Using overly sour beer

I brewed a buckwheat sour about 10 months ago and now it too sour for my taste. I guess it was too high of a starting gravity (1.060) or too warm fermentation room but any how, now i have 25 l of undrinkable stuff in my basement.

I don`t have any other sour fermenting at the moment so i can`t blend it with ohter sour but i have 6,5% and 16 IBU belgian blond conditioning at the moment. My plan is to blend that blond ale with sour and then age it with some berries.

how does that idea sound? Should i brew another sour for blending or age a sour and blond ale mix for a few months and then toss in the fruit?

Estbrew said:

I brewed a buckwheat sour about 10 months ago and now it too sour for my taste. I guess it was too high of a starting gravity (1.060) or too warm fermentation room but any how, now i have 25 l of undrinkable stuff in my basement.

I don`t have any other sour fermenting at the moment so i can`t blend it with ohter sour but i have 6,5% and 16 IBU belgian blond conditioning at the moment. My plan is to blend that blond ale with sour and then age it with some berries.

how does that idea sound? Should i brew another sour for blending or age a sour and blond ale mix for a few months and then toss in the fruit?

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Blending w/ a non sour beer is fine. It will change the ratios you'll use but thats fine. Since its very sour you can just add some for a lightly tart beer or a lot to have a sour. Try sour:blonde ratios of 1:9, 1:1 and 2:1 etc. and see what you like. If you split the blond w/ and w/out fruit you'll have even more options. If its aggressive enough bugs you might even find that a blend could keep souring the blond too. I have a brett beer that us too much brett character so I am slowly blending it out into my sours and wild ales (not exactly the same I know). Blending can be done pre or post carbonation depending on exactly what you are trying to achieve. Good luck!

What did you decide to do with it?

I blended it with saison (wy3711) and added a bottle of Riesling. Saison was at 1.000 SG so i even dared to bottle it! Remaining sour was blended with year old wheat porter (had a little infection so i added some extra brett and lacto to it) and cherries.

I quess now when i brew a sour i have to plan for a clean blending beer also. I have some angry sour bugs or some acedic acid issues. What i would be a good way test for a acedic acid?

Instead of blending with a clean beer, my recommendation would be to make some stock funky Brett beer, and use that to blend with the sour. You could probably make some really characterful beers that way. I've been working on a Yeast Bay yeast blend for this kind of Funky Stock Ale, something well attenuated, dry and super funky.

Sounds like a good idea Biobrewer! I will keep that in mind!

Biobrewer said:

Instead of blending with a clean beer, my recommendation would be to make some stock funky Brett beer, and use that to blend with the sour. You could probably make some really characterful beers that way. I've been working on a Yeast Bay yeast blend for this kind of Funky Stock Ale, something well attenuated, dry and super funky.

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I actually did this with Amalgamation. My intent was to brew a 100% brett ipa with it but it ended up being ultra-phenolic and super funky, not as fruity as I was expecting, so I used it as a blending beer for my sours. My hypothesis is that it got so phenolic from the high level of hops that I used in the boil and from the high levels of rye in the grist. Does that make sense for those to contribute to that kind of character?

osito said:

I actually did this with Amalgamation. My intent was to brew a 100% brett ipa with it but it ended up being ultra-phenolic and super funky, not as fruity as I was expecting, so I used it as a blending beer for my sours. My hypothesis is that it got so phenolic from the high level of hops that I used in the boil and from the high levels of rye in the grist. Does that make sense for those to contribute to that kind of character?

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Both all-brett IPAs Ive made with Amalgamation turned out super fruity and super clear. They had more than 1lb of hops in them, so id rule that out...

m00ps said:

Both all-brett IPAs Ive made with Amalgamation turned out super fruity and super clear. They had more than 1lb of hops in them, so id rule that out...

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Good to know -- another culprit could have been an over extracted mash. I pulverized my grain and used a semi-biab mash with a fly sparge and got ~93% mash efficiency, could have started extracting phenols and tannin from that as well.

osito said:

the high levels of rye in the grist.

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how high are we talking here? rye can contribute quite a bit of spice, which is a phenolic flavor.