Sour question

So I just had my first sour a couple nights ago: The Naked City's Dark Passage. I liked it a lot, and am wondering if it is a typical example of the style. Any Seattle area craft beer fans familiar enough with it to compare it to other sours?

Also, is this taste usually achieved with a sour mash, or bacterial infection?

Bacteria. But I've read you can make a sour mash and get a sour beer but it doesn't have the complexity of flavor.

So how does Dark Passage compare to a general sour? Any North Seattle beer fans able to enlighten me?

you should know that making a sour beer takes a LONG TIME. in fact, the longer you leave it, the better it will taste. i'm talking a minimum of 6 months, but 1 to 3 years is ideal.

Good info, but I have no plans to make a sour. Inquiring about the source of sourness was motivated by curiosity only. I just want to know how the 1 sour I've tried compares to all the other ones out there. Seems like an enjoyable subset of one of my favorite topics: beer!

Are you asking the difference in a lambic compared to a berliner wiess.

No. Just curious about sours in general. I don't know a lot about them. I assume you're referring to lambics (sourness from bacteria) and a berliner weiss (sourness from a sour mash). If I'm off base, let me know. Like I said, I have very little experience with sours.

All sour mashing is, is letting the lacto bacteria naturaly on the grain to take hold in the mash. Were lambic you do the souring in fermentation. With lacto and brett and other bug.

djfriesen said:

No. Just curious about sours in general. I don't know a lot about them. I assume you're referring to lambics (sourness from bacteria) and a berliner weiss (sourness from a sour mash). If I'm off base, let me know. Like I said, I have very little experience with sours.

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You're also off base in that the sourness from a sour mash is principally (though not entirely) from a bacteria (lactobacillus), whereas with lambic, which you said is from bacteria, is actually principally (though again, not entirely) from a fungus, or more specifically a yeast (Brettanomyces Lambicus).

Why not entirely?

Well with lambic, there are also bacterias (and other wild yeasts) that contribute different acids and other compounds as well. Pretty simple.

But with a Berliner Weisse sour mash, despite the style often being considered a strictly brewer's yeast + lacto beer, I say it's not entirely lacto because you can't really control a sour mash. A sour mash uses the microorganisms that are already living on the malt - lacto being pretty much guaranteed in large quantities. But there are other bacteria and yeasts living on the grain too, so you're never going to get "only" lacto, like you would by pitching a pure lacto culture from a lab. Though it is usually the largest component, and there are ways to further increase its relative contribution, and minimize others.

Normally, these microorganisms living on the grain are quickly dealt with by boiling soon after the mash. Without getting too in-depth, a sour mash allows lacto (and to some extent, other bugs) to do their thing over the course of several days. Without any alcohol, hop acids, or competing brewer's yeast to inhibit them, in addition to a temperature that is absolutely ideal for them, the bugs get to work really quickly, and so they are able to produce in just a few short days, what might otherwise take months.

But since it's impossible to control a sour mash to just exclude absolutely everything other than lacto, many brewers, including myself, just simply prefer to use other methods of souring which can be more easily and deliberately controlled.