Sour Beer - Thoughts

I'm having a beer experience that I don't fully understand, and I'd appreciate everyones thoughts. It started when my Honey Blonde that hit the keg on 09/04.

3 weeks in the keg, it was a wonderful experience. Malty finishing with a hint of sweet at the tail.
5 weeks in the keg, it was a good hoppy beer, but lacked the complexity it had. Just a good brown ale. A touch bitter I chalked it up to a complex beer past it's prime. Ok...
6 weeks in. A tiny touch sour. So small it's difficult to discriminate between sour and bitter.
7+ weeks. It's definitely sour. Mild at first, strong on aftertaste. I don't care for this beer anymore. No vinegar or other off smells. Beer is clear. After 1 hour standing, residue does smell vaguely like stale beer.

Lacto infection or beer that's not aging well?

Sounds like infection to me. Depressurize the keg and take a look inside to see what's growing.

Yep, contaminatoin. What you describe is some unwelcome bug eating up all your malty sweetness and making acid.


TL

Sounds like a Lacto infection. Sour beers have a long tradition. Mainly, because beer almost always went sour. I find them refreshing in the summer.

David 42

If you like sour beer I have 5 more gallons of it. JNJ has a few kegs.

rohanski said:

David 42

If you like sour beer I have 5 more gallons of it. JNJ has a few kegs.

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SAve it, mix it with a big belgian and some raspberries. Make some crazy ass belgian sour ale.

My thought? You arent drinking fast enough! 7+ weeks in a keg. My oh my.

How was your yeast situation? I ask because a similar situation for me was traced back to simple poor handling of my harvested yeast. Apparently went bad due to autolysis and eventually morphed my keg of beer into a sour, sulphury elixir.

cubbies said:

My thought? You arent drinking fast enough! 7+ weeks in a keg.

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Well, 20 gals of brew on tap, one beer drinker in the house...

BierMuncher said:

How was your yeast situation? I ask because a similar situation for me was traced back to simple poor handling of my harvested yeast. Apparently went bad due to autolysis and eventually morphed my keg of beer into a sour, sulphury elixir.

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This pitch was a new package, 1L starter, good fermentation. Aside from the empty glass 20 min later, the beer has no abnormal smell, look, or mouthfeel. It's just has a sour taste.

pldoolittle said:

Well, 20 gals of brew on tap, one beer drinker in the house...

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I was just giving you trouble; I wasn't being serious. My kegs typically last me 5 or more weeks, so there is not that much of a difference.

I know.

Could you acctualy use a beer that soured on its own vs one that you intentionaly soured with Brettanomyces?

I just had a thought. Any (real) risk of the infection spreading to other kegs via my CO2 lines/manifold?

More info. I tried it one more time today to make sure that dumping it was the right plan. At first, I thought no (a little sour, but sorta drinkable) then as I got to the bottom of the glass it has built up to "yuk"...

Anyway, I poured a few glasses, broke open the keg and began the investigation. I even poured the balance (abt 2 gal) and sifted through it, smelled, tasted, looked, etc... After all that, I'm more confused than before. Here's what I saw:

Surface: No skin. No floaters. Nothing.
Odor: Normal to none. My son (who hates beer smell), said that it smelled better than normal.
Solids: No ropes, no haze/milkiness, no clumps.

All that said, I'm ruling out acetobacter because palmer says aceto is aerobic and this beer began spoiling 3 months after it last saw air. It seems to most fit pedio, but that is described as ropey. Could be brett, but no butter odor/taste...

pldoolittle said:

Well, 20 gals of brew on tap, one beer drinker in the house...

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Sounds to me like you need help! I'm sure that there is someone on this forum that lives close enough to you to offer their services!