![]() The result is a quick, inexpensive sour beer that is simple and refreshing. “Kettle Sour: Also known as ‘Quick Sours,’ these beers undergo an initial fermentation with Lactobacillus, a starter used to make yogurt, before being pasteurized and then fermented. Whatever organisms happen to be in the air or on the fruit is what begins the process of fermentation. ![]() The ‘magic’ begins the moment when yeast and bacteria come in contact with the liquid, or wort. These beers are the rarest and most complex tasting and the continue age-old brewing practices from before brewers even knew that yeast and bacteria were responsible for fermentation. “Spontaneous Fermentation: This is where the magic of brewing first began. This style of sour beer is often aged in oak is referred to as ‘barrel-aged sour ale.’ These beers ferment and develop for anywhere from a few months to a few years. “Mixed Culture: This style of sour beers…is richer and more complex tasting due to a vivarium of microorganisms added at the beginning of fermentation. Here at California Wild Ales, we focus on mixed culture, but we have been creating spontaneously fermented beers for the past few years. Photo via FacebookĬheers!: Are there different kinds of sours?īill: There are three main subcategories of sour beer production: mixed culture, spontaneous fermentation, and kettle sour. We suggest you dive into out Belgian beer guide to get a better run down on what’s at stake with each style here, but suffice to say, the centuries old nickname of “champagne of beers” is not being used sarcastically here.Sour beers pair well with rich cheeses, fatty meats and seafood. Of course, none of these traditionally pack the puckering punch that a Flanders red or oud bruin will, but they are sours, both chemically and flavor profile-wise. There are the straight lambics, which are so delicate and time sensitive that they aren’t shipped more than mere miles from where they are brewed the fruit lambics, which vary from traditional examples with fresh ingredients to modern productions made with syrupy sweet fruit concentrates and the heaviest hitter of all Belgian beers, the geuze lambic, a blend of spontaneously fermented beers ( brettanomyces comes into play here!) from batches as far back as three years. The lambic category is an entire lesson in beer in and of itself. ![]() Kind of puts the whole idea of ordering up cell cultures from a modern lab to brew a batch of beer into perspective. And it wasn’t even until the mid-19th century that Louis Pasteur could prove these cells existed, let alone isolated what they did. Remember, it all started by absentmindedly dumping a bunch of beer into barrels that produced a (somewhat unintentional) sour result. After all, in many cases, these work in conjunction with one another (especially brettanomyces and pediococcus). And yes, there’s a whole textbook’s worth of microbiology and cell biology jammed into a paragraph there, but what’s most important to know is the basic flavors that each is responsible for. Sour beers come about by different microflora that are responsible for different sets of resulting tastes: lactobacillus bacteria (lovingly referred to as “lacto” in the beer world) creates lactic acid, which results in the relatively clean lemony-tart puckering sour you recognize in beers pediococcus bacteria (which also gets a cute nickname: pedio), similarly creates tart lactic acid but also brings funkier side notes acetobacter is the same bacteria that turns wine into vinegar and creates acetic acid, giving sour vinegar flavors and brettanomyces, a wild yeast known as “brett” for short that creates a drier, funkier set of flavors. Actually, here’s where things get a little tricky.
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