Best Book For Homebrewing Sour Beers?

[wbuffness]

I love the taste of sour beers. I have been a homebrewer for 7 years but I've never tried to brew a sour beer. I have decided to take the plunge. What are some good books to educate myself on the procedure to make a sour beer? Best guides on the internet? Link to great sour beer recipes that you've tried?

 

[LiquidArtisan]

Wild Brews by Jeff sparrows

 

[masonsjax]

There is some good info and recipes in Brewing Classic Styles. My favorite brewing book all around.

 

[jmich24]

Username: "oldsock" is in the process of writing a sour book. No release date yet.

His website has a ton of useful information on sour and clean beer.
themadfermentationist.com

 

[TNGabe]

Wild Brews by Jeff sparrows

^This.

There is some good info and recipes in Brewing Classic Styles. My favorite brewing book all around.

Too each their own, but everything I've heard JZ say about brewing wild beers on his podcasts is sketchy at best.

A lot of the best info is from brewer interviews. The Sunday Session has some good ones, if you can dig through all the other crap they talk about to find them. The presentation Vinnie Cilurzo did at NHC in '07 is a great place to start.

 

[suprchunk]

Too each their own, but everything I've heard JZ say about brewing wild beers on his podcasts is sketchy at best.

I find, since I've listened to the podcasts pretty much straight through, most of what he says is in stark contrast to something he said earlier. But people tend to think that he knows a lot because he sounds confident that it is correct when he says it. I just don't get why people put him so high up on a pedestal. The stuff he says that is actually factual has been said by others WAY before he started brewing a mere 13 or so years ago.

But back to the topic at hand. If you can find it cheap, Lambic by Jean Guinard is a decent introduction. I heard they were doing a new one. Not sure if it is just a reprint, or an actual updated version. Wild Brews is also decent. For an historical background - Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer by Jef Van den Steen is an awesome book. Highly recommend that one if you are a scholar of brewing.

 

[Calder]

Just brew one. It really is a very easy style to make, hard to screw up, but does take a lot of time and patience.

The world of sours can get very complex, but just to start out, there is no reason to make it difficult.

A 1.055 wort, 10 IBUs, a pack of commercial bug mix (Lambic style, or similar), and a lot of time. Store in a carboy with an airlock for the long haul.

What wort? Use a simple wort; pale malt, maybe some wheat or oats. Extract can make decent sours too. No need to get too complicated, after the bugs and brett have finished with it, any malt flavors are background notes at best.

 

[TNGabe]

Just brew one. It really is a very easy style to make, hard to screw up, but does take a lot of time and patience.

Beer is easy to make, but good beer certainly takes both skill and knowledge. Reading (or listening) up on the subject certainly won't hurt. Personally, I've had quite a few bad homebrewed (& commercial) sour beers. If I had a nickle for every nasty 'berliner weisse' I've tried, I'd be able to afford all those brew house upgrades I want.

 

[ChugachBrewing]

Lambic (Classic Beer Style) Paperback by Jean Guinard (Author).

Older, great text that I've used for making my lambics.

This is also good: http://morebeer.com/articles/Brewing_Lambic_at_Home

 

[statseeker]

Brew Like a Monk

 

[Oldsock]

Username: "oldsock" is in the process of writing a sour book. No release date yet.

His website has a ton of useful information on sour and clean beer.
themadfermentationist.com

Amazon says April 7th, but it's looking more like May at this point. I'm essentially done as of today (now it's time for the copy editor, graphics, layout etc.). After three years, it's finally getting there!

 

[TNGabe]

Amazon says April 7th, but it's looking more like May at this point. I'm essentially done as of today (now it's time for the copy editor, graphics, layout etc.). After three years, it's finally getting there!

That's great. Pre-order placed.

 

[ahpsp]

Hey, that's good news!

 

[Brewing_on_the_Internet]

All the books I've read on sour beers are more of a history and style guide than instructional. There are some how to's and recipes but I find better instructional content on the internet than in books. That's not to say they are bad books. I enjoyed Lambic, Wild brews, and Brew Like a Monk.

I also just preordered Michael Tonsmeire's book - American Sour Beer.
$15 preorder price. not bad.

 

[Oldsock]

All the books I've read on sour beers are more of a history and style guide than instructional. There are some how to's and recipes but I find better instructional content on the internet than in books. That's not to say they are bad books. I enjoyed Lambic, Wild brews, and Brew Like a Monk.

I also just preordered Michael Tonsmeire's book - American Sour Beer.
$15 preorder price. not bad.

That is exactly what I wanted to remedy. I put together profiles of 10 breweries focused on the specifics on their processes (times, temperature, pitching rates, microbe selection, fruit amounts etc.) – rather than fluff. Hopefully if you like the wild character from Russian River, Bruery, Allagash, Cascade, etc. you can take elements from their approach and make something similar (each brewery gets a little process flow-chart too). Plenty of specifics on how to grow/maintain cultures, get started on spontaneous fermentation, blend beers, figure out carbonation, inspect barrels etc. too.

What I didn’t try to get was recipe (malt/hop) specifics, I just don’t think those are anywhere near as important as the process when it comes to sour beers.

Cheers, thanks, and hope you enjoy!

 

[Coff]

Whoa, I didnt know it was up for pre-order!! Can't wait, got my order in.

 

[RITiger41]

Here’s two links that may interest you, although not books. The first is presentation from the 2011 NHC prepared by Chad Yakobson of Crooked Stave titled, Brewing with Brettanomyces, the horse the goat and the barnyard, in PDF format.

http://http://518124.cache1.evolutionhosting.com/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2011/2011%20-%20Brewing%20with%20Brett%20-%20Chad%20Yakobson.pdf

The second is a power point presentation by Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River titled, Brewing Sour Beers at Home Using Traditional & Alternative Methods.

http://http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/brew_resource/RRsour_beer_presentation.ppt

Another, a bit older and precursor to Wild Brews … A Liddil Lambic Lesson: The Cult of the Biohazard Lambic Brewers

http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/LmbicJL0696.html

I’ve printed all these files and reference them often. The first two are more straight forward and easier reads than Wild Brews and Brew Like a Monk. I’m not knocking WB and BLAM, because they are both great books and should be in everyone’s personal library. Also, there are several other great sour brewer blog with lot of information and tried recipes for an example the http://www.themadfermentationist.com/

 

[TrickyDick]

All the books I've read on sour beers are more of a history and style guide than instructional. There are some how to's and recipes but I find better instructional content on the internet than in books. That's not to say they are bad books. I enjoyed Lambic, Wild brews, and Brew Like a Monk.

I also just preordered Michael Tonsmeire's book - American Sour Beer.
$15 preorder price. not bad.

So I gather this is the book being published by oldsock?

Thanks.

TD

 

[Oldsock]

So I gather this is the book being published by oldsock?

Thanks.

TD

Yep, written by me, published by Brewers Publications.

Hopefully starting promotion in the next month or two.

 

[BrasseurGeorges]

What I didn’t try to get was recipe (malt/hop) specifics, I just don’t think those are anywhere near as important as the process when it comes to sour beers.

I couldn't agree more.

Glad to hear its coming out soon, I swear the release was originally slated for 2015...

 

[Oldsock]

I couldn't agree more.

Glad to hear its coming out soon, I swear the release was originally slated for 2015...

Luckily I stayed at it, and Malt slipped back a slot on the release calendar

 

[TrickyDick]

preordered

TD