Let’s get FUNKY & DIRTY! The forgotten beer style: Sour beer.
In the past before refrigeration and the industrial production of the lager yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus) by Max Rees in Germany in 1870, our brewing forefathers made beer using captured yeast from nature and finetuned their brewing know-how over generations by pure luck and over time were basically sour. The main culprits were bacteria: Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and the slower Brettanomyces who would turn your fresh and thirst quenching beer in to vinegar.
In the past decades IPAs and in the past years New England IPAs have been the superstars amongst beer drinkers, they are hoppy, fresh and leave you satisfied but since 2014 the growing sector has been in the sour/wild ale sector, workshops at craft beer festivals for sour beers being better attended than about latest hop strains.
The Big Daddies in this sector today are Cantillon, Boon and 3 Fonteinen – Belgian Gueuse and Lambic producers who have even their own Controlled Denomination of Origin and are smuggled in to the US (where they know a thing or two about beer) at huge mark ups. So why are these tart, funky forgotten beers that taste of leather, dirty laundry or an animal stable, so much in demand?
There are many reasons: they are the antithesis of macrobeer, these beers take time. Their equipment date back from the late 19th century with their real copper kettles, ‘koelship’ cooling vessels and their barrel fermenting – making consistency of product an art. But also the mighty array of tastes you can derive from barrel aging, use of fruit and herbs and the mastering of blending younger and older beers. Spontaneous beer production is closer to wine making then lager beer production.
But many beer drinkers say that drinking sour beers or wild ales is an acquired taste which may be true, who wants to drink a sour cat sick? But is it really?
In Bulgaria the ground breakers in the style are White Stork Beer Co, the first to produce a Kriek style wild ale with Kabinet from Serbian 2016, followed by their Borderless (blended with Tepache a probiotic pineapple drink, a collaboration with Nevel Artisan Ales) in 2018 and their latest release the 25 month Lambic style Timeless which tastes of peaches and mint! Extraordinarily all these White Stork sours beers had a large quota of un-malted Limets in the base. Since then others in Central and Eastern Europe have developed a sour program like Mad Scientist (MadX), Monyo (Hungarian Terroir) and Horizont Brewing in Budapest
We particularly like the subtle and classy wild ales coming from Nevel Artisan Ales who try to be as close to organic as possible and forage for the special ingredients in the wild. Some of their beers come close to Champagne level quality: dry, sour and acidic without the funky stuff!
For those who like their sour beers sweeter you may also find Lindemans on our on-line shop.
from PIVOTEKA
