Your first sour and/or brett beer experience

First funky beer was Orval. I thought it was mind-blowing and fantastic. First sour was Rodenbach Grand Cru, and also loved it. I still love those beers, and I think they are great introduction to the "styles".

 

Jolly Pumpkin La Roja. Still one of my favorites.

 

Duchesse De Bourgogne was the first. Cascade Apricot was the second. It was also my first "drain pour" because my girl and I couldn't drink it. The third sour I had was Beatification. I took one sip at a share and poured the rest in a friends glass because I thought it was disgusting. How my taste buds have since changed.

 

Shilkmake by Omnipollo and Tired Hands.

probably the worst brett IPA to try as your first one...

 

First Sour was most definitely some form of Lindemans probably Framboise or Pomme, first Brett beer to the best of my memory was Ommegang Biere de Mars.

 

first sour beer was lindeman's frambois, and I hated it. Based on that, I couldn't see what the sour beer thing was about.
Second was Rodenbach Grand Cru, and that did it. Now I can't get enough

 

I'm sure I had some lindeman's a few times at a german place by me..but the real turning point was 2010..I went out to San Francisco to visit my buddy for his birthday for a few days and on the drive home from Fort Bragg (went up to North Coast) we stopped at Russian River for lunch, and Consecration changed the game for me.

 

First: de Garde Imperial Raz Bu.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

 

Prarie Artisan Ales Funky Gold Amarillo. College bud brought from home. The next week we went to Asheville, NC and spent an hour and a half in Wicked Weed's Funkatorium trying everything we could.

 

People might hate me but the first sour beer I ever had was Fou Foune on tap. So I immediately fell in love with sour beers

 

I still haven't understood what you guys keep calling "funk" in sour beers, gueuzes and the likes. Is it the earthy tones that often come from barrel aging and make it taste like champagne ? I can understand "funkiness" in a smell (it's strong and almost stinks basically) but in the taste ?

 

My first sour was Supplication from Russian River. It was 5 years ago, in my early craft beer days. Me and a couple friends were road tripping down the west coast. We got behind schedule on a day we were supposed to end up in San Francisco, so we just happened to stay in Santa Rosa. Yelp said that this brewery called Russian River in town was rated highly. Ended up getting the full flight which happened to include three of their sours. Didn't know what I was getting into and took a few sips to start to get into it, but I can't get enough of them now.

I have deep beer regrets from that trip. I didn't get any bottles to go at RR. Later on the trip, we drove right by Firestone Walker and talked about going but decided we shouldn't. I bought a fresh Double Jack across the street at a gas station. Cracked it when I got back to Nashville and instantly knew I'd made a mistake. If 2011 me only knew what I know now.

 

First unintentional sour occured when I got some contamination in my batch of ESB (failed to properly sanitize the rubber gaskets on my Grolsch flip-top bottles), lost about half the batch

Fast Forward about 20 years, I had a Westbrook Gose...decided that style was not for me...have tried probably 8-10 others since then and stand by my original diagnosis

 

Cherry Sour from Black Market Brewing.
It was ghastly. Should beer ever smell like cheese? I think not.
The taste was offputting, to say the least. I struggled with 3 or 4 sips. I wanted to give it a fair shot.
But I wanted to keep my lunch down, even more. The sink drank the last 2/3 of the can...

 

funk: old orval

sour: petrus pale ale

now: no turning back

 

Lindemans Framboise. It was a sweet bomb.
Logsdon Seizoen Bretta. My funk intro.

 

My first experiences:

Brettanomyces ~ Orval

General Funk ~ Saison Dupont

Wild ~ Fantôme Saison

Fortunate (and humbled) to have cut my teeth on classic examples of each style.