Greetings citizens,
Today's flavor of
the day on Sesame Street is: Sour. The
first thing that comes to my mind when I think about sour is my favorite candy,
sour Warheads! I have tried all the sour
warheads products from the traditional hard candy to the breath mints and sour
spray. To my knowledge they do not make
a beer yet, but they should! My first
sour beer was quite the experience: La Folie by New Belgium Brewing Company in
Fort Collins, CO. Think cherry warheads,
cold, carbonated, and wrapped in a mild brown ale background. It was my first and still stands to this day
as being my favorite, at least the 2010 vintage anyways. After buying 8-10 bottles over the course of
about a year from the Brookings Liquor store at $13.99 a piece they finally ran
out of that 2010 vintage. At this time I
knew that I must learn more and brew my own.
The main thing that scares me about trying to make something like this
is that it is expensive for a reason, and it says so right on the bottle
"Reddish brown ale fermented 1 to 3 years in french oak barrels for mouth picking perfection". I would have to commit a $30 fermenter and
about $30 of ingredients for 3 years in order to make this stuff? My accountant brain said the NPV of a
fermenter, a brew day and ingredients exceeds the return I would get in 3 years
so, I had to find an easier way.
Fast forward about a
year to the summer of 2012 and I find myself consuming more and more different
sour ales, and I happened upon Oarsman by Bell's Brewery of Kalamazoo, MI. Oarsman is a light in color and body, sour
mashed wheat ale. Picture a light,
tangy, lemony, tart and refreshing beer that would take everything you love
about a shandy and crank it to the next level by blending it with a sour beer. First thing I was thinking, as after every
new beer style I find, is that I had to do some more research on how to make me
some of my own! My
discovery was astounding, I found out that I could make this sour mash ale in
not 3 years, 2 years, or 1 year, I could make this stuff in just 2 weeks for a
total cost of $12 for 5 gallons. In the
words of Phil Robertson(Duck Dynasty), "Now we are cookin' with peanut oil!" Needless to say I had to try it, and it was
the weirdest brewing I have ever done. I
was quite skeptical.
I will
try to keep this simple but an all-grain brewing knowledge would be helpful.
Here is what I did:
5 pounds Briess
Pilsen Malt and 4 pounds Rahr White Wheat Malt mashed at 154F for the
duration of the Brookings Bobcats vs. Yankton Bucks Boys BB game with a 1.25 qt/lb grain ratio. Added the rest of my brewing water for the
whole batch to my igloo cooler to lower the temp to 120F. Toss in .9 more pounds of uncrushed Pilsen
malt , flood the head space in the cooler with CO2 and cover with a few layers
of saran wrap. Come back in 48 hours
(yeah, 2 days!). It will most likely smell like your garbage can on a hot summer day, but that is a good thing. Then pull off a majority of the mash into a pot and bring to a
boil and add it back to the cooler in
order to raise the mash temp to 170 for the run-off(mash out). Bring to a boil, add in just enough hops
to call it a beer and boil for 15 mins.
Cool to 65F and toss in a packet of Fermentis S-04 yeast. It finished fermenting in a couple days and I
kegged most of it with some making its way into a 64 oz growler with 20 little
carbonating tabs.
Here are the
results: A murky lemonade looking,
headless treat with a taste that follows the appearance. It is everything that I ever imagined I
wanted a sour mash ale to taste like and more.
I am both amazed and excited to see that this is so easy, cheap, and
quick!
