"Sour" versus "Funky"

I know Brett is a yeast, and Lacto, Pedio, and Aceto are bacteria... but they ALL taste good to me!

I would like to think of these beers as examples of each "fermenter": RRBC Temptation (Brett); 1809 or Festina Peche (Lacto); RRBC Supplication (Pedio); plus Rodenbach, Duchesse, and Monk's (Acetobacter). I guess I call them all sour mistakenly, but I seriously love all of them.

Is there really a difference between sour and funky? Aren't they all "sour"?

Are there other beers that are better examples of each?

Most you list are both sour and funky (likely all, but I am not familiar with a couple) There is a pretty decent difference between a sour flavour and a bretty flavour (Orval or Boulevard's Saison Brett). Sour is an acidic taste like vinegar (acetic acid) yoghurt (lactic acid) Brett mostly gives an aroma, with great variance from cherry to mouse pee to pineapple to horse. As well it can produce acids, though as far as I know nowhere to the degree the acid producing bacteria do. Like most everything it is a shade of grey and not 100% black or white.
If you make a beer with just Brett you will get a very good example. I have beer made with wyeast brett brux and it is not sour at all, pretty unusual though LOL and another with 100% wyeast brett lambicus which one could say is a tiny bit sourish.
Orval is a MUST try if you like brett The beer is absolute magic, one of the finest beers around and widely available.

Beers that just have brett usually aren't sour. Many sour beers have brett although it makes more of a flavor contribution in some styles more than others.

OP's distinctions between flavors in different beers is not entirely correct. Supplication has pedio but it also has lacto and I believe brett. The three flanders reds have some acetic qualities but there's also brett, lacto and pedio in those beers.

Right. I've had plenty of Brett-only beers and they don't taste sour. Funky sure. However, most of the ones on your list use a blend of several bugs to achieve complexity between barnyard and sour.

I'm going to make a 4/5 gallon batch of beer to split up and play around with to try and isolate the different flavors... One with Brett only, one with Pedio only, one with lacto only, one with aceto (if possible), and maybe a control with 001 or something... Has anyone done something like this to offer some advice? Base recipe suggestions? Time to ferment/age for best results?

Thanks!

Could I even add just lacto/pedio to a beer and have it "ferment" since they are bacteria?

stblindtiger said:

Could I even add just lacto/pedio to a beer and have it "ferment" since they are bacteria?

Click to expand...

yes, but they will both die before all the sugars are consumed (they lower pH to a point they die)

and you cant just add acetogens, they need alcohol to turn into vinegar, anything they infect will simply turn into vinegar with enough oxygen