The Sour Appreciation Thread

snowblind

I'd love to see some good irish sours. Kettle sours have an off flavour for me 95% of the time; a flavour between mold and vomit, with a throatfeel of hairy mold. Not all of them, but definitely ones that rely only on lacto.

Belgian trip recently was amazing; highlights:
3 Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek 2005 - I doubt you'll believe how strong the raspberries were still on this. Unbelievable
Bokkereyder - Framboos Cognac 2016 - Too bad this brewery is difficult to sample. One place in Belgium has them and a few places in Denmark/Sweden. They exist in a lockup somewhere in Belgium.
Tilquin - Oude (Gueuze Tilquin)? ? l'Ancienne - So good they matured it twice (first version was overcarbed) and this version is beautiful. I dug all of their geuzes I tried; great plum & blackberry variants! Up there with 3F & Cantillon but less hyped
Cantillon - St Lamvinus Grand Cru 2016 - Closer to red wine than any other lambic I've had - a lot of time in wine barrels, only moderate tartness, less carb
3 Fonteinen - Hommage 2013 - Raspberries & Cherries, a damn fine mix and as all above, best lambics I've ever had.
Alvinne/Jackdaw - Cuvee Sofie Cloudberries - Only non lambic on the list. Felt almost healthy with that amount of berries
De Cam - Nectarine Lambiek Very tart, might wanna mellow some bottles with time. But still not too tart IMO. I love the nectarines, suits the style really well

Important spots to visit in/near Brussels: Moeder Lambic, Cantillon, 3F Lambic-o-Droom, In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst
Just don't talk about 'sour' beer in presence of brewers/blenders. For them sour means 'gone bad'. Also lambics should be referred to as lambics and not as beers.

BeerNut

snowblind wrote: »

I'd love to see some good irish sours. Kettle sours have an off flavour for me 95% of the time

FWIW, none of the sour beers from White Hag are kettle-soured, with the exception of In Cahoots.

I have high hopes for Land & Labour, a side project of one of Galway Bay's brewing team. Looks like some interesting stuff is happening.

snowblind

BeerNut wrote: »

FWIW, none of the sour beers from White Hag are kettle-soured, with the exception of In Cahoots.

I have high hopes for Land & Labour, a side project of one of Galway Bay's brewing team. Looks like some interesting stuff is happening.

Yeah In Cahoots was clearly one of them, the others are better but none of their sours were great in my opinion. Galway Bay has done non kettle sours too but all of them missed the mark for me

High hopes for land and labour indeed, I've been following their social media and I can see they have the patience and OCD to do it properly :pac:

snowblind

west coast trip update - found some unbeatable beers and some beers/places where the hype didn't match the quality. russian river (sours, the hoppy beers were underwhelming), sante adarius, holy mountain, pFriem, Engine House 9 delivered as far as breweries go, crux was a huge disappointment & cascade is doing very interesting stuff but all too aggressively sour imo

this is what I brought back


should have bought more than 1 bottle of special herbs - i thoroughly loved this one


a lot of IPAs etc were also drunk. time for a hiatus from beer maybe

ThunbergsAreGo

Hope Brewery have a decent tropical sour out the moment on limited edition

snowblind

Got a 60 year old bottle of lambic.

Something for a nice bottle share. I wonder if there are other ppl out there who bring wild stuff from their travels and have some stock to do the finest bottle shares?

the beer revolu

snowblind wrote: »

Got a 60 year old bottle of lambic.

Something for a nice bottle share. I wonder if there are other ppl out there who bring wild stuff from their travels and have some stock to do the finest bottle shares?

What is it?
Where did you get it?
Was it silly money?
Can I have it?

snowblind

the beer revolu wrote: »

What is it?
Where did you get it?
Was it silly money?
Can I have it?

Goossens Lambic, AFAIK they found these when renovating the ol' Goossens brewery. From somewhere between 1957 to 1962 apparently. It's available from some vendors online I think. It's a lot more than I've ever paid for a beer so yes, but also people pay much more for good wines so idk. Also no

the beer revolu

snowblind wrote: »

Goossens Lambic, AFAIK they found these when renovating the ol' Goossens brewery. From somewhere between 1957 to 1962 apparently. It's available from some vendors online I think. It's a lot more than I've ever paid for a beer so yes, but also people pay much more for good wines so idk. Also no

Had to Google Goosens.
Great to see a new/revived Lambic brewery.
I assume that you will drink it?
Please report back.