Still trying to figure what went wrong....

... with my first batch of Pale Ale. I said a few weeks back that I got similar "odd" flavors from a New Belgium Mothership Wit but today I tried a Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic today and it tastes even closer (except for the cranberry!). I wonder if maybe I soured my Pale Ale.

So how do Sam Adams get that flavor? Is it temp or an infection? Could I have infected it by starting the siphon the old-fashioned way?

Lambics are made with wild yeast. The Sam Adams cranberry lambic is not officially a lambic, as the fermentation is not wild.

If you have a sour aspect to your beer, there's a couple of likely culprits. Acetobacter will eventually give you a vinegary flavor. Lactobacillus will give you a more sour flavor. If you have a wild strain of yeast in your beer (which is technically possible, but really unlikely) then you just have a different kind of beer!

My first was a kit pale ale that (of course) I tested too early, with an intent of learning what green beer tasted like. After 10 days it was good and hoppy, then the hops mellowed out a lot, and by three weeks it was almost funky. I don't know if it was an infection, or a cheap kit that I goofed up, or if it would have gotten much better with more age. We drank it all before it got any worse, just to be safe