Beer went lactic, tastes good, now what?

[greenbirds]

Background: I brewed a Belgian wit from extract back on AHA's Big Brew day (May). The liquid wheat malt extract we had on hand must have been old, as it poured a deep amber. Pitched Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat from a large slurry our local brewer had propagated. The resulting beer is about 15 SRM, and the krausen on the carboy walls is so thick from blowing off that I can't see inside the carboy...

For some reason my yeast stalled around 1.024. At the time it tasted pretty sweet and rather tart, but not necessarily lactic.

Fast forward 3 months, and it's still sitting in the primary, as I had largely given up on it. Last night my buddy asked me what was going on with it, and I told him, "for all I know there's a huge pellicle growing on top."

So we open it up, and sure enough there's a pellicle growing on top. And it smells... good and sour! The gravity has dropped to 1.010, and the taste has a nice lactic sourness, no astringency, no harsh phenolic character. The acid is not as pungent as say, Rodenbach classic, but it is fairly pronounced.

I love sours but have not yet explored the challenge of brewing them, so I'm not sure what to do now. I think the beer could use a bit more acid, but I think the gravity has bottomed out. Also, the sample was crystal clear. So do I let it continue to age in the carboy? Or should I bottle? I don't know what bug I have growing in there, but I'm aware that some lactic acid bacteria will produce CO2, while others will not.

 

[bigbeergeek]

awesome!

 

[wyzazz]

If it's not sour enough for you then let it sit, it'll get more sour as the lactic acid continues to chew on those sugars. 1.010 is almost certainly not going to be your bottom end if it's got some bugs in it, it'll likely go lower than that.