Sour Beer, Bad Right?

Sour Beers are not for the faint of heart. Those who are new to drinking would probably spit out their very first sip of sour, but then again, why are high school kids drinking anyways? Sours, for those who dare to enter this realm of "esoteric" beer style, can be scary. To put it in a very general way, sours can have a hint of tartness like a cherry, to a full kick in the face like Warheads candies, to everything in between. Some sours, have a hint of "barnyardy" (as a Trio member calls it) , or a somewhat vinegary taste, to just plain sour. And believe me, each sour is amazing in its own right.

As I already have mentioned, there are many tastes of sours. There are also many types of sours. Each which is based on what makes them sour. In practice, brewers would make sure their beer would not be contaminated by anything other then what yeast they would pitch in their wort. Some Belgians, well some simply didn't care. They would ferment their beers in the open and it would ferment by wild yeasts in the air, or lambics. A little crazy, but hey it worked. Some even crazier brewers, mad drunk on their beer, purposely infect their beer with bacteria! They would pitch Lactobacillus, Brettanomyces, or Pediococcus with their yeast. Then, instead of having a beer ready and waiting in a couple of months, they sat on it for years to make sure the bacteria did its work. There you have it, a basic knowledge of how sours are made. And to add to your brain bank: lambics, gueuzes, and Flanders red ale are the most common sours out there.

To add to my blog, I will review my very first beer, it's rating systems, and my general take on it. It's in beta phase right now, so I will probably change it later.

Beer Review #1:

Tart of Darkness

Brewery: The Bruery, CA

Style: American Wild Ale

ABV: 7.0%

Rating: 5/5

Taste: 

Kick in the face tartness, with a large amount of grape taste. Super dry, yet refreshing finish. No bad aftertaste, and doesn't have any heat in any phase.

Overall take:

This beer is probably my favorite sour beer. The amount of tartness is mind boggling. Take all the grape sweet tarts you have had and multiply it by 10. It's just that tart. But amazingly, as tart as it is, it's balanced with sweetness, and a very refreshing grape musk taste. The best way to describe this beer is to take some Welsh's Grape Juice, add a ton of Grape Sweet Tarts, and then kick it in the side with some alcohol. Doesn't sound good? No, not really, but The Bruery does an amazing job at making this American Wild taste great. If I could clone one beer well, this would be it. Why? Well because it's f*$!ing awesome, and it's not cheap. Like $21 for a 750ml bottle. But it's worth it. Every single mouth puckering, tart tasting drop is worth it. And don't think I will be giving 5's often, I just plain think Tart of Darkness and The Bruery deserves it.

Price: $20-25/750ml

Would Recommend to Drink: Yes

Would Recommend by Value: Yes

My Idea for a New Brew

It's come to my attention that Beer is a pretty old beverage. What I thought was a maybe 10 or 15 year old libation, is actually actually some 7,000+ years old. It turns out a very large percentage of every beer in the world wasn't made by the evil inBev. Which is great because well inBev is as evil as Monsanto, the Yankees, and of course, Emperor Palpatine. Usually it goes Yankees<Monsanto<Papatine<inBev. But I digress. Anyways, beer has had a very long, intertwined relation to man. Discovery Channel did an entire mini series on "How Booze Built America." Fun fact, it's a great series, and an even greater drinking game. Tangent aside, beer has a great history. But I'm only concerning myself with a small era.

As you may or may not have figured out, I live in Maryland. One of the 13 colonies, and one of the few founded by non puritans, Maryland has a great beer history. And it got me thinking, what would early Marylander drink as beer. Imagine you're a early Maryland in the 1600. The Bay is full of weird looking water spiders things. So you decided what better way to feed your self then to steam them and eat them. Now what yo drink? Natty Boh doesn't exist yet, so you need a special beer. Turns out Baltimore is a great place, it has a large natural harbor, that is bustling with trade. Sugar, Grains, Molasses, and the like flow through the city like no other. So you visit your local granary and pick up some cereal, then some sugar. But alas, hops are hard to find, so American's used lots of different greens. And hence, my problem.

Hops existed, they weren't just very available to most colonists yet. And a couple Baltimore craft breweries have done this idea, but they use some ingredients many people don't like, such a Star Anise, Dandelion, and other esoteric brew ingredients. As one of the Great Trio's has lamented, he drove all the way to St. Mary's City to get an authentic brew, and was put off by its' flavor of Star Anise. So, I decided I am going to make a beer for him (and put a metric long ton of star anise,)

I am currently researching what ingredients I can use. I want to make sure the grains I use existed in the 1600's, the hops are as authentic as possible, and will be using local water (though I will not use bay water, bay water is like a class 1237.1 toxic waste.) Right now I have found:

       -Authentic unrefined sugar stored in Oak Barrels

       -Muscovado which is a very common sugar of the Caribbean 

As you can tell I don't have a lot, but lucky for me, beer doesn't have that many ingredients.I hope to have more on this later, and I will, but I want to blog about this from the very beginning to the very end. I am still researching grains and hops that we would have in Maryland in the 1600's but I promise the beer will be up and running soon!

Slainte!