Very Sour - What would you do?

[rollermt]

I have a beer that is 2 years old and it is quite sour now. Two years ago, a friend and I improvised a grainbill and brewed an amber-colored sour. Kind of like a higher gravity Flanders maybe. The OG was 1.064 and I pitched Wyeast 1214 and WLP650, along with a small amount of dregs from Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza. The gravity is now at 1.002-3. While it's probably not a medal winner, I don't detect any big off flavors, but I'm nervous that if I bottle it, it will just be too sour to enjoy. Lesson learned, I think I started with a gravity that was too high.

What would you do at this point?

I'm considering brewing another ale and blending it. If you approve of this approach, what would you blend it with?

 

[LKABrewer]

Try a little baking soda to bring the pH up.

 

[burninator]

What was the hop level in the original beer?

 

[isomerization]

Blending is definitely the way to go here. Don't waste 2 years worth of effort! I'd make something very similar to the original, minus the bugs/Brett. Then when it's time to package, you can try mixing 50/50 small scale. If not sour enough (or vice versa) change the ratio. You can bottle some of each too for comparison later.

 

[rollermt]

The original beer was about 23 IBUs. At two years old, I don't detect much hop flavor now.

 

[Cyclman]

+1, blend

 

[Quaker]

Blend with something complementary.

 

[madscientist451]

Do what Rodenbach does: Blend 1/3 "old" sour beer with 2/3 "young" (3 months old). It would be better to run some blending trials and see what percentage suits your taste. 50/50 night work better or 2/3 old and 1/3 new.

 

[rollermt]

Thanks for the advice. Brewed a smallish Flanders Red this afternoon with the plan to blend. Will update this post with results!

 

[Owly055]

pour a little bit in a glass and sprinkle just a bit of salt into it and mix well and taste. Salt does a phenomenal job of taming sourness, while adding a subtle richness of flavor. It may or may not work well for your beer. I've had success doing this....... You shouldn't be able to taste salt if you do it right. You need to be very conservative and ensure it is completely dissolved. Just a few weeks back I helped a neighbor with a similar problem resolve it with the "salt cure". He though I was nuts, but we spent about half an hour drinking tiny samples from a pint until we honed in on a good result, then we had to estimate how much per pint was in the final product, as we were sampling as we went, and the quantity was going down. In the end we hit it petty much on the money based on before and after salt shaker weights...... this was sea salt, not iodized salt.

It's worth noting that Cascade Barrel House in Portland blends virtually all their sours from what they told me. They brew, age, and shamelessly blend for a pleasing result. Virtually everything they make is barrel aged sours..........

H.W.

 

[pdxal]

+1 for all the recommendations to blend. As mentioned, that is what the large sour/lambic producers do.
Only thing to keep in mind is that if you blend in a higher gravity, non-sour, young beer the bugs in the original sour could go to work and ferment the residual sugars in the young beer you add. If so, and you bottle, you could end up with over carbonation. Better to keg so that you can bleed off over pressure as needed, or to pasteurize once carbonated like Rodenbach does.

 

[Colorowdy]

+1 blend it.

 

[sweetcell]

make something very similar to the original, minus the bugs/Brett.

something to keep in mind is that you have aggressive bugs in your original/old beer, hence the sourness, and they are going to wake up and start their work again on any sugars left in the young beer. if you keg and and keep the blended beer cold, then this isn't as much of an issue. but if you bottle, or will be storing the beer at room'ish temps, you're going to have a refermentation.

i would brew a highly fermentable wort (mash low, minimal crystal/dark malts, lower gravity, etc.) and then ferment with a highly attenuative yeast like 3711/belle saison. start raising the temps on the beer a few days after pitching. should get you close to 1.000.

alternately, use brett in secondary with no bugs to dry out the beer - but that can take months if you don't already have some on hand...

 

[ChrisfromAbby]

Definitely blend. I dots that with an overly sour apricot beer and it worked very nicely. I experiment with base neutralization as you might do with wine and it was tongue-scrapingly HORRIBLE.

If you use lactobacillus I've learned that they only work at quite warm temperatures - like 100. Pedio can work at room temp though.

 

[Colorowdy]

A little bit better answer than my previous one.
First of all you already have two years into this what's another 6 to 12 months. If it was me in this predicament i would brew the same beer ferment it out with a clean sacc strain. Then pitch a menagerie of Brett strains in secondary. Use that as a blending beer. Because chances are it will be fairly funky.
Or you could listen to sweetcell. Belles saison is way earthy/ funky to me. I personally like to use it with lacto only as my bugs.

 

[drgoodbrew]

simple fix....DUMP IT.

 

[terrenum]

+1 for the blend. Blending is an art and you can come up with a wonderful beer. Bring this no medal beer to the next level!!!

 

[oli-aus]

Blending in a dry young saison.
Also adding dry hops can lower perceived acidity.

 

[TandemTails]

something to keep in mind is that you have aggressive bugs in your original/old beer, hence the sourness, and they are going to wake up and start their work again on any sugars left in the young beer. if you keg and and keep the blended beer cold, then this isn't as much of an issue. but if you bottle, or will be storing the beer at room'ish temps, you're going to have a refermentation.

i would brew a highly fermentable wort (mash low, minimal crystal/dark malts, lower gravity, etc.) and then ferment with a highly attenuative yeast like 3711/belle saison. start raising the temps on the beer a few days after pitching. should get you close to 1.000.

alternately, use brett in secondary with no bugs to dry out the beer - but that can take months if you don't already have some on hand...

I second this method. Get the FG of your blending beer down really low, then add it as needed.

I had an extremely sour solera and wanted to blend it to mellow it out a bit. Fortunately I had an all brett pale ale at the tail end of fermentation that fermented down to 1.002. I added about a gallon of that to my 5.5 gallon solera and it really helped out.

You don't want to just add something with an FG around 1.010 or so since you'd just be feeding the bugs more sugar.

 

[rollermt]

Late update: I brewed a Flanders Red but used US-05 and really low hops. Then, I blended that 40/60 with the really sour beer. That outcome is a respectable first sour, and I've since brewed a few more sours with even more success (and no blending required). Thanks for the advice to try the blending method.

An even better surprise was that I had leftover neutral beer after the blend. So bottled that alone in some flip tops, but didn't bother to sanitize my equipment. What resulted was a really nice sour beer, perhaps even better than the blended one!