The Friday Beer Club: Today's Beer'ducation: Sour Beers

From time to time we get a new beer club member that's eager to understand what all us beer-geeks are talking about. We throw around words like, "lambic", "diacetyl" and "original gravity", with an air of smartypantsness. So, to help convert some of you into certified beer-elite (there is not a certification really; you just show up) I thought I'd start a series called Beer'ducation. Get it!? Beer+Education? Nevermind...

I recently got a question on sour beers. Specifically on what to buy for the Friday Beer Club. Here's a quick tutorial but if you want skip the beer'ducation just scroll down to the "So, what should you buy?" section. If you already know all of this stuff just skip down to the Beer Porn section.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the subject of sour beers.

"Sour beer is a beer style characterized by an acidic, tart, sour taste....The style has increased in popularity but remains largely a niche style. In theory any style of beer may be soured, however most common styles that are soured are Belgian styles, including lambics, gueuzes, and Flander ales. Souring may be achieved through yeast strains or bacteria. The most common agent used is lactobacillus."

Yes, you read that right. A lot of these beers are soured with bacteria. Traditionally the yeast and bacteria comes from what ever falls out of the rafters and cobwebs in the brewery and at Cantillon Brewery in Brussels they still do it this way. Check out this cobweb right near the fermentors at Cantillon.

mmm delicious cobwebs! Today most brewers inoculate their wort with very specific and sanitary blends of yeast and bacteria.

On to the styles!

The Wikipedia article mentions lambics, gueuzes and Flandars ales. These are actually two different styles of sour beer if you want to get technical about it. Gueuzes are actually a sub-style of lambic. Here's a quick breakdown of the different styles of sour beer.

Lambic (pure): Unblended lambic is cloudy and bracingly sour. Generally three years old. Below are sub-styles of Lambic.

Gueuze - A mixture of young (one-year) and old (two and three-year) lambics.
Kriek - Lambic refermented in the presence of sour cherries (morello cherry) and with secondary fermentation in the bottle.
Framboise - Lambic fermented with raspberries.
Pêche - Lambic fermented with peaches.
Pomme - with apples.
Just name a fruit in French and somebody has put it in a lambic.

Flanders Red Ale is really well explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_red_ale

So, what should you buy?

All of'em. Any of'em. Anything you can get your hands on. But here are a few recommendations.

Cantillon: The flagship brewery for lambics. They still make their beers seasonally with traditional methods. Just buy anything they make.
Boon Brewery - mainly produces geuze and kriek beer of a fairly traditional variety, but using distinctly modern brewing techniques and equipment.
3 Fonteinen is a Belgian brewery, specialized in geuze and kriek.
Duchesse de Bourgogne and Rodenbach are the best Flanders Red style ales. I love'em.
Stay away from Lindeman's. These are weak lambics with added sweeteners and flavorings.

Beer porn!

...and now for me to gloat and show you pictures of sweaty glasses of sour beers that I had while on my honeymoon in Belgium. Enjoy!