Sour beer... HELP!!!

Got home today totally stoked about opening my first bottle of home brew (blonde ale). Fermented for two weeks, bottled for two weeks. Gravity readings were what the directions said they should be. Looked great, great head and color. Tasted sour as can be. Sooo...

1) what would have caused this?
2) should I toss it?

Very disappointed and discouraged... HELP!!!

The likely cause is an infection, but it's possible that it's not and just needs more time.

If it's sour like vinegar, it's a tosser. But if it's sour, like "tart" green apples, than it may improve with some time.

There could be a couple of causes. One is contamination. Another is a very high fermentation temperature that causes some weird flavors.

I have had a beer go temporarily sour. Strange and nobody was able to diagnose it. I bottled, and it carbed. Drank a number of beers over a week. Then I noticed it getting tart. Everyone figured it was infected. I almost dumped it, but waited a month and it completely went away. My advice is to wait a month. If it has gotten worse, either dump it or learn to love sour beer.

I'll just let it sit for a while and buy some new bottles and try again... Soo bummed cause all my friends are excited to try it. Now they'll never trust me!!! Lol

Brettanomyces Lactobacillus infection most likely. Let it age. Sometimes the sourness ages out. I actually like Lacto infected beers on the rare occasion I get one. Love sour beer so much. I just had a Watermelon Wit get a Lacto infection and it turned out amazing. Just wait it out. Tell people you added the Brett Lacto intentionally. If they don't like your brew then you can say, "maybe you'll like the next one. I won't do a Lacto beer again for a while...". They'll have no idea and assume you've learned a lot about beer.

Sour is the new bitter. Just tell your buddies that this is how the Belgians roll. (Sour ales really are delicious- they require some serious off-roading for the standard BMC drinker, though.)

I love sour beer... The good, tart sour beer. Not this crap I have... Lol

charley said:

I love sour beer... The good, tart sour beer. Not this crap I have... Lol

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This may end up being good tart sour beer! Just before the bottles explode

bottlebomber said:

This may end up being good tart sour beer! Just before the bottles explode

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Ok wait what's this about bottles exploding?!?!? Lol is that seriously a concern?

charley said:

Ok wait what's this about bottles exploding?!?!? Lol is that seriously a concern?

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Well, if you do have a Brett infection it will continue to ferment sugars in the beer that the Sacc couldn't process. Even though you thought the beer was stable when you bottled, if this is the case the "infection" will continue to feed and produce CO2 until the bottles start to blow up. That's only if it is indeed an infection though, and you leave the bottles at room temps.

Yes if you have an infection it could ferment out the "unfermentables" that the yeast couldn't eat and pressurize the bottles to breaking.

Toss it my way! Id love to try a sour beer!

Wow... Didn't realize it could keep fermenting. Once the gravity readings stabilized and there was no visible activity in the airlock I thought I was home free. I'm taking a bottle to my HBS tomorrow morning and getting his advice... If I can convince him to taste it lol. Gonna keep my head up though. Depressing as this initial trial went I'm gonna keep on buying my fav craft beers and try to make some in my spare time. Head held high... :mugs:

ahaley said:

Toss it my way! Id love to try a sour beer!

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This isn't a typical intended sour beer. While I absolutely love sour beer (in moderation of course... Not the kind if beer you'd drink a pitcher of) my "beer" is not the good kind... :/ oh well, next time...

Before the next batch, go through your equipment and process completely. Make sure your sanitation is good, hoses are clean, tools are clean, everything!

Was this a kit beer?

What is your process (dry/liquid yeast, how do you boil, how do you transfer to the fermentor, what kind of fermentor, what is the temperature of your fermentation, did you rack it to a second vessel after primary fermentation, how did you clean your bottles, how did you prime, etc.)
If we know about your process, there might be something we can help with to prevent a future infection (if that is what this is).

Keep at it!!!!

charley said:

This isn't a typical intended sour beer. While I absolutely love sour beer (in moderation of course... Not the kind if beer you'd drink a pitcher of) my "beer" is not the good kind... :/ oh well, next time...

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Most sour beers don't taste very appealing when young. My sours out in the garage have a very strange taste at about 3 moths of age. It takes at least 6 months for most sour beers to get good, although I think Berliner can be drinkable sooner. I will say this though, sometimes these infections can progress very slowly. My buddy brewed a No.8 from northern brewer, and I noticed soon after bottling it that it had a sour note, though I thought it was acetaldehyde at the time. A full 9 months later it is obvious that it is infected - the sour taste has bloomed into a very strange mushroomy funk, very highly carbonated, but still no bombs. It is undrinkable though. He told me he thought the hops went sour lol. He doesn't brew much, and is like a father to me so I had a hard time telling him his beer was infected.

helibrewer said:

Before the next batch, go through your equipment and process completely. Make sure your sanitation is good, hoses are clean, tools are clean, everything!

Was this a kit beer?

What is your process (dry/liquid yeast, how do you boil, how do you transfer to the fermentor, what kind of fermentor, what is the temperature of your fermentation, did you rack it to a second vessel after primary fermentation, how did you clean your bottles, how did you prime, etc.)
If we know about your process, there might be something we can help with to prevent a future infection (if that is what this is).

Keep at it!!!!

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Yes, kit beer. Dry yeast (remember, I'm a beginner). Boil: I boiled my water, put in the bag full of grain, once boiling I took it out and put in my LME. (note: water was at full boil before I added my LME. Also, my grain bag came untied and I had grains floating all over the place). Then put in hops. Transferring: I poured from my kettle through a funnel using a bag to strain into my carboy. Temperature: tricky... Didn't really know what I was doing and it was really hot in my town that week (112 degrees outside, yuck). First day was 75. Read a lot on this site and realized that was way too high of a temp. Put my carboy in a big tub with water and a towel around the carboy; after that kept the temp at around 68-70. Did not rack to a secondary (again, advice from this site said its fine to leave it in the primary). Cleaned the bottles with a sink full of starsan along with all my siphoning and bottling equipment. I thought I was very thorough with sanitation. Tasted at FG. Tasted a little sour. Bottled, then tasted 2 weeks later (today) and still tasted sour. Whatever went wrong (infection) happened before bottling. That's about it for the process. Was really winging it, but following directions. Did I mess up one of those steps?

You really don't need to try and strain your beer. If you really must keep the trub and other junk out, just leave the lid on the kettle and let it sit for an hour. Then drain from the ball valve leaving the trub behind (you'll lose a little beer) or else siphon like you would and don't go too deep.

If you're using a bottling bucket, please remember to take the valve off and clean it regularly. Those valves and particularly the gasket on the inside of the bucket get really freakin nasty, and I feel they alone are responsible for a lot of infected beer.

charley said:

Boil: I boiled my water, put in the bag full of grain, once boiling I took it out and put in my LME. (note: water was at full boil before I added my LME. Also, my grain bag came untied and I had grains floating all over the place).

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Can you talk a bit more about this part? If you really boiled your grains, it's possible you got some tannin extraction, which while not really "sour" can have a similar mouth-puckering effect.

Admittedly I didn't take the valve off the bottling bucket to clean. But like I said I tasted it prior to transferring to my bottling bucket and it tasted sour at that early stage. People said I probably just didn't understand what green beer tastes like - and I'm sure they're correct; however I knew then that it tasted sour then but didn't want to admit it

dogbar said:

Can you talk a bit more about this part? If you really boiled your grains, it's possible you got some tannin extraction, which while not really "sour" can have a similar mouth-puckering effect.

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Sure. I put my water in my kettle, brought it to near boil, added grain. Then it started to boil over and I turned down the heat. Big mess on my stove. Am I not supposed to boil the grain?

charley said:

Sure. I put my water in my kettle, brought it to near boil, added grain. Then it started to boil over and I turned down the heat. Big mess on my stove. Am I not supposed to boil the grain?

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Not steeping grains. High Ph typically causes tannin extraction, not the actual boiling (see decoction mash) but the combo of high ph and boiling could have certainly caused tannin extraction. That sounds like the most likely culprit. It is a dry puckery sour bitterness quite unlike hop bitterness.

charley said:

Sure. I put my water in my kettle, brought it to near boil, added grain. Then it started to boil over and I turned down the heat. Big mess on my stove. Am I not supposed to boil the grain?

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I see the other thread you started where this also came up. You don't want to boil the grains. You steep them at about 150 degrees for 15 minutes, then pull them out and heat from there.

Between the time you said you boiled them and the bag explosion that spilled more into your full boil, it's possible this is your issue.

*Having said that* it's also possible that your beer is just young and if you leave it alone for two weeks it will taste fine.

I'd highly recommend checking out this book: http://www.howtobrew.com/ -- the free version online is a great starting point. This will help the entire process make more sense.

charley said:

This isn't a typical intended sour beer. While I absolutely love sour beer (in moderation of course... Not the kind if beer you'd drink a pitcher of) my "beer" is not the good kind... :/ oh well, next time...

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What kind of sour taste does it have? Ive wanted to make an intended sour beer but I don't know where to start

dogbar said:

I'd highly recommend checking out this book: http://www.howtobrew.com/ -- the free version online is a great starting point. This will help the entire process make more sense.

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great recommendation. Just read the first chapter and it already has been a great help. Heading down to my HBS to get another batch. Confidence restored! Thanks!

Let your beer age and see if it gets more drinkable. If not, it may be a perfectly good cooking beer.

If anybody is still following this thread I had to dump the batch referenced in this thread. I've brewed two batches since, both came out great. I realized I contaminated the hell outta that first batch.

charley said:

If anybody is still following this thread I had to dump the batch referenced in this thread. I've brewed two batches since, both came out great. I realized I contaminated the hell outta that first batch.

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Man that sucks that you had to dump it, did you try cooking with it?
But that's good that 2 of the new batches are good