The Death of Sour Beers?

[Cavpilot2000]

I like beers brewed “the hard way”.

In my opinion, many of the new breweries are just terrible. I think the reason IPAs get away with things is high levels of hoppiness hide many flaws. I order a Pilsner typically when I am at a new brewery, it is amazing how many of them can’t get that right. The reason I try a Pilsner is that it hides nothing. Wow I love to see the Greek diversity of breweries, I think that there is going to be a major culling of the bottom half.

I think your analysis of sours is just a microcosm of a much larger problem.

Totally agree. Probably 50% of the new breweries that have popped up in the last 3-4 years SHOULD go out of business in the next 3-4 years.
Just because you make drinkable homebrew doesn’t mean you can do it on a commercial scale. When your friends tell you “you should go pro!” don’t believe them. They’re the same ones who tell you you don’t look fat in those jeans...

 

[Soulshine2]

I know I don't post regularly and when I share recipes they are always mad science like creations that should be abominations, but they turn out amazing and I win awards for making them and I am a level 3 Cicerone so I have a pretty good idea about what I am tasting. With that said, I need to get this off my hairy back.

Where I live (in Hermosa Beach California), I am surrounded by pretentious sociopaths who drink the devils piss. This commentary is not about bashing sour beers as a whole, but the complete loss of the point of such a beer. In a neighboring set of cities (Torrance/Gardena) there are 16 breweries and three more moving in within the year. They are pissing out sours like it's no ones business and they have been doing it for about 5 years or so now and their sours are the worst. Most of them are disgusting abominations of life and I have no problem throwing some of these dumps under the bus (I'm lookin' at you Phantom Carriage... your sours have never been good).

Not just them, but almost every brewery excluding maybe one or two are doing sours wrong (one of them being the Braury in Placentia which is 30 miles from me and Monkish which is close by and their sours are good to tolerable) and the hipsters just suck them up dry, or they USE TO. Things are slowly starting to change and even at the Los Angeles Beer Festival featuring 75 breweries, after talking to the owners and brewers at all of them, I have possibly learned a deep, dank, dark secret.

Breweries are making sour beers that are terrible because they don't really care about them and they are trying to keep par with the demand. After 5 years of observation it has dawned on them that they don't have to work hard to produce them anymore and if they turn out bad they can still sell them all the same. The MAIN consumers for these beers, the hipsters, (for the sake of the discussion I'll refer to these troglodytes as 'Hipsters' from here on out) are drinking and praising any sour you put in front of them with few exceptions.

Now for the secret. The sours are no longer selling. People are not sucking them down in the droves that they did 5 years ago and places famed for their sours (like Monkish for example) have far more IPA's, DIPA's, and TRIPA's on the menu and the sours have been reduced down to 2 to 3 sours out of 20 taps where some breweries have removed them altogether. Some breweries have even sold off their brewery to other breweries for going down the sours rabbit hole and hyper spending to keep up with the fad that WAS sours.

The owners and brewers at LA Beer Fest pointed out that the fad was dying down much like the over-hyped barrel aged stouts and belgians that were aged in oak FAAAAAAAR to long and were, on average, terrible. Many of them even joked about how they could make a cheap terrible stout and put it on oak and turn around and sell it for top dollar and the hipsters of that time, 10 years ago, sucked those down en mass too. I have said from the get go that hyper-oaked stouts and sours, in general, are garbage and I believe I feel vindicated in this as time has gone on.

Now, to be specific. I am not bashing sours in general, it is more of an observation of the industry in a place where it is booming. The breweries that didn't play the "sour" game are still in business making damn good beer (and some not so good). While the ones who had a huge focus in sours are doing them a LOT less and bringing in more IPAs to replace them to stay relevant while others flat out went out of business and sold to other breweries. Most of the places specializing in sours, ironically, can't even make good IPAs and standard beers to begin with.

Has anyone else noticed the decline of sours in the marketplace? I have also noticed the hipsters in Los Angeles are moving on to DIPA's and TRIPA's and that is starting to grow awkwardly more common. Perhaps most of these strange beer fads are really just a bunch of almost broke college students running around drinking whatever they are told is trendy regardless of actual quality and taste. Let's talk about this!

Reminds me of the "IPA" craze how long ago. I'm not all that into them myself. I can tolerate a few in the IBU of high 40's range,1 or 2 in the near 50's. Some with IBU's in the 80s to me are undrinkable but ...there are people out there that like them and will buy anything produced with the "more is better" view on hops, so as small of a target audience there seems to be, one exists.
FWIW- Dogfish head brewery puts out a good session sour called SeaQuench- lime juice, black limes and sea salt. I was skeptical and then we were looking for a poolside drinker in this southern heat and humidity. I cant keep it around long enough.
On the flip side-
Just remember ,there are people who think Natural Light is a good beer .
Good post.

 

[mashpaddled]

Does anyone else see irony in calling people pretentious and then complaining about what types of beer someone else enjoys? Or knocking a business in a capitalist economy for CAPITALIZING on a fad?

Maybe it's just me.

I knew within the first few lines where he bragged about being a cicerone and turned around and called other people pretentious that the rest of the text would be utterly worthless, self-serving drivel. Did not disappoint.

 

[day_trippr]

His nom de plume gave fair warning...

 

[yourlastchance89]

I have had some absolutely heavenly sours the past few years and some that made me feel like Mike Tyson hit me in the stomach while I swallowed a rodent that was trying to claw its way up my throat. Like all beer there is a range of good and bad examples. I feel lately alot of breweries have just jumped on the bandwagon though and have been sacrificing quality. Truly good sours remind me alot of wine. They require more long-term care and a keen sense of taste for judging how to blend and/or when to bottle. It seems in this fast growing market most breweries feel they don't have time for that and it has been showing.

 

[Broothru]

FWIW- Dogfish head brewery puts out a good session sour called SeaQuench- lime juice, black limes and sea salt. I was skeptical and then we were looking for a poolside drinker in this southern heat and humidity. I cant keep it around long enough.
On the flip side-
Just remember ,there are people who think Natural Light is a good beer .
Good post.

I happened to be visiting the brewery when they first released "Sea Quench". Like all the beers produced by DFH, it was well crafted and I liked it 'OK', even bought a sixer when I got home. It reminded me of a well-crafted Berliner Weiss, which I also like 'OK' once in a while. Can't comment on the fad-induced "sours" since I've steered clear of them, but if they're anything like the plethora of half-baked Heady Topper wannabes chasing yet another fad, I agree with the O.P. I'll not be trying any of them any time soon.

Brooo Brother

 

[Zuljin]

Farmhouse beers came into fashion with the sours. I think of them as sour light. Who rode whose coattails? They're good, though. Shiner and Rahr made some. I liked Rahr best of the two.

Jester King is king. Their process defaults them to making sour and farmhouse styles.

Ah, normal beer.

For "normal" humans with "normal" taste.
Good luck with that.

Now "True Beer®" on the other hand...

A good American lager is just the right beer sometimes.

 

[papz]

Tap slots are hyper competitive.
If you are a bar with 6 taps & one of them goes through a sixtel in a month while the others blast through 2 a week, whatever beer is on the slow tap is on the chopping block.
That being said, the only well selling sour made by a local around me is a once yearly seasonal.

 

[madscientist451]

I realize I'm risking being labeled as a "pretentious sociopath", but who cares what beer sells the most or is popular at any given time? Brew what appeals to you, drink what you like, be happy for breweries that can sell swill to "hipsters" and maybe have one beer you like.

 

[filthyastronaut]

A well-made fruited sour is a no-brainer for most breweries still, and has started to become a staple. I say that as someone who doesn't like them. On the other hand, I think people are definitely are over sours done as a hyped special release, and have been replaced with Hazy IPAs. Not that excellent sours are no longer made or coveted, they just don't carry the same weight with the trendy craft beer community.

 

[seatazzz]

I don't like sours. I don't like hipsters. I really don't like listening to these children rave about whatever is the latest 'hip' thing to have in their glass, with no more understanding of the history or process than a blind raccoon, knowing that in a couple days/weeks/months they'll be doing the same thing to the next fad on the horizon. They were all over the place last weekend at Oregon Brewfest. My husband and I drink what we like, but are not averse to trying something different once in a while; one of the breweries there had a very tasty chocolate cherry sour that we actually went back for more of.

Get offa my lawn!