Sours for beginners; help me out.

Great thread. Wonderful depth of knowledge here. Kudos to all.

 

Perhaps you won't like any sours. Maybe you will fall in love with them one day. Or maybe you will find just a few that you enjoy. I don't typically like hefeweizens but there are a few that I will drink from time to time.

For my money, I'd give the following a shot:

Alvinne Cuvee Freddy
Monks Cafe Flemish Sour Red Ale
Rodenbach
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Verhaeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne

 

Just for fun, everybody should look up the "low" reviews on sour beers. It's just funny to see people react to their first sour and be disgusted.

 

I've been at it for a few years, like you, as well. I've drank many wild ale & belgians and none really make an impression on me at all. I prefer UK & American style ales. That's what I brew at home myself and seek out commercially. There is nothing wrong with disliking certain styles. In light of all the outrageous prices wilds demand, I'm relieved I have a disliking to them. I'm not recommending to never try them again, but don't force something on yourself just because everyone hypes these styles up. Trust your palate man.

 

As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as a "beginner" sour. Either you like or dislike the basic flavor profiles, although I will say that if you start out disliking them, you can still train your palate to like them. If you think about it, all beer is essentially a learned taste--much like coffee--due to the varying levels of bitterness, and in this case, sourness.

Yes, there are sours that are on the sweeter side, and I know they are popular to recommend for beginners because they aren't quite as much of a shock to the system, but they still have a very different collection of flavor profiles compared to non-sour beer. Also, unlike the sweetness in many porters/stouts and maltier offerings like brown and amber ales, the sweetness in sour beers is often very cloying and in bad ones, it can taste like fruit syrup.

All that being said, to reiterate the sentiments of many others--if you don't like sours it's not a big deal. For starters, you'll be saving your wallet a lot of strain. But if you *want* to get into sours, my recommendation is to jump in head first. Dive into styles like gueuze, lambic, flanders oud bruin and even some American Wild Ales and drink them until your palate starts to get accustomed to them or until you decide that sours aren't really your thing.

In terms of specific, mostly accessible recommendations for said styles:

Gueuze:
St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition is pretty easy to get and a solid take on the style
Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L'Ancienne is a little bit harder to get, but also about as authentic as you can get, since they use Cantillon lambic as the starting point.

Lambic:
Odell Friek is technically an American Wild Ale, but it reminds me more of a kriek, which is a lambic made with sour cherries. Rather than the sugary sweetness you get from some of the sour beers, it's a cleaner fruit sourness
New Belgium Transatlantique Kriek has some issues with seeming a little to "polite", if you will, but is fairly tasty, if it can still be found.

Flanders Oud Bruin:
New Belgium La Folie (you'll probably have to wait for the 2014 edition at this point)
Bellegems Bruin by Brouwerij Bockor

American Wild Ale:
Love Child (another one that will likely require a wait until next Spring) is fantastic and uber-sour
Russian River anything is pretty awesome, and also supremely sour

 

I remember my first time trying a sour it was a Cantillon Gueuze. Way too sour for me and I just was not ready for it. I explored a few 'less sour' offerings and am working my way back up to the big boys.

For right now, I have really been enjoying Rodenbach, Peekskill simple sour, and berliner weisse's...

 

I find sours to be undrinkable. I am not ashamed by this. There are so many beers out there waiting to be tried from styles that I DO enjoy that I'm not interested in running myself through some kind of gauntlet that I DON'T enjoy.

 

I couldn't imagine somebody who doesn't like sours coming to one of our local tastings - you would have a terrible time!

If you have the will to enjoy sours when you've hated them in the past, you can definitely "train" your palate to enjoy flavors that you have not liked in the past. After roughly 10 to 15 exposures to a flavor you don't like, your taste buds will adjust to enjoy that specific flavor. Granted, I'm not saying you should subject yourself to the most sour beer you can find 15 times to start to enjoy them, but ease into it by enjoying some more mild sours on a regular basis.

Here's an interesting article on how your taste buds work: http://io9.com/the-psychology-of-hating-food-and-how-we-learn-to-love-476720251

 

Sam Adams Noble Pils is an excellent crossover point for IPA drinkers to start appreciating Pilseners IMO. One of may favorite SA beers.

 

The first sour I had, I hated it. I couldn't finish it. Now, it's easily my favorite style. I can understand wanting to keep trying something that a lot of people love. Especially people whose opinions you respect. I never trained my palate necessarily, it just clicked eventually. I think the gateway for me were beers that exhibited a distinct dryness.

And if you can get your hands on any Jester King, I couldn't recommend them highly enough.

 

The answer my friend is red swingline. Its a sour mashed ipa that's fermented with several brett strains and hopped to 100 ibus. Fucking amazing.

 

My advice is to stay away from sours. Your wallet will thank you. However, if you must, I'd start with Flanders Red Ales. The best ones are fairly common imports that shouldn't be too difficult to find. If you like them, then I'd bite the bullet and buy/trade for some Russian River Sours (like Supplication and Consecration).

 

I would normally never reccomend anything this like, but since you asked for a beginner's sour it kind of fits the bill. Check out the blue moon short straw. It has very silght characteristics of a sour, without being overwhelming at all to someone who is new to the style.

 

Just start with Beatification. Don't bother with training wheel sours.

All seriousness just try some shelf geuzes or krieks, figure out if you like them on the sweeter or the funkier side. I can see the Flanders Red suggestions making sense. Perhaps something like Monk's Cafe is a good one to work on.

 

I'm new to sours myself and started out with Petrus Aged Pale, dug it. Then I tried Cascade Apricot and loved it. RR Temptation is in the fridge waiting.

 

For some reason I think if the op doesn't like the new glarus offerings, the petrus and monks cafe aren't gonna go over any better.

 

I think these are going to be a bit more sour than the New Glarus ones, though. OP, can you tell us what it is about the BW and WSA that you did not like? Is it the actual sourness, or the balance, or acidity, or what? Have you ever tried Pentagram?

 

My initial impression of sour ales was not positive, but I changed my mind after I had one on tap that had been mixed with other Belgian beers. I found the bartenders at one of my favorite beer bars in NY (The Good Life in Massapequa Park, NY) were mixing 1/3 Lindemann's Framboise with 2/3 Delerium Tremens or Piraat ales and serving it in a tulip glass. After a trying this a few times, I started drinking other Lambics and then American craft made sours without the strong Belgian ales in the glass.

I would suggest trying the mixed beers idea and also pairing your drinks with foods/plates listed with Lambic-styles here in the Beer Advocate. I think your opinion will change after trying it differently, too.

 

I skipped through every post here. I just want to say you don't have to like sours!! Personally, I love them, almost every one I've tried. Flanders, Berliner weisse, lambic, gueuze, etc. - all delicious. The one I haven't tried yet is a sour stout - kinda hesitant but then again I was before my first ever sour beer!