First Sour Question - American Sour Brown

Hi,

I am about to embark on my first sour beer attempt and had a question about what this would produce.

I was planning on taking Jamil's flanders brown recipe from BCS and kettle souring it for a day or two and then boiling and adding hops. Then I was going to add cherry concentrate and give it a 100% brett fermentation. Not sure on the strain yet, either lambicus or a blend. Then age on oak.

My assumption is that this would give me something similar to a flanders brown with more cherry, and less complexity. But it sounded like it might be a nice American sour produced relatively quickly.

I have never worked with brett or made a sour beer. Am I off base on taking this approach? Anyone ever brew anything like this? What was the beer like?

Could be interesting but like you said, it might be missing some complexity. I think it's worthy of an experiment though. I'm assuming you're going to use tart cherry concentrate. I've never used the concentrate but I recently used a bunch of tart cherries in a petite saison with a mixed sach and brett fermentation. No bacteria, so all the tartness came from the cherries and they dropped the pH down to 3.68 (7-ish# in a 5 gallon batch). One thing, brett doesn't usually get very funky on its own, it's pretty clean when you use it for a 100% brett beer.

microbusbrewery said:

Could be interesting but like you said, it might be missing some complexity. I think it's worthy of an experiment though. I'm assuming you're going to use tart cherry concentrate. I've never used the concentrate but I recently used a bunch of tart cherries in a petite saison with a mixed sach and brett fermentation. No bacteria, so all the tartness came from the cherries and they dropped the pH down to 3.68 (7-ish# in a 5 gallon batch). One thing, brett doesn't usually get very funky on its own, it's pretty clean when you use it for a 100% brett beer.

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Thanks. I wasn't sure on whether to use tart or sweet. I've heard mixed things. some say tart is the way to go, some say it's too acidic. If I was kettle souring the wort would tart cherries be too much in terms of acidity?

It kind of depends on your taste, but if it were me I'd kettle sour down to 3.2-3.3...but I do prefer my sours to be fairly sour. I have a couple sours on tap right now that are below 3.00. Starting with that low of pH, I don't believe they'd add much additional acidity...although I'm not sure what the pH of the cherries alone is. Re sweet cherries, they really don't have a ton of flavor...it's mostly sugar. The brett will ferment that out and there won't be much flavor left behind. You could do a blend of sweet and tart but if it were me I'd use more tart than sweet.

Make sure it has soured before you boil it. Taste it to see.

Brett is not really going to give you much if it is not used in conjunction with a sacc yeast. So you could just use a regular yeast with the flavor profile you want.

Calder said:

Make sure it has soured before you boil it. Taste it to see.

Brett is not really going to give you much if it is not used in conjunction with a sacc yeast. So you could just use a regular yeast with the flavor profile you want.

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Thanks, my understanding was that a 100% brett beer gives you a bit of brett character but a lot more fruity quality than classic phenolic brett qualities. I like a touch of brett complexity, but I'm not a big fan of super funky brett beers.

My thinking was that the combo of a lacto souring and a slight fruity/funky contribution from the 100% brett would give it something more on par with classic sour beers without the 2 years of waiting, but admittedly with less complexity.

Do I have it wrong? Thanks again.

Microphobik said:

Thanks, my understanding was that a 100% brett beer gives you a bit of brett character but a lot more fruity quality than classic phenolic brett qualities. I like a touch of brett complexity, but I'm not a big fan of super funky brett beers.

My thinking was that the combo of a lacto souring and a slight fruity/funky contribution from the 100% brett would give it something more on par with classic sour beers without the 2 years of waiting, but admittedly with less complexity.

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I've read of people saying they get some Brett funkyness with all-brett beers. My experience is there is zero, and I have done quite a few all-brett beers. It acts as a different yeast and the flavors are completely different. Even after a few years in the bottle there is no sign of funky/rustic.

From what I have read, the funky/rustic flavors from brett are from it working on esters already produced by the primary yeast. In the absence of a primary yeast, it can't do that.

Calder said:

I've read of people saying they get some Brett funkyness with all-brett beers. My experience is there is zero, and I have done quite a few all-brett beers. It acts as a different yeast and the flavors are completely different. Even after a few years in the bottle there is no sign of funky/rustic.

From what I have read, the funky/rustic flavors from brett are from it working on esters already produced by the primary yeast. In the absence of a primary yeast, it can't do that.

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Gotcha. So what do you get? Just a clean tasting Cal-ale-ish tasting beer?

Microphobik said:

Gotcha. So what do you get? Just a clean tasting Cal-ale-ish tasting beer?

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Depending on the Brett and temperature, you can get anything from a clean ferment (similar to S-05) to a very fruity Belgian. Certainly unique esters/flavors if treated correctly.