Dry hopping a fruited sour?

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

Hey all, new sour brewer here. I've got one sour under my belt, a dry-hopped mixed fermentation sour. It was 70% belgian pilsner, 20% spelt malt, 10% munich with Wyeast 3711, a lacto blend and Brett blend. Dry hopped with 5 oz Citra (4 gal batch). Fermented for 2.5 months and now been in bottles for about a month and myself and others are really enjoying it. It's quite sour, but wish I dry hopped even more as the hop character isn't super prominent.

I'm re-brewing this recipe on Thursday, and plan to add fruit (unsure which, but probably peaches, or maaybe raspberries). My question is, with the same amount of sourness, plus whichever fruit I use, should I even bother dry-hopping? Or just dry hop even more than the first time? I'm unsure if there's even a point to adding hops with everything else going on.

Cheers!

 

[RPh_Guy]

I think that's probably a question only you can answer.

I could wait 'til it's done fermenting on the fruit. Taste it and then decide whether you want hops.

 

[AMessenger]

I think it depends a lot on what fruit and how much fruit you use.

I would say if you're doing something on the order of 2 lb/gal of a bold flavored fruit like raspberries that would not be worth hopping.

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

Dry hopped with 5 oz Citra (4 gal batch). Fermented for 2.5 months and now been in bottles for about a month

Did you Dry hop and then ferment for 2.5 months, or ferment and then dry hop?

 

[couchsending]

The issue with dry hopped sour beers is you get crappy extraction from hops at the very low PH. If you are dry hopping a sour beer it should be done right before packaging. I believe big breweries will dry hop a younger beer that’s not at as low of a PH and blend into the aged beer. Some will even sometimes use the remaining extract in that younger beer to carbonate the blend.

 

[pursuit0fhoppiness]

Dry hopped only the last week or so of fermentation before bottling. The low extraction at low pH makes sense.

 

[RPh_Guy]

crappy extraction from hops

Crappy flavor extraction?

 

[jfolks]

This could totally work if you do it right. Peaches or mangos (or passion fruit) work well with tropical flavored hops (mosaic, citra, etc.) - raspberries could be more challenging but the new Enigma variety is said to impart raspberry flavors. White Grapes would go well with white wine tasting varieties (Nelson, hallertau blanc, etc.). Let us know what you decide on!

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

you may have seen this: https://byo.com/article/hoppy-sour-beers/

I made the 100% Hoppy with Lacto and Brett with fantastic results