American Wild Ale

Cuvee Rene is avery good lambic that just sits there.

 

Agreed that Rayon isn't a sour, it's a brett beer with a dry, funky character. I wish I could afford more of it - I'd drink a couple every day. I like sour and tart as an occasional, but as an everyday drink I'd take brett over lacto or pedio every time.

 

Have you tried their Oude Gueuze? It's actually very good. Their fruit "lambics" are garbage though.

 

I had a Cuvee Rene with about ten years on it. It was amazing.

 

Ok ok shhhh now. If this keeps up all the Cuvee Rene in Houston is gonna be hoarded by the lurkers! /forever paranoid....

 

Gueuzes moving just means more gueuzes in the future.

Favorite Brands, I'm counting on you!! <3 <3 <3

 

Also noteworthy, OP, is that Oklahoma has a slightly different selection of sours/wilds. Lots of Jolly Pumpkin is available in OK, and I highly recommend their beers.

 

How is it not "wild"?

I'm not saying you're wrong since the "wild ale" category is probably one of the most broad categories there is currently. Although I think it was split into two categories "wild" aka Brett and "sour" aka bacteria, not sure though.

 

What he means is that it's made in the Flanders Oud Bruin style, which is more specific than the general American Wild Ale category. Yes, they have similar characteristics, but no, they are not the same style because someone got the labeling rights before you did.

 

See jsboots comment and yes you are correct, "wild" ales are a very broad category and honestly I'm not sure I know all the guidelines. I was more referring to the fact that La Folie is defined as an Oud Bruin which may fall into the "wild" category but I typically don't associate the two. To me Flanders Oud Bruin is a more definitive style than most other wild ales but technically it may be a wild ale. Many wild ales I don't know what to expect outside of tart/sour whereas an Oud Bruin I know more or less what it will taste like. Not sure if that makes sense.

For example, when I think of wild ales I think of Boxers, Beatification, certain Cisco beers, etc. That's just me though. Anyone who knows better or can clear it up feel free to chime in.

 

You're more of less right on, Brad.

While Oud Bruin is a traditional Flemish beer style, American Wild Ale is essentially a catch-all category that includes any American-made sour/Brett-beer.

The categorization used on this site and others is probably primarily defined by the brewer's label for his beer, then the selection defaults to the user/editor who enters/reviews the beer if no commercial description is offered.

If New Belgium hadn't called La Folie a Flanders Oud Bruin, chances are someone would eventually have called it an American Wild Ale.

 

I tried 1-4 recently at a tasting. Here's what I remember.

1: Still disgusting. Just all around a nasty horrible beer that I want to set on fire.
2: Still delicious as ever. Love this beer. Please re-make this Ranger Creek. Maybe even keep it a regular lineup or rotating at least.
3: Bleh. Sour nose stronger than ever. In fact it dominated, whereas when it was fresh it did not. The beer itself did not taste sour, but was definitely off, and has definitely gone severely down in quality. So glad I didn't buy a case of that crap.
4: It was an OK beer. Did not care for it. But wasn't bad.

 

No you're right I guess I just misinterpreted what you were saying. To me it was like you were saying it wasn't wild ie it didn't have any of the constituents to make it wild. I gotcha now

 

How often is La Folie brewed?

 

Anyone had Almanac Reserve #3 or Framboise de Amorosa from Lost Abbey? Be in San Francisco this weekend and was wondering if they were worth picking up.

 

JK and Real Ale bring some sour beers into our area. Real Ale sours are keg-only but can be found (briefly) on occasion. I have seen one of Adelbert's sour beers on tap in DFW once. New Belgium, Boulevard and Avery send us some sours.

Adelbert, H&G (if they have been released yet) and Freetail have sours but aside from the one Adelbert's appearance at Moth I've never seen sours from any of these breweries in DFW.

I guess you could count some of those Ranger Creek small batch releases and BB2 as wild/sour beers but personally I've never had a Ranger Creek bottle that was sour or obviously infected. I've had a few and I guess I've been extremely lucky.

 

It's a blend of several batches aged for various lengths of time in barrels (foudres, actually). I believe it is released every year and every year the price goes up.

 

Buy ALL the Farmers Reserve that you can. At worst, you hate them and I'll buy all the bottles you have. FR #4 is out as well.

 

Is love child #3 gone in Austin?

 

Yeah, seemed like an excellent tasting. Wish I could've made it. I left the Zhukov's, what'd you think?