Cellaring Sour Beers

Sour/funky beers overall open themselves up to aging very well all around I am finding thus far.

Eric

 

Consistency, and "ready to drink" mentality. There's some article of the woman head of NB saying pasteurization is like taking a snapshot of what she wants people to taste, vs if released "alive" they would put it in bottles 3 months before optimum taste, and hope the buyer gets it home and opened within 6 months. Since it's already aged beer, they are hoping people will buy it, and open it, enjoy the blend she made, and buy again the next year. I think that model simply fits with NBs ability to continue buying more Foudres and releasing X amount of cases which they know they can sell. Gueze brewers/blenders cannot scale up as easily, nor is there beer "definitely at it's peak" when they release it.

tldr: They just want you to taste their beer the way they tasted it when they called it "la Folie" , bottled, and released it

 

The purpose of killing the yeast/bacteria is simple actually: a few years ago during Seattle Beer Week the two NB folks responsible for LaFolie and other great beers hosted a Sour Symposium. There they said they moved to pasturization at NB because they didn't want the beer to change- when they blended and bottled a beer, it's that flavor profile at the time of bottling and sale that they want their art of blending to be known, and that aging the beer defeats showcasing blending. The one gal went to go on that she is astonished that old C&C LaFolie are still out there, as NB does not have any, and in her mind the aged beers are ruined at that age as her original blending is long gone. She actually said "drink em or dump em, they aren't what we want to showcase our talent". Really surprised me, but once we as a group go to do blending I understood where she was coming from. For LaFolie there are 3-4 base beers of varying age they blend special for each batch of LaFolie- bruin (old, basically a solara of face-melting sour, with the newest addition being older than 3 years); mid (I forget the name but this is the new sour batch of 1-2 years); and the new base beer that is basically a modification to their 1556 recipe that is either not soured or just started.

As we all sat there, we blended the differing beers to make our own LaFolie sour, I rather liked the bruin and did a ratio of 50% bruin, 40% mid, and 10% new. The ratios for commercially sold LaFolie vary from batch to batch and year to year, depending solely on the flavors and whims of the blender. So, with this large amount of effort in testing and re-testing ratios of sour, she was kind of insulted that folks weren't trying her work as she intended at blending, and let it sit to become a completely different beer.

I can relate to her frustration- for example with steaks- if I go through the trouble of procuring dry aged steaks, season with gourmet seasonings and huddle around the grill to ensure perfect temps and timing, including rest period after the grill- and you put ketchup or A1 on that steak? Muhfukka better git the hell outta my house and never expect me to cook for you again lol.

 

In terms of what position to age them, I have heard you should age lamibcs on their side and shouldn't even stand it up when serving (thus the need for a lambic basket). where as most all other beers your should store vertical. Should I be laying down all sour type beers that are bottle conditioned (Flanders red ale, wild ale, etc.) or just lambics. any advise would be well appreciated.