A couple weeks ago I was one of the guests being interviewed for a couple of upcoming Brew Bubba's Radio brewing podcasts and the guest on before me was a sour brewer and he really De-mystafied the whole thing, and his beers were fantastic. He took all the fear away and got me to the point where I'm finally going to do it.
He said he learned everything from our own member "Oldsock" Michael Tonsmier's blog,
The Mad Fermentalist.
He basically said, if you have the skills to brew beer, you have the skills to brew sour beers. He said it's really no different than brewing anything else, except you do a true secondary fermentation with "bugs," and you may toss in old hops, and fruit, and even a wooden dowel. Then you wait.
The biggest thing he said was that you dedicate of gear specifically to post primary fermentation of just sours. Your secondary vessel/racking tools, airlocks and bottling gear.
But he outlined the steps as-
1) Brew and ferment a basic, not too high grav, not too highly hopped, simple belgian grain bill, but use standard ale yeast (you don't need to waste money on a dedicate belgian yeast since all those flavors will be blown away. Let it ferment out.
2) Rack it to a (preferably glass) secondary, toss in the bug blend of your choice depending on what characteristics you're ultimately looking for (the specific descriptions can be found on the yeast producers websites, plus reading about specific sours you like will tell you which bugs are in there.) Let a pellicule form, and let the beer SLOWLY finish fermenting over a year or more.
Here depending on whatever you're doing you might stick a chair leg in you bunghole
) ) or toss in some cheesy old hops, or some fruit (he recommended things like tart cherries or stone fruits, along with the stones.) You can also toss in dregs from whatever favorite sours you like that have the bugs still in it, or grow your own bug starter from one of them, or try harvesting your own wild strain (but this takes a little more time, and finesse to capture your own wild yeast, and depends on where you do it, like in an orchard.)
3) Package the beer, and enjoy or let it age further in the bottle.
Obviously there's a little more nuance to it, and a lot of info on the Mad Fermentalist site, but basically he said that's all there is to it, it's not as intimidating, nor is it as risky for your non sour beers as we all think.
Besides the other guests and I, there was about 20 people in the audience, and just about everyone in there said afterwards that it wasn't as scary or complicated as we all have thought.
He shared a bunch of beers, one of them was a sour Foreign Export Stout with a nice tart cherry finish to it.
I'm not sure when the podcast is airing, but check the brew bubba's site or their facebook page and they'll announce when the new shows come online. And check out Old Sock's blog.
I'm pretty pumped to try it, and I know that one of my next couple brews will purely be a base for a sour.
But from listening to him, if we know our way around brewing a beer, then we know our way around brewing a sour beer...it doesn't take another level of genius to do it.
Have fun