Are you ready for some sour?
Interesting piece on sour beer in the Los Angeles Times yesterday.
Joshua Lurie writes about beers that he acknowledges can "smell like a barnyard." But, he adds, these beer usually taste better than they smell.
Most of these beers are unblended lambics that ferment in oak barrels.
They present some challenges.
First you have to get past the aroma and get to the taste. Even the fans of sour beers admit that this can be a leap. Lurie quotes Mark Jilg of Craftsmen Brewing Co. describing sour beer's bitter notes as "the final frontier of the palate experience."
Brewing a sour is tricky, the article points out. The fermentation can be long and expensive. Moreover, the microbes that essentially make the beer are aggressive and unpredictable. Sometimes they become sour quickly, sometimes not, one brewer told Lurie.
Then there is the acidity. Sour beers, like Deschutes Brewing Co.'s The Dissident, which I tasted at Savor event in Washington last May, can really make you pucker. I was not wild about it. But the tasting group I was a part of rated it as their fave.
I did appreciate the sour that Ben Schwalb of Severna Park served at the SPBW home brewers crab feast last fall.
Where do you stand on sour beers?
Are they all about the brewing mystique?
Just because they are difficult to brew does that make them good?
Any brewers have tales to tell about trying to make a sour?
Or do sours deliver unique, acidic flavors, harkening back to the beers that brewers made centuries ago?
Photo: Los Angeles Times
Comments
I don't know why, but Rodenbach Grand Cru is the most alluring beer to me.
Posted by: Me | July 2, 2009 11:50 AM
Sour isn't just about sour. If all of the requisite qualities are there along with the Brett overtures, these beers can sometimes represent the highest measure of a brewer's craftsmanship. Perhaps the taste is more established in Europe, but the ever-growing allegiance of fans here in the U. S. proves not only the acceptance, but the true appreciation for what was once only a geek's private pleasure. My good friend, Ben Schwalb, has kept alive a yeast strain from my dear departed friend, Ron Kodlick, and with that yeast has created numerous award winning sour ales. Very few are priviledged to taste those beers and those that do fully understand the complexities that reside therein. Are the sours the end all to be all...obviously not, but is Foie Gras just liver.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 3, 2009 1:12 AM