re: Educate me on sour beers

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I think the style you started with is the style to start with - Berliner Weiss. Many of them have added fruit that make them extra refreshing this time of year. Trim Tab has one as well that is very approachable - Paradise Now.

If you want more tart taste, look for a kettle sour. Ghost Train in Bham makes a decent one - Kaleidiscope I think is the name of it. Many of them also have fruit added to them.

Gose is another style sour, and probably the least approachable. It's brewed with salt which can be off putting.

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All depends on who makes it or how it's made. Personally, i don't care for some berliners, as they are too wheaty. And i personally homebrew gose's over berliners. The salt is not noticeable.

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I really like Saison Bretts as well. Brett is the yeast used to make them sour.

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This is incorrect. Brettanomyces is a "wild" yeast. Most brett strains do not produce lactic acid. The overwhelming majority of your acidity comes from Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) such as lactobacillus and pediococcus. These same LABs are also found in probiotics. Goodbelly probiotic juice drinks have these. Many people actually use goodbelly or probiotic capsules to acidify the beer.

Style is not the determiner of good sour beer. It's the brewer and your own personal taste.

Now when it comes to "types" of sour beer, there are 2 main dividing guidelines. Mixed Fermentation beer and kettle or quick sour beer. These refer to the process and usually the ways of acidifying the beer.

Mixed Fermentation - Mixed fermentation refers to the style of fermentation. Most clean beers are fermented with Sacharmyces strain of yeast. These give off clean or fruity flavors to the beer. Mixed fermentation often refers to inoculating your beer with a sach strain, a brett strain (mentioned above) and your LABs. The "mixing" of these microbes result a very diverse and complex tasting beer. Levels of acidity are often controlled by hopping teh beer. More hops early on in the boil equals less acidity. The hops restrain the sourness of the beer. The sach yeast strain is often your primary fermenter that will ferment and eat the majority of the sugars in the wort (wort is unfermented beer). Brett then finishes off the beer, and eats up any sugars that are not fermented by the sach strain. Brett often throws off leather/hay phenolics and esters, as well as some fruity ones as well. Brett can also throw off some strong, not necessarily desirable, phenolics like burnt wire, stinky cheese, and even one note described as "baby diaper". This in combination with the LABs produces a complex beer and is my personal favorite style of beer.

Kettle sour - the kettle sour process is a way to quickly acidify a beer. It involves adding your LABs at the end of the boil and creating an environment for the LABs to quickly infect or sour your beer. These beers are usually boiled once acidified to kill any microbes. The beers are then fermented with a sach (or a brett) yeast and are often fruited. These beers are not as complex, and are typically "one note" sours, meaning there isn't much depth to the beers, though some are very tasty.

Overwhelming majority of sours you see on the shelves are kettle sours. In order to make mixed ferm beers, you need dedicated equipment, brew space, barrels, etc... just to make those beers. The reason, is that LABs and brett can "infect" clean beers rather easily. So most breweries that don't have a barrel program, but produce berliners and goses are making kettle sours. That way, you can make sour beer, boil off and kill the microbes, and not infect your other clean beers in your operation.

As far as my recommendations:

Kettle sour: Is often a crap shoot. Most breweries now have a fruited kettle sour, and most that i drink aren't very good. Like hazy ipas, they think "more is better". So they often mask the shittiness of their beer with fruit, and the fruit doesn't always outshine the poor product. Now some are very refreshing and are good post yardwork beers when it's hot out.

Urban South Cucumber Lime Gose
Parish Sips Sunrise

Mixed Fermentation Beers:

Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza - One of my go to's. Not overly acidic, and has nice complexity
NOLA Sauvage - Also, another go to for me. I do not think this one is made with LABs, but i could be mistaken. Not overly acidic, great brett complexity. A fantastic "wild" or "sour" beer. NOLA's other sours are all pretty good.
Jolly Pumpkin Sobrehumano Palena'ole - fantastic sour
Jolly Pumpkin La Roja - slightly more acidic than the other 2. This one is made with cherries. Most Jolly Pumpkin sours are damn good.
Jester King La Petite Prince - You can't find this in Louisiana any more, but this is a perfect farmhouse beer, IMO. Low on acidity, high on rustic complexity of the yeast, IMO. I used to not even like this beer. Now, i may be responsible for buying more than half of the inventory at Calandro's. JK makes incredible farmhouse beers, and overwhelming majority are very good.
Wicked Weed - this brewery made me fall in love with sour beer. Nearly every sour they make is fantastic. Only one place in Louisiana you can get some. 504 craft beer store in New Orleans.
Prairie Funky Gold Series - these are some solid mixed ferm beers at a good price
Great Raft - Oceans Between us/ Farmhouse slang - these are some pretty good examples of brett beers. Little to no acidity. Gives a good representation of what some brett strains taste like without the acidity.


Lambics - This deserves it's own subset. Lambics are belgian made open fermented beers that are the kings of "sour" beer. We are lucky to get a few of these in Baton Rouge. Lambics are so complex and diverse. Drinking one is an experience in and of itself. Here is my list of Lambics (geuese to be specific) in order of preference. My brother and i did a blind taste test of 4 Geueze lambics (cantillon was not in the tasting), and outside of the cantillon, this is the ranking. The lambics tasted were 3 fonteinen, lindemans, oud beersel, and Tilquin Geueze.

Cantillon Classie Geueze - Very hard to find, almost impossible. If you can find it, grab it.
1) Lindeman's Cuvee' Renee Geueze - May be the easiest to find, and cheapest to buy, but both my brother and myself thought this was the best lambic of the bunch. It is so complex, and every sip you pick out more nuances in the beer.
2) 3 Fonteinen - Such a well made geueuze and globally up there in reputation with Cantillon
3/4) Tilquin Geueze - I had this one ranked 3, my brother had it 4. Very good, but not as complex as the other 2.
3/4) Oude Beersel - My brother had this one at 3. Again, not as complex as the top 2.

And if you are interested in Lambics...

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Lambics are spontaneously fermented beers native to the Senne Vally and Pajottenland regions of Belgium. Lambics are made from barley malt and unmalted wheat (30-40%) and aged hops. They form the base of a number of lambic products including unblended lambic, gueuze, fruit lambics including kriek and framboise, and faro. Lambic (and the lambic products Gueuze and Kriek) labeled 'Oude' or 'Vielle' are protected in the EU and are required by law to meet certain conditions including average age, minimum OG, max pH, max bitterness, max isoamyl acetate level [1]. In practice the presence or absence of this term can help the consumer determine which products will likely be back-sweetened and which will be traditional, though some notable producers do not follow this nomenclature.

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Gueuze (also written geuze) is a blend of lambics, traditionally 1 year old, 2 year old and 3 year old which undergoes bottle conditioning to become a highly carbonated product. Some producers release blends labeled gueuze that involve blends of lambics of different ages than 1, 2 and 3 years. Not all producers follow the oude/vielle protected name designation and some traditional gueuze can be found without the label Oude or Vielle. Gueuze is generally highly carbonated from either the presence of unfermented material in one of the blend components, the addition of priming sugar, or both.

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Anything made by Cascade is amazing.

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No one should have to come around to that. That sounds terrible.

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It’s terrible, just like all of their “sours”. I drank one, and gave the others to my SIL.

ETA: and I enjoy sours

Cascade is the one beer I’ve drank that has the biggest difference in how it tastes at the brewery v in a bottle. There’s no comparison. It’s so much better at the brewery.

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It’s terrible, just like all of their “sours”. I drank one, and gave the others to my SIL.

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I liked Greetings from Grand Isle (as I do the Sips line). I’d heard mixed reviews (I was expecting it to be cloyingly sweet), but it was good.

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One of my favorites by Avondale. Trim Tab also has some excellent sours.

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Tried that one yesterday. That first sip is strong, but after a couple it sort of eases up once you acquire a taste for it. Not sure if I'll jump head first into sours, but just wanted to explore a few more. Thanks all for the explanations and recommendations.