Question about sours

[Izzie1701]

So I tried my first sour yesterday. Wasn't one I made was from a brew pub here that has very good beer. This beer however was a little different. It was a raspberry sour. The taste was amazing. Taste a lot like a sour raspberry juice. I liked that the sour complimented the raspberry. There was however one thing that would keep me from ever buying another one. It smelled like vomit. I thought maybe it was my cup at first but my buddy also had one and it smelled the same. Probably wouldn't have even tried it if I smelled it before I took a big gulp. Then realized the smell. But like I said it taste awesome. Is that how all sours are due to the yeast strain or was this a bad sour?

 

[secondbase]

Vomit smell/taste is an off flavor produced by Lactobacillus in the presence of oxygen. From the sound of it, this beer was kettle soured and they did not do a good job at keeping oxygen out. If you do a little research on kettle souring, you'll find that this is a very common off-flavor using this method. If you are interested in making your own version of this, I'd check out the MTF Berliner recipe and add raspberries in secondary. Just make sure to minimize headspace when pitching lacto and DO NOT aerate your wort. Purging the headspace with co2 is a popular way to ensure there isn't much oxygen ingress.

 

[worlddivides]

Sounds like butyric acid to me. I've never had a commercial sour beer that had it, but I once made a Berliner Weisse that had that smell and flavor, and I dumped it without bothering to bottle it. Like secondbase said, in my case, it could have been produced by the Lactobacillus (although there was virtually no head space in the glass carboy) or possibly by some enteric bacteria that got into the wort before fermentation started (since I was careless enough to leave the lid off the kettle pot when it was cooling, something I normally NEVER do, but ended up doing that one time).

It's definitely not supposed to be present in ANY sour (or any beer period for that matter).

 

[BryceL]

I've had quite a few homebrewed berliner weisse that have this problem. As said above, if you don't do a good job keeping oxygen out or proper temperatures, you can let other bacteria take over and you won't get that clean lacto sourness. I've had a few comercial examples that have this as well, but there are usually mild.

I definitely wouldn't let it dissuade you from buying another sour beer, especially if you enjoyed the sour factor. There are many different sour styles...dive in!

 

[55x11]

Vomit smell/taste is an off flavor produced by Lactobacillus in the presence of oxygen. From the sound of it, this beer was kettle soured and they did not do a good job at keeping oxygen out. If you do a little research on kettle souring, you'll find that this is a very common off-flavor using this method. If you are interested in making your own version of this, I'd check out the MTF Berliner recipe and add raspberries in secondary. Just make sure to minimize headspace when pitching lacto and DO NOT aerate your wort. Purging the headspace with co2 is a popular way to ensure there isn't much oxygen ingress.

Butyric acid is actually primarily produced by Clostridium butyricum, not Lactobacillus.

Clostridium is an anaerobic bacterium, which can work just fine without oxygen (in fact oxygen inhibits its activity).

So to reduce the vomit-like smells of butyric acid you need to keep mash at above 112F or so, and/or reduce pH below 6.0 before souring.

Lack of oxygen in sour mashing/kettle process is mostly to avoid effect of acetobacter, which needs oxygen and will produce vinegar.

Butyric acid can be to some extent boiled off after souring process.

 

[secondbase]

Butyric acid is actually primarily produced by Clostridium butyricum, not Lactobacillus.

Clostridium is an anaerobic bacterium, which can work just fine without oxygen (in fact oxygen inhibits its activity).

So to reduce the vomit-like smells of butyric acid you need to keep mash at above 112F or so, and/or reduce pH below 6.0 before souring.

Lack of oxygen in sour mashing/kettle process is mostly to avoid effect of acetobacter, which needs oxygen and will produce vinegar.

Butyric acid can be to some extent boiled off after souring process.

Thanks for the clarification. I typically boil first, give lacto a head start in an anaerobic environment and then pitch sacch. I know a lot of people pitch lacto and then boil to curb further acid production. I didn't know it could also potentially boil off butyric.

 

[Izzie1701]

I did not realize sour beers were so complicated. Have yet to make one. Like I said this beer taste great just the aroma was terrible. Smelled like someone had a few to many the night before and puked in my glass. I never would have tried it if I had smelled the smell first except for I took a huge swig before I got a whiff of the vomit smell. Let's put it this was the flavor was good enough to keep drinking it with my nose plugged. Would love to see how it taste without the off aroma. Think it would turn out to be my favorite beer.

 

[worlddivides]

I did not realize sour beers were so complicated. Have yet to make one. Like I said this beer taste great just the aroma was terrible. Smelled like someone had a few to many the night before and puked in my glass. I never would have tried it if I had smelled the smell first except for I took a huge swig before I got a whiff of the vomit smell. Let's put it this was the flavor was good enough to keep drinking it with my nose plugged. Would love to see how it taste without the off aroma. Think it would turn out to be my favorite beer.

I'd recommend trying some of the most well-known lambic fruit beers. Like I said, I've never had a commercial beer with butyric acid (the source of the vomit smell), but I'd imagine some inexperienced local breweries might release stuff like that, whereas any brewery worth their salt would dump that stuff and not even consider releasing it.

If you liked the sour/fruit combination, here are a few of the most easy-to-find world-renowned fruit lambics:

Lindemans Kriek (sour cherry lambic sour beer):

Lindemans Framboise (raspberry lambic sour beer):

Lindemans Cassis (Black currant lambic sour beer):

All of those fruit lambics are sweetened and pasteurized because it makes them more "accessible," so they are great jumping off points.

If you want to try some unsweetened lambics, there are quite a few. Even New Belgium makes a kriek (sour cherry ale) that is a collaboration with the Belgian lambic brewery, Oud Beersel. Theirs is unsweetened and pretty damn good.

And if you want to try a sour beer without fruit, here are a few recommendations:

Lindemans Cuvee Renee (an oude gueuze, which is a blend of very old and young lambics. Very good, but probably not a good place to start with sour beers):

Rodenbach Grand Cru (a very nice Flemish Red Ale):

Duchess de Bourgogne (a nice Flemish Brown Ale):

New Belgium La Folie (basically an American take on a Flemish Brown Ale):

The Lindemans fruit ales should be easily found at any decent sized store specializing in beer. The unsweetened sour beers are pretty famous and well-distributed, but you might need a larger, better-stocked beer store to find them.