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Author Topic: Sour Beer Tastings  (Read 4339 times)

Offline narcout

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Sour Beer Tastings
« on: October 26, 2015, 03:52:41 pm »
I'm reading American Sour Beers (excellent book so far) and following the author's recommendation to keep a tasting log of commercial sours.

Fortunately, my local liquor store has a wide selection of at least 40 different sours.  Unfortunately, they are all pretty expensive.

Yesterday, I picked up these:



Below are my tasting notes on the Citra Sour.  The second beer is a sour ale aged in Bourbon barrels with cherries.  I'll try that one later this week.

Disclaimer:  I'm pretty sure my palette kind of sucks.

Almanac Brewing – Citra Sour (10.25.15)

Description: American blonde ale fermented with house sour culture, racked into used oak wine barrels for several months and then dry hopped with Citra; abv 7%

Appearance: Hazy, dark straw/golden color, effervescent, minimal head

Aroma: Slightly sour, light malt, and citrus (lemon and grapefruit)

Taste: moderate sourness with no funk; fizzy grapefruit, lemony (slight mouth puckering); perhaps light vinegar; light malt; light hop bitterness (not really noticeable); hint of light berries?; dry finish

Impression: Enjoyable, would buy again, definitely sour but not overpoweringly so
Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline brewday

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2015, 09:46:38 pm »
The Citra Sour sounds tasty, thanks for the review.  I'll try to track it down.

I recommend adding Almanac Dogpatch Sour to your list.  It's sort of a Flanders Red, cherries, wine barrels, wild yeasts (including SF sourdough!!) and pretty damn tart.  I really enjoyed it.

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2015, 08:25:36 am »
Almanac's Pumpkin Dark Sour is also a solid choice from Almanac. It's on the short list of pumpkin beers I like and probably Almanac's best beer IMO.
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Offline narcout

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2015, 09:21:53 pm »
Avery Brewing – Insula Multos Collibus (10.31.15)

Description: Sour ale aged in bourbon barrels (for 9 months) with cherries; house Brett for secondary fermentation and house pedio and lacto for souring; abv 9.7%

Appearance: Hazy, medium dark brown, effervescent, minimal head with lacing

Aroma: moderate sourness, slight dark fruit, slight woodiness?, slight sulfur?

Taste: strong sourness with sharp edge (tartness from cherries?), slight alcohol sweetness, minimal funk, something unpleasant that I don’t know how to describe (maybe vinegar, bile and over ripened cheese?), slight malt flavor, no noticeable hop flavor, dry finish

Impression: the sourness is ok, but there’s something going on that I do not care for, would not buy again
Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline narcout

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2015, 01:43:27 pm »
Picked up a few more



Allagash – Midnight Brett (11.1.15)

Description: brewed with 2-row, midnight wheat, raw wheat and rye malt; hopped with blend of Perle, Glacier and Simcoe; fermented with house strain of brett in stainless tanks; bottle noted it was filled on June 16, 2014; 7.3% abv

Appearance: black in color with dark ruby at the edges, extremely effervescent, pours with an enormous head that does not dissipate quickly, heavy lacing

Aroma: very mild sourness, coca-cola, very mild dark fruit, light alcohol

Taste: light and soft sourness, no funk, coca-cola (pleasant but wonder where it is coming from), light hop bitterness no real hop flavor, hint of roast, light to moderate berries (raspberry and cherry?), dry but refreshing and soft (round?) finish that leaves a touch of sour

Impression: really like this one (unfortunately very expensive), wonder what strain(s) of brett they are using
Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline narcout

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2015, 04:32:23 pm »
Logsdon Farm Brewery – Seizoen Bretta 11.1.15

Description: unfiltered saison fermented with brett and bottle conditioned with pear juice; 8% abv; 35 IBU

Appearance: hazy straw/burnished gold, effervescent, enormous and rocky head that drops to a large head fairly quickly; heavy lacing; quite a bit of sediment in bottle (could be good candidate for harvesting dregs)

Aroma: very mild sourness, light spice and alcohol, touch of noble hops?

Taste: mild and rounded sourness, no funk, background hop bitterness and flavor, light butterscotch?, pleasing rustic character; light fruitiness (almost starfruit and green grape?); light citrus; slight grassiness/hay (in a good way); touch of black pepper?; full finish that fades quickly to dry and lightly tart

Impression: great beer; would buy again (and well-priced)

Side note: this is a very interesting and small farmhouse brewery in Oregon, which I have never heard of before, brewing mostly Belgian inspired sours; would like to seek out more of their offerings
« Last Edit: November 02, 2015, 10:45:08 am by narcout »
Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline erockrph

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2015, 07:12:14 am »
Allagash's Brett beers are great, but I often wish there was more Brett character to them. I think it may have something to do with being a 100% Brett beer without a Sacc primary - less fermentation byproducts for the Brett to work on. Still, I have a hard time walking past a bottle of Confluence (their dry-hopped sour) without feeling extreme temptation to throw it in my cart.

I get a lot of pineapple/cherry pie in Confluence - reminds me a bit of Orval. I wonder if it's a similar strain.
Eric B.

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Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2015, 09:11:37 am »
Logsdon Farm Brewery – Seizoen Bretta 11.1.15

Side note: this is a very interesting and small “farmhouse” brewery in Oregon, which I have never heard of before, brewing mostly Belgian inspired sours; would like to seek out more of their offerings

The "farmhouse" actually needs no quotation marks. It is literally brewed in a barn on a farm just outside of Mt. Hood. It's owned by Logsdon who was formerly an owner in Full Sail and started up Wyeast in the same barn in which the Logsdon beers are brewed. Some of that may change with the shakeup in Logsdon Farm Brewery.

It's inaccurate to say they brewing mostly sours. They only have one sour beer (to my knowledge) while the entire lineup is certainly Belgian inspired (saisons, tripel, wit, Flemmish red).
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Offline narcout

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #8 on: November 02, 2015, 10:44:50 am »
The "farmhouse" actually needs no quotation marks.

Fair enough; quotation marks removed

It's inaccurate to say they brewing mostly sours. They only have one sour beer (to my knowledge) while the entire lineup is certainly Belgian inspired (saisons, tripel, wit, Flemmish red).

Of the 11 beers listed on their website, 7 of them include either brett or lactic acid bacteria.  Hopefully, I'll be able to find some more.  It looks like there are a couple of stores in LA that carry it.
Sometimes you just can't get enough - JAMC

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2015, 11:17:14 am »
Cerasus is sour, Peche n Brett is sour.

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #10 on: November 02, 2015, 03:42:07 pm »
Cerasus is sour, Peche n Brett is sour.

You've had peche n brett that was sour? Both times I've had it I got no discernable sourness out of it.
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2015, 04:49:21 pm »
How are we using the word sour? Is Lindemans raspberry lambic a sour beer?
Is Logsdon Peche n Bret a sour beer, i say Yes. It's not a puckering acetic type sour, but its a sour beer.

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #12 on: November 03, 2015, 09:01:14 am »
How are we using the word sour? Is Lindemans raspberry lambic a sour beer?
Is Logsdon Peche n Bret a sour beer, i say Yes. It's not a puckering acetic type sour, but its a sour beer.

I think some discernible sourness is required to call a beer sour. Those Lindemans beers were sour at one point but are backsweetened to a point that they may be technically lambic but they are no longer sour.

By what standard are you defining Peche n Brett as a sour beer?
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #13 on: November 03, 2015, 10:27:27 am »
Look im not trying to pick a fight or prove someone wrong, if you arent able to detect any acid in that beer thats fine by me. If you want it declared not sour thats OK by me.

It seems to me that Sour Beer is a class of beers that use mixed fermentations of sac yeast with lacto and/or pedio and/or bret, and sometimes no sac yeast at all. Generally, the ph of the final beer will be lower than that of normal beer, so probably sub 4.0 ph. I have not measured the ph of Peche n Brett, but it tastes more acidic to me than a normal beer. I agree its not as acidic as most commercial sour beers.

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Sour Beer Tastings
« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2015, 08:21:40 am »
Look im not trying to pick a fight or prove someone wrong, if you arent able to detect any acid in that beer thats fine by me. If you want it declared not sour thats OK by me.

It seems to me that Sour Beer is a class of beers that use mixed fermentations of sac yeast with lacto and/or pedio and/or bret, and sometimes no sac yeast at all. Generally, the ph of the final beer will be lower than that of normal beer, so probably sub 4.0 ph. I have not measured the ph of Peche n Brett, but it tastes more acidic to me than a normal beer. I agree its not as acidic as most commercial sour beers.

No fight provoking here. Just trying to understand what you perceive about the beer.
Heck yeah I blog about homebrewing: Brain Sparging on Brewing