Sour Beer
By Chloe
Ahhhh the magic of sour beers. The perfect companion on a warm summer day.. refreshing, trendy, funky, new and exciting.
Sour beer has been around since the monks and is the OG-ist beer of all the beers. This may be remarkable to us hipsters that have caught up with the trend in the past few years, thanks to all of the craft breweries in the US doing some really cool things to bring this style back to life. Sour beer is what helped me understand the breadth of craft beer, and maybe it can do the same for you!
Sour Beer, What Is It?
Sour beer is a broad category that involves a vast range of styles and brewing techniques with one lone unifying characteristic - an offbeat, sour, funky flavor. The spectrum of sour beer spans from light and fruity, to odd funk, to a downright acid and vinegar taste. These flavors are a result of the intentional addition of souring bacteria and wild yeast. The styles range from historical Belgian Lambics, to traditional German-style brews, and to today’s westernized experimentations of sour and wild ales. These beers come from all over the globe with variance in flavor and brewing techniques.
Image by Beer and Brewing
The Beginnings
What we call “sour” beer is, believe it or not, the oldest type of beer in history!! Beer was an accidental by-product of barley wheat and water during bread making. Through the intrusion of excess water, acid-producing bacteria, and wild yeasts, beer was created. At this point in time, all beers were sour as we did not have an understanding of pasteurization and sterilization. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution and increase of scientific knowledge that we discovered how to prevent beer from souring. We now have the advanced ability to manipulate the entire process, creating the wide range of controlled beers we love today. Modern crafters and brewers are now going back to these historic roots and creating intentionally-soured beers.
What Makes the Beer Sour?
Bacteria! Lactobacillus and Pediococcus are the main strains of bacteria responsible for giving these beers their sour taste. These bacteria consume sugar and produce lactic acid as a by-product over time. This lactic acid is what gives these beers a lemony-tart character, and is the same acidity that you experience when eating yogurt. The sour taste that we perceive is a response to the acids that the bacteria creates. In most common styles of beer, these bacteria are considered “beer spoilage organisms”, but are purposefully used in sour beers to attain the level of tartness.
These bacteria are often joined by wild yeast, most commonly Brettanomyces (Brett), which gives the beer most of its funkiness and earthiness. Its important to note that yeast is not what makes the beer sour, but it can bring out a massive range of flavors depending on the strain, acidity, alcohol levels and types of bacterias. These wild yeasts are very different than the common yeast strains used in your classic IPA or Stout beer. The common yeasts are isolated and controlled so that the beer comes out consistently every time. Funny thing is, in this type of modern brewing and in some wine making practices, Brett is ALSO considered a “ruiner” and is kept out. When used properly, Brett adds a balancing layer of earthiness to the beer.
Recognizing these three important processing agents of sour beer will make it easier to make sense of the whole process of making sour beer!
Brewing Process
In order to understand how sour beers are made, it is important to understand how they are not made (modern beer production). Most of the beers familiar to us today are kept in a sanitary environment to protect the beer from the intrusion of wild yeast and bacterias. Breweries are invested in keeping anything, besides their restricted yeast, out of the beer.
When it comes to sour beer, we want these funky guys in our beer to give it the tart, funky taste we know and love. Sour beers are made by intentionally allowing bacteria (Lactobacillus, Pediococcus) and wild yeast strains (Brettanomyces) into the beer, traditionally through barrels. Below is an explanation of how sour beers are made, laid out simply for the purpose of understanding the basics.
Wort: brew the wort (unfermented beer from the mashed grains) and create the base beer. It is the sweet, malty, starting liquid that is derived from the conversion of malted grains into sugar (mashing).
Inoculate: ferment the wort by introducing fermenting agents, which will work together to achieve the overall flavor component
Bacteria: acid producing bacteria, most commonly Lactobacillus and Pediococcus
Introduce these fermenting agents either through exposing the wort to open air, or by adding a bacterial culture
Recap: these strains give the beer its sour flavor!
Wild Yeast: introduce wild yeast, most commonly Brettanomyces
These yeast consume the sugars and create alcohol and CO2
Gives a wide range of esters and phenols – earth, fruit, must, funk, etc.
Recap: these yeast gives the beer its earthiness and funkiness!
Fermentation: allow the beer to ferment in stainless steel tanks or oak barrels for several months or years
Sour beer is created best with a slow, steady fermentation
During this time, the brewers may add additional ingredients, like fruits and spices, to reach a desired flavor
Brewers may decide to do controlled, open fermentation to allow for more funk
Blend: once the beer is ready, a variety of barrels are selected and blended into a single tank
Solera Approach – occasionally old beer is mixed with new beer to keep a stew of wild yeasts and bacteria in balance
Package: the finished blend is then packaged into bottles and kegs for distribution
The process of making sour beers is a lot more complicated than what is described above, and has become extremely specialized. There are many unique approaches that brewers have implemented and are experimenting with all over the world. Some ways that brewers manipulate this process and create unique recipes are:
Vary the ingredients in the base beer
Change fermentation time and temperature
Alter how and when bacteria is introduced
Decide when wild yeast is introduced
Change up the strain of wild yeast being used
Whether wild yeast is added during primary or secondary fermentation (and with what strain)
Add fruits or other ingredients
Barrel vs. Steel aging
Blending together batches
Image by Indeed Brewing
Some faster and cheaper methods of brewing sour beer are called Sour Mashing and Kettle Sourcing, which are far less extensive processes that allow for mass production. In result, these beers have less complexity and funk, but are indeed sour, light, and fruity. These are the beers you see at the corner bodegas.
Styles
Because of all of the innovative breweries all over the world, the number of categories of sour beer is forever growing and shifting. Some classic expressions of sour beers are:
American Wild Ale: the American craft brewer’s approach on the sour beer, usually made using strains of wild yeast. Other than the sour flavor and wild yeast, American sour beers do not have any rules that define and guide the style, giving craft brewers the freedom to experiment with new approaches.
Berliner Weisse: a sour german-style wheat beer that is very common and well-liked. These beers are low in alcohol, mild in tartness and high in carbonation. They normally incorporate fruit and finish clean, crisp and dry. Most commercial examples of Berliner Weisse beers are brewed in the Kettle Sour method.
Flanders Ale: a Belgian sour beer fermented in large oak barrels. These beers go through a long maturation process, giving it flavors of raisin, stone, fruit and black cherry. The two types of Flanders Ales are Red Flanders Ale (bright fruit) and Brown Flanders Ale (raisins, plums, earthy).
Gose: another very popular sour german-style wheat beer. Gose beers are traditionally brewed with coriander and sea salt, creating a perfect balance between savory, herbaceous, and sourness. These beers have a clean acidity, are low in alcohol, and are often fermented with fruity additions. Goses are huuuge in the American craft brewing scene and can be found nearly everywhere. All in all, these are consistent, light beers, always refreshing, not funky, crushable.
Lambic: a Belgian wheat beer that was the first beer discovered in a method that predates human knowledge on yeast and bacteria. This beer is made through spontaneous fermentation by naturally occurring wild yeast in oak barrels, and then aged for at least one year. Given the deep, funky, and oaky taste that these beers give off, they are commonly made with cherries (Kriek) and raspberries (Frambroise). Some other variants are Gueze (a blend of old and young lambics) and Faro (sweetened with dark sugar).
Sour IPAs: not officially defined but commonly understood as NE-Style IPAs with added tartness. The sourness typically comes from Lactobacillus bacteria that is added during the kettle sour process. The other flavors in this beer (lactose, vanilla, fruit) come from the aging process. I really love these beers because they are full-bodied, creamy, and only slightly sour.
Where to Start
Sours beers are certainly an acquired taste, however given their range of flavor profiles, there is a sour beer for everyone! The light and tart wheat beers (Berliner Weisse and Goses) are the best place to start. They are approachable and accessible, and are the perfect beers to begin your journey into sours. I have listed some of Coco’s Recos below.
All in all, sour beers are the doorway to the ancient days, as well as the window to the future! Give one a try and I can guarantee you will be hooked!
Coco’s Reco’s:
Grimm Artisanal Ales, Brooklyn – any sour: one of my favorite go to spots for sours. The loveliest tasting room serving beers of all types. I personally love the range of sour beers that they serve, although sometimes very tart. These beers are great quality, so they can be a little pricey and harder to find, but well worth it when you do.
Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn - Bel Air Sour: my go-to, inexpensive bottle of beer that you can find at literally all of the bodegas in New York. This is a straight forward, pretty-dang-tart beer with slight tropical fruit flavors. Easy drankin here.
Oxbow Brewing Company, Maine – Farmhouse Sours: my go-to beer when I am feeling fancy. Oxbow has beautiful farmhouse ales that are brewed with fruit and aged in American and French oak barrels. These are extremely complex, quite expensive, but so delicious when you want to treat yourself.
Folksbier, Brooklyn - Glow Up: fruity as can be, but not too sweet. Folksbier is a craft brewer in Carrol Gardens, NYC (with the most quaint tasting room that you should visit). They make awesome beers, and I especially love these Berliner Weisse-style Sours.
Allagash Brewing Co, Maine – Farm to Face or Coolship: a fancier sour beer. Allagash makes more than their “Allagash White” that you see everywhere. In fact, I think that they make some of the best Belgian beers around. Their sours can be extremely funky, subtly sour and slightly fruity.
Mikkeller, NYC and San Diego – any beer: probably my favorite brewery right now. With locations on both the East and West coast, Mikkeller plays with a ton of different styles and has so much to offer. Not technically known for their sours, I recently visited the SD location and was very pleased with their selection. This brewery is doing some really cool stuff and the beers are great in price for their value. Highly recommend!
Funkwerks, Colorado – Raspberry Provincial: A delightfully tart fruit beer that’s refreshing with a citrusy berry aroma. These beers are distributed all around the country and aren’t very hard to find. Funkwerks is always doing fun takes on their “Provincial”, using different fruits to create unique sours.
Modern Times Beer, California – Fruitlands Sour Gose: these are east coast-style sour goses from California. The sour, salty base beer brings out the funky refreshment, while the addition of passionfruit and guava turns this bear into a “tropical fiesta” according to their website. This is my go-to beer when I am home in LA. Extremely refreshing and easy drinking.
Dogfish Head, Delaware - SeaQuench Ale: (Delaware) mix of a kolsch, berliner weisse and gose, a very classic interpretation of a simple, well priced sour beer. Coriander and sea salt. My go-to.
Hudson Valley Brewing Company, NY - Sour IPAs + Farmhouse Ales: these are the most special beers to me. Hudson Valley Brewery makes all sorts of sours, but their Sour IPAs hold a place in my heart. This is where I discovered my love for sour beers and craft breweries. The beers are hard to find and highly sought after, so head over to their beautiful tasting room in Beacon, NY where you can try them all! (Their merch is also sweet.)
Some of the listed beers can be found at your local grocery store or corner store, however you’ll have to seek out the good stuff. If you want to learn a little something about beer I recommend going to a craft beer store and spending time reading labels and becoming familiar with the big ones. Sour ales can get very expensive, and as a rule-of-thumb, the large bottled sours are usually the best expressions of a brewer’s beer, however more expensive (special occasions). If you are in NYC especially, you have no excuse not to get out and try one of these beers. They’re EVERYWHERE!
