Sour Beer-What happened?

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dizzyfun

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My first SMaSH beer was going to be an English Mild Ale, Marris Otter and a mystery hop. I brewed it about 10 weeks ago and I didn't much like the flavor of it after fermentation so I was lazy and let it sit without dumping it. I tried it today and it is definately sour. It doesn't have any strange odor but definately tastes like a sour beer. It has been in a glass carboy the whole time with carboy cap and airlock. Any speculation on what happened? I should add that the hops I used were harvested by myself from a fellow brewer's hop garden and properly dried in a food dehydrator. Wild bacteria maybe? I'm certainly not planning on drinking it for fear of getting sick.
 
Why do you think you will get sick? No pathogens can survive in beer. Bottle it and let it sit might turn into a good sour.
 
If you boiled the hops I don't think that is the reason.
Maybe you picked up something in other part of process, or there was problem in sanitation.
 
I did boil the hops but as an english mild there was very little hops. I know hops act as a preservative and that back in the day when english milds were all the rage that they did spoil quickly because of the lack of hops. If I remember right, there was something like 1/2 oz of hops in the boil. I didn't like the lack of hops flavor so I dry hopped with 3/4 oz of hops.
I live near the Deschutes Brewery and they are accepting samples of "bad" beers to evaluate. Maybe I'll take them a sample and see if they can figure it out but I won't get an answer until next month.
 
I did boil the hops but as an english mild there was very little hops. I know hops act as a preservative and that back in the day when english milds were all the rage that they did spoil quickly because of the lack of hops. If I remember right, there was something like 1/2 oz of hops in the boil. I didn't like the lack of hops flavor so I dry hopped with 3/4 oz of hops.
I live near the Deschutes Brewery and they are accepting samples of "bad" beers to evaluate. Maybe I'll take them a sample and see if they can figure it out but I won't get an answer until next month.

Wow that's awesome, I'd definitely take them a sample. May be a dumb question but did the airlock ever dry out?
 
Just call it your house sour beer.....That's kind of the hot thing right now with all the breweries...Oh this beer isn't what we expected...lets sell it as our sour beer....

Anyone else getting that vibe lately? Seems like everyone is putting out sours
 
Just call it your house sour beer.....That's kind of the hot thing right now with all the breweries...Oh this beer isn't what we expected...lets sell it as our sour beer....

Anyone else getting that vibe lately? Seems like everyone is putting out sours

I dont think any respectable brewey will realease a failed brew as a sour.
Plus any beer ive seen accidentally soured was not a good sour at that.

"Sours" could be the new IPA but i still dont see brewerys just tossing out failed batchs and naming it somthing else.

Could you name some brewerys that you think are doing this?
 
A little more info about the recipe...
4# Marris Otter
3# British Crystel 60
Willamette 0.2oz @30min
Mystery Hop 0.5oz dry hop
2.5oz Lactose
BIAB 75 minutes
Nottingham Yeast

Sanitation shouldn't have been an issue. Sanitized with Iodophor at the same strength as I usually use, 15ml/5 gallons. I fermented in a glass carboy. I am thinking it's more a sour beer than spoiled because I tasted it at about the 1 month mark and it tasted fine but weak with no hops flavor which is when I added the additional hops. I suppose it could have been contaminatd by the hops. I dried the hops and put them in a bag but when I added to the beer they had not been frozen yet. Would freezing kill any bacteria?
 
I dont think any respectable brewey will realease a failed brew as a sour.
Plus any beer ive seen accidentally soured was not a good sour at that.

"Sours" could be the new IPA but i still dont see brewerys just tossing out failed batchs and naming it somthing else.

Could you name some brewerys that you think are doing this?

Just ranting about the explosion of sour beers coming on the market...and must of them I don't care for..

:)
 
A little more info about the recipe...
4# Marris Otter
3# British Crystel 60
Willamette 0.2oz @30min
Mystery Hop 0.5oz dry hop
2.5oz Lactose
BIAB 75 minutes
Nottingham Yeast

Sanitation shouldn't have been an issue. Sanitized with Iodophor at the same strength as I usually use, 15ml/5 gallons. I fermented in a glass carboy. I am thinking it's more a sour beer than spoiled because I tasted it at about the 1 month mark and it tasted fine but weak with no hops flavor which is when I added the additional hops. I suppose it could have been contaminatd by the hops. I dried the hops and put them in a bag but when I added to the beer they had not been frozen yet. Would freezing kill any bacteria?

If it is sour, it is infected with something - doesn't matter if it was intentional or not. Probably Lactobacillus, which would munch on that lactose (and other residual sugars) and produce lactic acid (the same thing that happens in making yogurt). I can only speculate that your sanitation wasn't as good as you thought...or something got in post fermentation. With a mild, you don't have quite the hostile environment that might prevent an infection from taking hold. Freezing doesn't really kill bacteria (I suppose it might to some degree, but should not be used as a sterilizing technique). But dryhopping is a very common practice that usually doesn't have issues - hops are naturally anti-microbial. Did you sanitize the bag?

As others have said, if you enjoy sour beers this might be something to hang onto and see where it goes.
 
By sanitize the bag I'm assuming you mean the bag for biab? It was clean but after mashing in it, the wort is boiled for 60 minutes so anything in it should have been killed.
The brewery needs the beer in a week so I'm going to try using one of those carbonating caps and force carbing in a 2 liter soda bottle.
 
If you've ever had a commercial sour blonde, you know that lactic acid taste and should be able to easily identify if it's present. Likely it's something that happened post boil, either in racking from the kettle to carboy, or from carboy to secondary.

Assuming the airlock never ran dry, everything was property sanitized and you didn't wait several days to pitch your yeast, racking canes and tubing are the most usual suspects.

If you get feedback back from Deschutes of lacto infection, I'd replace all your soft plastic.
 
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