Sour IPA

[AlchemyEF]

Hey all,

First time posting on the site and relatively new at brewing (15< batches) so don't assume I know everything there is to know.

I'll preface this by saying that I've got two carboys, and the way I usually use them is by dedicating one carboy for normal beer production while the other is for "project beer" that may take 3 month or a year, it may turn out good, it may turn out terrible, but it will certainly be interesting. As of last week my project carboy is empty and I'm thinking about trying something new.

I know the idea gets kicked around on the site every once in a while with VERY mixed results, but I was looking to attempt a sour IPA. My goal is to get something high gravity, medium IBU with heavier than usual mounthfeel for an IPA and a citrus hop profile. In addition I wanted to throw a mild sour onto the tail end, but not the quick-n-dirty kettle sour with a bit o' Brett. Instead I wanted to go for something you might get out of a kriek with a nice balance of lactic, acetic, and citric acids, and whatever 'Funk' manages to find its way in. Since I don't mind this beer taking a very long time, I was going to try my luck at spontaneous fermentation as well.

There are a number of problems with this goal. First, spontaneous fermentation doesn't like hops, nor does it like high gravity or high alcohol. Second, citric acid does not come from spontaneous fermentation. It comes from fruit. With this in mind, I was planning on doing the following:

I was going to start with ~2gal of low gravity, almost non-existant IBU, wort made from pale with a little bit of crystal malt that I would spontaneously ferment with something like cherries for as long as it takes (my hope is that most of the cherry flavor will get blown out by the hops). Then I would top the carboy off with an IIPA wort and ferment with a california ale yeast.

I feel reasonably confident with this approach, but this is a path that seldom gets tread, and there are a lot of unknown variables at work here, so I wanted to get some feedback from those who have more experience that I. Thanks in advance.

 

[crusader1612]

So, if I understnad you correctly, you want to essentially do a complex longterm sour, but more of an IPA type? is that right?

 

[AlchemyEF]

So, if I understnad you correctly, you want to essentially do a complex longterm sour, but more of an IPA type? is that right?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Gentlemans_Ale]

I would say just brew the two different beers (the IIPA in a year obviously) and then practice blending to your liking

 

[TAK]

I happen to be drinking a Crooked Stave Progenitor at the moment, a heavily dry hopped sour. From an interview with Chad Yacobsen a while back, I believe he doesn't hop his wort at all until whirlpool, then he throws in a massive load of hops. That results in a low IBU wort with a ton if hop flavor. That gets fermented with their mixed culture, then heavily dry hopped. It's my favorite beer. Super hoppy, and depending on batch/age, it can be quite sour, but bitterness is low, which conventionally works best with sour.

I'd recommend not doing a spontaneous fermentation. I think you're likely to have better results if you use grown up dregs from a commercial sour, but hey, if you're set on a spontaneous project, balls to the walls.

 

[crusader1612]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Well, I do have a way with words.....

but seriously, if it was me - I'd take a leaf from New Belgium and Crooked stave (As above) bitterness, tends to clash with sourness - so a huge whirlpool and huge dryhop wouldwork. But in sayingthat, the whirpool side would probably work better if your just doing a simple kettle sour.

If your looking at a golden sour or lambic style beer, when i would stick with low IBU and age, then dryhop the crap out of it.

Fruit additions are great, but if you want to dryhop, i would suggest a light coloured fruit. peach mango apricot or grape (Grapes would be expecially nice if you Dryhopped with Nelson Sauvin)

alternatively you could blend to taste - but the high bitterness may clash as i mentioned so id suggest start with a pale golden sour base and dryhop from there, then adjust for future brews.

 

[CA_Mouse]

The biggest issue with a Sour IPA is that sour and bitter do not go together well. You want to brew a high gravity no hop pale ale. Ferment with a clean yeast like 001/1056/007, then transfer to glass or stainless steel and add lacto/pedio/brett and wait 6 months. At that point you would massively dry hop it.

For a short turn around, you can do a kettle sour then boil for the normal 60 minutes giving it a very small bittering addition, ferment as you would any IPA (pitch more yeast due to the lower pH ~1.5x normal sacc rate) and dry hop as you normally would. This way, also, keeps your equipment from being infected.

 

[AlchemyEF]

I'd recommend not doing a spontaneous fermentation. I think you're likely to have better results if you use grown up dregs from a commercial sour, but hey, if you're set on a spontaneous project, balls to the walls.

I'm well aware that spontaneous ferm is ill advised. I may make a 1 gal test batch to see if the wild yeast in my area is at all conducive to beer making. If this ends up not being the case then yes, it would be better to take the commercial route.

Thanks guys, great feedback so far. From what I've heard thus far it sounds like I should be going for less of a 'sour IPA' and more of a 'dry hopped sour'. I've never seen one on the shelves but it may be worth it to track down something like the progenitor.... it's for research purposes right?

But it sounds like I should be doing something closer to the following: start off with spontaneous ferm or commercial dregs on a pale wort possibly containing fruit, then a year down the road kick it in the teeth with a big load of dry hops and some 001 if need be.

 

[Aristotelian]

Just curious, what is the point of the crystal malt with the cherries? Why not just ferment the cherries (spontaneously or with a wine yeast) to make a cherry wine for blending with the beer?

It seems like what you are proposing is not really a "sour" (which to me means a beer made with lacto bacteria to produce lactic acid) but rather a wine-beer hybrid. A fruit beer using a tart fruit that is extra heavy on the fruit.

I don't quite get the point of the IPA level hops. Seems like the point of an IPA is to show off the hop flavor, while the point of a fruit beer is to show off the fruit. But, I wish you well in the experiment!

 

[m00ps]

With the method you are describing, the high IBUs from the IIPA will prevent that portion of the beer from souring very much (if at all).

The main method for sour IPAs involves kettle souring or mash souring where you get the beer sour and then kill off all the bugs. It wont evolve over time like conventional sours, but it can be made in a short period

I did what I called a "sour IPA" using more traditional methods that turned out as my best sour so far. It dont have the IBUs to really be an IPA though. I did an IPA with zero hops in the boil, but a 6oz whirlpool/hopstand. I co-pitched my sour blend and IPA yeast. 2 months later I dry hopped it with +12oz and bottled it a few days later