India Belgian Sour Stout

No offense, but that sounds like a hot mess.

 

Yeah, I know what you're going for, I just don't think the end result would taste too well. Combing all of the most powerful flavors would probably be a mess. They would either overpower your palate and you wouldn't taste much of anything, or they would cancel each other out and there wouldn't be much to taste. I'm all for crazy new beer ideas, but you have to leave room for subtlety and harmony.

 

I'd rather combine individual beers with those characteristics in my belly

 

Respect for proposing an intriguing idea ... I'd be skeptical of this mix personally, but craft beer has had a ton of "crazy" ideas that look like genius in hindsight. If a brewer pulled off something as complex as this, playing to all these very different styles' strengths, and in a way that could be appreciated by most palates, they'd get mad props. This is what homebrewing/small-batch experimenting is for!

 

I think the expression "too much of a good thing" is relevant here.
I love IPAs, sours, stouts, and Belgian styles, but maybe not all at the same time.

 

There is a brew that closely resembles the flavor profile that you are asking for. My Blueberry Nightmare is a polarizing brew. I enjoyed it but many think it is a hot mess,

 

OP - I'm tempted to point out that you forgot hot peppers and bourbon barrel aging. There are always flavors looking to be combined in some magical way, but the more conflicting flavors you add, the less likely that you'll find that magic. I like stouts, don't like them overly bitter or sour, but the Belgian angle is intriguing. IPA fans may not like a stout thrown in, the sour taste, or the Belgian yeast.

 

I don't know - I never had a stout and said "I wish I had an IPA flavor at the same time" - never had an IPA and said "I wish there was some roast coffee there too".

The reason why I drink by style is because that's the style and specific flavors I am wanting to experience at that time. If I want IPA bitterness and citrus - I drink an IPA, if I wanted toast, malt and coffee - I drink a coffee stout.

I'm not greedy, I don't need them all at the same exact time - I'll go 1 by 1 to get them without issue.

 

*when 'innovation' goes wrong*

 

Let's see. As mentioned above, other distinctive beer components you could add are barrel aging (preferably more than one barrel type) and hot peppers. Fruit is also a possibility to add another layer of complexity/muddle.

Seriously though, if you really want to see what a beer like this would taste like just pick a Belgian, stout, IPA, and sour, and pour some of each into a glass. Try different proportions to see how that changes things. I'm sure it will taste great by the time you're finished with four beers.

 

This isn't the most far-fetched idea. There are stouts fermented with Belgian yeasts, sour IPAs, India stouts, belgian IPAs, etc. It would be an insanely delicate trick to combine all the "key" qualities from each of these into a single beer, of course. But you could brew a stout, fermented with a Belgian yeast that's dry hopped like an IPA and then secondary on cherries/raspberries or something similar to get at least a little tartness/sourness. Hardest part of that, off the top of my head, would be hopping with something that goes well with the fruit.

Age in it port barrels and you'd have a helluva strange thing I'd be willing to taste. You won't see me standing in line to be the first to try brewing it, though!

 

Oops, we allowed lacto to enter the beer. Let's sell it anyways and name it something far out.

 

oh, you mean IBSS well it's got IBS in the name so...there

 

So its a new style called a Black Belgian Sour IPA?

Sure, I'm on board. As long as its not too ashy from the dark roasted malts or too bitterly hopped it should be a pretty tasty mash up hybrid of a beer.

 

Oh for fuck's sake.
Doesn't this go completely against the Splitter mentality of the other thread?

... and you've lost any credibility you ever hoped to have.