{"id":633,"date":"2014-07-18T15:52:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T15:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beer-syndicate.com\/blog\/?p=633"},"modified":"2016-12-14T16:11:21","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T16:11:21","slug":"sour-beers-the-newest-oldest-craze-that-almost-didnt-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beersyndicate.com\/blog\/sour-beers-the-newest-oldest-craze-that-almost-didnt-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Beers: The Newest Oldest Craze that Almost Didn\u2019t Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong>\u2018Hey, have you ever heard of a beer called IPA?\u00a0 Apparently it\u2019s a really bitter…\u2019 —\u00a0<\/em>And that\u2019s when your face goes dull with that \u2018You so 2000 and late<\/em>\u2019 look and you stop listening. \u00a0That’s\u00a0being nice- you\u2019d probably tune out at ‘IPA’.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just like how Christopher Columbus thought he was the first to discover America, so too are\u00a0foodies, trendies, and fledgling craft beer enthusiasts of late discovering sour beer.\u00a0 Hipsters heard about them after NPR<\/a><\/span> broke the story on sours in\u00a0October of 2013, but then promptly gave up drinking them\u00a0a week later out of principle.\u00a0 My mom even forwarded me a snippet from February\u2019s Bon App\u00e9tit<\/em> magazine\u00b9 where the author dishes out food pairing advice, remarking\u00a0how the \u201celegant Champagne fizz and acidic twang\u201d of this sour style, beloved by \u201cbeer nerds\u201d [thanks<\/em>?], \u201cchainsaws through fatty or salty foods, yet is delicate enough for sushi.\u201d \u00a0Domo arigato Mr. Foodboto, but having an appreciation for\u00a0sour beer does not qualify one as a \u201cbeer nerd\u201d (whatever that means) any\u00a0more than eating at a<\/span>\u00a0food truck makes one a culinary aficionado.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that if NPR, Bon App\u00e9tit, USA Today<\/a><\/span>, the New York Times<\/a><\/span>, and my mom have already heard about them, sours have officially reached critical mainstream mass. \u00a0Though to be fair to the late comers, sour brews have only gained this new found pop culture popularity over the last two or three years.\u00a0 Prior to that, sour craft beers were something of a rarity stateside, let alone the majority of the modern beer drinking world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Go back 150 years though, and sour beers weren’t simply a regional specialty or a brewer\u2019s attempt at passion-driven innovation, nor were they altogether uncommon.\u00a0 Even so, it was seldom the brewery\u2019s intention to pour their publicans a sour pint.\u00a0 In fact, in many circles of the brewing industry, sour beer was often referred to as \u201cdiseased beer\u201d and was almost without exception considered the bane of the brewhouse. \u00a0Because\u00a0once a brewery noticed one of its beers becoming unintentionally sour, to its helpless devastation, it was usually only a matter of time before the rest of the production line followed sour suit, thereby risking the life of the brewery itself.\u00a0 And beer wasn’t the only fermentable becoming “diseased”.\u00a0 Nope, wine and some spirit producers suffered the same fate as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was until 1866 when Louis Pasteur, under the commission of Emperor Napoleon III- nephew to the<\/em> Napoleon (oh my<\/em>), published his book Etudes sur le Vin<\/em> (Studies on Wine) as a remedy to both the economic and reputational loss within the French winemaking industry due to diseased<\/em> wine.\u00a0 Both brewers and winemakers alike were plagued by \u201cspoilage\u201d, or the unintentional souring of their products, and it was Pasteur, doctor of boozeology, who identified that the culprits responsible for the souring were primarily tiny black rod shaped lactic acid producing micro-organisms presumably introduced into the fermenting beverages via germ-ridden dust in the air (an idea that was largely groundbreaking for the day).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lactobacillus\"<\/p>\n

[Lactobacillus bacteria responsible for producing lactic acid.]<\/span><\/p>\n

What was Pasteur\u2019s solution to these ATDs (Aerially Transmitted Diseases)?<\/em>\u00a0 Practice safe fermentation.\u00a0 Clean up the winery and the staff, limit exposure of the wine to the souring critters\u00a0in the air, and last but not least, master the art of Pasteurization<\/em>, i.e. heating the wine to about 122-144 \u00b0F for a specific period of time in order to kill off any potential souring microorganisms.\u00a0 Many of these tactics were soon adopted by the brewing industry along with other methods including temperature control, increased hopping rates, and yeast purification, all of which were prescribed in Pasteur\u2019s follow-up blockbuster (and Amazon Best Seller of 1876)\u00a0Etudes sur la Bi\u00e8re<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u00b2<\/em>; literally \u201cStudies on Beer<\/em>\u201d, but masterfully translated into English as \u201cStudies on Fermentation: The Diseases of Beer<\/em>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Studies<\/a><\/p>\n

And with this, the\u00a0days of sour beers appeared to be\u00a0numbered; however the final curtain call wouldn’t come from Pasteur, but rather a man on an island over 600 miles away.<\/span><\/p>\n

One Yeast Strain to Rule Them All<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Around the time Pasteur was releasing his book\u00a0Studies on Beer<\/em>, Danish scientist Emil Hansen was set with the task of separating out unwanted microorganisms\u00a0in a yeast culture in order to cultivate a pure strain of yeast. But this was no random undertaking in the vacuum of science. \u00a0No, Hansen was employed\u00a0by the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, a facility created in 1875 by the founder of the Carlsberg Brewery and established for the purpose of advancing biochemical knowledge particularly related to brewing. \u00a0It turns out that Hansen was\u00a0triumphantly successful at his task and in 1883 he was able to isolate one very particular yeast strain that\u00a0would go\u00a0on to form the basis of a certain style of beer that quickly dominated the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

This singular variety of yeast in conjunction with the techniques Hansen used\u00a0to ensure a pure culture\u00a0brought about\u00a0not only the\u00a0absolute monarchy of a single beer style (which established the reign\u00a0of at least one King of Beers<\/em> in the U.S.), but also led to the growth of multi-billion dollar corporations so powerful that it would take a revolution<\/em> to even slightly loosen their\u00a0soul-crushing stranglehold on the industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The beer style in question is none other than\u00a0lager<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hansen\u2019s pure lager yeast was offered to other breweries when their beers turned sour, and eventually this lager yeast made its way around the world, changing the entire landscape of beer along with it.\u00a0 In honor of Hansen\u2019s industry revolutionizing accomplishment, the Carlsberg Brewing consort named this world-famous pure yeast strain after him, calling it \u201cSaccharomyces Carlsbergensis<\/em>\u201d— wait, umm, well close enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it was to be Hansen who would have the last laugh as S. Carlsbergensis<\/em> was later renamed, to the delight of Francophiles, “S. Pastorianus”<\/em>, which of course is Latin for \u201clet’s pretend that\u00a0Pasteur figured out how to produce\u00a0pure yeast cultures and give no credit to Hansen\u201d. \u00a0I guess\u00a0if you really wanted to get technical, Hansen actually “borrowed”\u00a0his yeast separating technique from German microbiologist Robert Koch.\u00b3\u00a0 So if I were Germany, I\u2019d throw my vote in for renaming the yeast \u201cS. Kochianus<\/em>\u201d, but that\u2019s just me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brewers became so efficient at isolating and controlling souring bacteria and yeast that with the exception of a number of breweries in Belgium and a few regional ones in Germany, sour beers nearly went extinct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly some sour styles of beer did go extinct, and perhaps more would have if it weren’t in large part for the craft beer revolution sweeping the globe today.\u00a0 Country after country is\u00a0walking up from its\u00a0lager\/pilsner saturated slumbers and realizing there\u2019s something else out there.\u00a0 Something better.\u00a0 Something sour.\u00a0 And we want it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s said\u00a0that a full 70 percent of the production of the world-renowned Belgian sour beer producer, Cantillon, is exported to the U.S.\u00a0 To those who’ve ever had the pleasure of sipping a sour from Cantillon, you\u2019ll know why the U.S., as with other desirable finite commodities, wants as much of it as we can get our greedy little fingers\u00a0on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cantillon<\/a><\/p>\n

And sours aren’t just the realm of traditional continental breweries or the more specialized Russian River or Crooked Stave types in the U.S.\u00a0 Big names are getting in on the action too. \u00a0Boston Beer Company<\/a><\/span>, Sierra Nevada<\/a><\/span>, Widmer Brothers<\/a><\/span>, Flying Dog<\/a><\/span>, Magic Hat<\/a><\/span>, Odell<\/a><\/span>, Avery<\/a><\/span>, Anderson Valley<\/a><\/span>, Great Lakes<\/a><\/span>, Bell\u2019s<\/a><\/span>, Allagash<\/a><\/span>, Ballast Point<\/a><\/span>, Deschutes<\/a><\/span>, New Belgium<\/a><\/span>, Goose Island<\/a><\/span>, Three Floyds<\/a><\/span>, and Grand Teton<\/a><\/span> have all brewed sours or have one in the rotation.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be surprised to see a weak, watery pseudo sour in the pipe from one of the mega un-craft breweries trying to cash in on this craze, albeit\u00a0disguised in the predictable faux-craft fashion as is now the custom (think Bluemoon and Shocktop- brewed by Coors and Anheuser Busch respectively, and\u00a0both go out of their way to hide that fact on the bottles). \u00a0Alanis couldn’t have written\u00a0a better irony.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be honest, I\u2019m shocked that the last major brewery in Berlin that still brews Berliner Weisse hasn’t gotten the message.\u00a0 As far as I know, the Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss-Brauerei GmbH<\/a><\/span> (yeah, yeah, German words are long), doesn’t even distribute their sours to the U.S., let alone much outside of Berlin. \u00a0Talk about missing Das Boot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Berliner<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the bandwagon, sour beers aren’t universally welcomed.\u00a0 To this day, some breweries are so concerned about the souring boogiemen bacteria, many brewmasters have sworn that they will never brew a sour beer lest their entire brewery become infected. I know of at least one brewery owner who told me that\u00a0not only will he never brew a sour, but that sour beers will never become popular enough to sell.<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess only time will tell if sour beers ever catch on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok, Desert Island time:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>\n

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