front sourness, a general reduction in bright and acidic fruit flavors (cherry, plum, citrus notes) and an increase in characteristic aged flavors (sherry/Madeira, tobacco, leather, fruit jam). Depending on how the beer was produced you'll get some mustiness/funk in there as well, and possibly soy sauce/balsamic vinegar flavours. You'll see most of these changes by the three-year mark, though I do think this style can withstand extended cellaring."

Lou Pepe Gueuze has only existed since the very late 90s, so long-term we don't know yet, but those bottles are currently aging very well. The oldest Cantillon gueuze I've had was from 1993, and it was excellent, and generally followed my description above.

I think in general, a well-made lambic will not get significantly more sour unless it contains fruit, and should not develop a vinegar flavor. Carbonation has not been an issue in any old lambics I've opened, as long as the seal was intact (liquid and gas can pass through the uncompressed Cantillon corks, so rusty caps have let out carbonation).

It will be exciting to see how spontaneously fermented beers made in America age over the long term as well, but most are too young to make a judgement on that at this point.

 

Definitely a very thoughtful post. In my experience, Gueuzes will get subtly more sour with age. While not as noticably as with fruit lambics, I do perceive an increased sourness. Obviously the shift from a more citric/juicy profile, to a dryer, more earthy/funky profile makes it difficult to compare a gueuze's sourness when fresh to when aged (the passage of time and fraility of human memory certainly doesn't help either). Additionally, comparing different vintages doesn't lend itself to a productive comparison due to batch to batch variation. Moreover, institutional changes like the transition between Jean Van Roy and Jean-Pierre Van Roy in the early 2000s makes the comparrison between 90s Cantillon to recent Cantillon unproductive.

 

Building on jedwards excellent response:

Pediococcus, which creates much of the lactic acid in many sour beers, takes around a year to complete, so it really depends on how old the beer is prior to being bottled. Or how much "young" beer has been blended in. That and if additional sugars are introduced, more lactic acid will be created. So any additional sugar (via fruit or priming) prior to bottling, will have an effect. Compared to their Beligan brethren, many of the American wilds are younger when released so may have more potential to become more sour.

After the first year or two, any noticeable, increased sourness is most likely attributable to other "fresh" flavors fading, leaving the sourness to become more prominent.

Outside of some initial aging, my experience with aging sours (outside of 100% brett beers which are typically not "sours" in my book) is they will not necessarily get better or worse, they just change over time. Some for the better, some for the worse.

 

Just started to pop open some of my older (2-4 year) american wilds, and have not been impressed. Uplands seem to be the most well known that have suffered. However, the new(ish) Upland Sour Reserve I'm hoping will develop nicely over the next few years. More of a classic geuze than other American Wilds I've had.

 

Anyone care to opine about how temperature would affect wild yeasts specifically?

Would a beer get more sour stored at 60 degrees v. one stored at 40 degrees for the same amount of time?

I recall some rudimentary science notion about stuff growing faster when its closer to room temp.

 

My understanding is that Lacto/Pedio will produce more acid at higher temperatures therby creating more sourness if stored at a higher temperature. I don't think the differences (in sourness) between storage at 40F and 60F would be too noticeable over the medium term as it's the higher temperates above 60F that really gets things going wild.