The Flavor: Sour

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!