Heading out the door to judge at the Drunk Monk competition in Aurora, Illinois - the first session, I will be judging Sours. I assume my palate will be toasted by lunchtime.
Starting the Morning Off with 7-10 Sour Ales
- Thread starter Pappers_
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BogusOwnz
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Ill be on english brown ales.
bellmtbbq
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Cool! If you don't mind posting up what you thought were the strongest or the weakest aspects of homebrewed sours. I'm entering my first couple in a few months and I'd be interested on what homebrewers do well, what they don't. I'm guessing a lack of acidity is a problem for most
TNGabe
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I'm guessing major flaws are the problem for most.
I'd be interested to hear about what you taste today, too Pappers.
OP
OP
With the sours, we started with Berliner Weiss. One example was quite good, refreshing and crisp just as you would expect for the style, and it went forward to mini-BOS. One was under-carbed, this style should be effervescent, because it adds to the refreshing quality of the beer.
We tasted some Flanders Reds. A few were not very complex, which is a hallmark for the style. More specifically, their aroma promised complexity, but the flavor didn't deliver it. I suspect that those beers just needed to age a little longer to develop that complexity, but of course, I don't know how old those beers were. We tasted one example of the style that was delightful, deep dark fruits, sour and acidity balanced, some phenol pepper, layers of flavors - we also sent that one to mini-BOS.
Other judge pairs tasted some browns and gueuze, but I didn't. Our final grouping were Fruit Lambics. The first one was conceptually flawed, I think, as the brewer used Japanese Grapes as the fruit. I'm not familiar with Japanese grapes, and unfortunately I'm still not because there was no evidence of any fruit in either the aroma or flavor. The better examples of the style that we tasted all had significant fruit in the aroma and flavor.
We tasted some Flanders Reds. A few were not very complex, which is a hallmark for the style. More specifically, their aroma promised complexity, but the flavor didn't deliver it. I suspect that those beers just needed to age a little longer to develop that complexity, but of course, I don't know how old those beers were. We tasted one example of the style that was delightful, deep dark fruits, sour and acidity balanced, some phenol pepper, layers of flavors - we also sent that one to mini-BOS.
Other judge pairs tasted some browns and gueuze, but I didn't. Our final grouping were Fruit Lambics. The first one was conceptually flawed, I think, as the brewer used Japanese Grapes as the fruit. I'm not familiar with Japanese grapes, and unfortunately I'm still not because there was no evidence of any fruit in either the aroma or flavor. The better examples of the style that we tasted all had significant fruit in the aroma and flavor.
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