Can an American Wild Ale be infected?

Well why couldn't they get infected?

 

Just because it has one form of intended bacteria, it doesn't mean it can't become infected with another, right? I mean, a shot of antibiotic from a dirty needle can still get you sick.

 

Sure it/they can. Drop some candida in any wild ale, then drink it and tell me it's not infected.

Just because you're deliberately introducing a specific "wild" organism into a beer doesn't mean the happenstance inclusion of other organisms (and their effect on the taste) is hunky dory.

 

An infection really just boils down to some compound entering the beer that wasn't originally intended. So, unless you're using every possible variant of bacteria, then it definitely can.

 

It can't have a lacto, brett, or pedio infection. It can have just about anything else. You definitely still need to sanitize if you're making a sour

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do a lot of baking with lacto. and when it's in balance with the yeast the ph is so low that almost nothing else can live there except the two. It becomes a symbiotic culture. Add Brett that is an energetic culture and you have a triumvirate that precludes almost any other culture. Of course there is Pediococus and if that is a there too, what could possibly infect that?

 

Look at you bringing science into the discusion

 

Yes I have experienced an infected sour.

I have had the dubious pleasure of getting an infected LoverBeer D’uvaBeer on tap.
It was rife with the infections that a usual beer can get, rotting fruit & berries, really rotting, off-carbonation, spoiled yoghurt, non-normal booze tan etc. I noticed at least 5 other people arrive at t he same conclusion separately from me. LoverBeer is usually a great brewery, their BeerBrugna is an incredible beer.

I tried taking it back & getting my money back for what was a very expensive Italian sour. They refused & did a whole explanation to me that it was aged on wine barrels & that I just couldn’t appreciate its complexities. That I didn’t know anything about sour beer etc. It is pretty hard to get money back for an infected sour because of that logic.

 

Hard to know what exactly you're describing but it sounds like it would come either from hops or Brett, neither of which would be considered an "infection" in that specific beer.

There is no reason why a Wild Ale couldn't be "infected" though, if a non-intended yeast strain or something else entirely got into it.

 

If having a sense of humor could be expressed as temperature you would be 0 deg. K

On topic: There is absolutely no reason that a wild ale cannot pick up an off tasting infection. Every fermenting thing in a beer once was a wild "infection", just ones that folks found they enjoyed to drink.

 

How could you tell if a funky beer was infected? How could you tell if a yogurt is bad? I've had a few infected beers and mostly I got a little sour and some cherry with it, in this instance with an Imperial Stout, actually it still wasn't bad just obviously different. A sour I'm thinking completely disguised, I'm not a sour guy, but it make sense.

 

Well if we assume the same % of sours get infected as the same % of NON sours. Than that is a very small portion as sours take up a small portion in the US craft market now. And it's hard enough to find a regular infected non sour.

 

Yes, that is me.

 

Yikes, that sounds nasty. Double de Dog Sour Sour- more pucker than unripe persimmons, if you don't puke first! Like alum mouth rinse with old dog bedding aromatics. Deelish.

 

Acetobacter.

 

And what known infection causes a zesty, grassy bite?

 

What would Acetobacter do?