I was recently introduced to sour beers – specifically the Flanders Red style. We have family that lives in Belgium and they sent me a box of Belgian beers. I was shocked by how much I loved the beer (it was Duchess de Bourgnone from a Belgian brewery). I vaguely recall trying a Gueze years ago and finding it weird and not particularly liking it – has my palate changed, or is Flanders Red very different than Gueze? What other sour beers should I try – and what sours are commonly available in the US?
Pre-pandemic I attended a sour festival that was all you could drink for $50. Many dozens of sours. I’m enjoying a Hop Farm Fruited Cranberry Sauce Ale as we speak, coincidentally.
Duchess was our gateway sour as well.
I’ve liked many Gose, Berliner weisse, and Kolsch beers, so expand your search terms. We have a few local breweries that specialize in sours or Berliner weisse, so we vary it up a lot.
Duchess was also the first sour I ever had! I found it in a fancy little shop in a fancy part of town and bought it on a whim. I’m thrilled that sours have become uber-popular in the last few years. One of the local breweries here puts out probably a dozen varieties of their baseline sour each year along with a bunch more one-offs.
I think the Flanderseseseses are way more forward with the acidic sour kick, whereas the goses I’ve had are not. They’re a bit milder and often a bit salty. And since they’re the “in” thing these days, they’re made in all sorts of wild trendy flavors. As to availability, I don’t know of any macro sours so what’s available in your region is going to be different than what I can get in mine.
I actually drank my last bottle of a limited-run Flanders-style from the aforementioned local brewery on election night. It was a worthwhile occasion, but I already wish I had another couple of bottles kicking around.
I don’t think you can go wrong with any Belgian-made sour - if you have a wine and beer store near you, have a visit and ask the purveyor what they’ve got and what they would recommend.
In our area, we can get sours made by Asheville, NC-based Wicked Weed, which are almost always very good. There are a lot of American craft breweries that make them now, but distribution tends to be limited so you just have to look for what’s available where you are.
Just tried Jacobins Rouge – liked it a lot, but maybe not quite as much as Duchesse. I picked it up because it was a few bucks cheaper than Duchesse for the 4 pack (though they’re both more than twice the cost of most domestic beers).
Still worth it, at least occasionally. I’d like to try Rodenbach, but I haven’t seen it at the local beer stores, even the ones that have Jacobins and Duchesse.
Maybe I haven’t tried the right sours, but they remind me of puking up stomach-acidy beer.
Then again, maybe the problem is that I’ve puked up too much beer.
Flanders reds are pretty distinct from many other sour beers. In particular, a lot of domestic sours are made with fruits. Some are wonderful, some are terrible, but they tend to be very different from Flanders.
One significant difference in sours is whether they use Brettanomyces (“Brett”) for fermentation. This is a yeast that gives a very earthy, wild flavor and aroma to beer. It doesn’t give beer its sourness by itself - you need lactic acid created by Lactobacillus bacteria for that. Brett can create some acetic acid under the right conditions (plenty of oxygen), which gives beer a slight tartness. A sour beer without Brett will taste very different from one that used it. And some breweries will call a Brett beer “sour” even if they don’t do a lactic fermentation.
In summary - there’s a huge range of sours. A good bottle shop can point you toward good examples of different styles and make recommendations based on ones you’ve liked. Happy exploring!
Just a note - a gose is a completely different style from a Gueuze. As you note, a gose might have a little tang to it, but it isn’t generally considered a sour beer. It’s more known for its saltiness and herbal aromas.
A Gueuze, on the other hand, is a Belgian lambic beer made by blending old and young lambics to create a secondary fermentation. It’s known for a much stronger sour profile and effervescence.
It was gueze I had - Brasserie Cantillion, which I understand is one of the best. But to my palate it was just odd and didn’t taste much like beer.
But that was ten years ago, and I know my palate has changed at least to some degree. So I should probably try it again.
Just tried two sours from Rodenbach – Grand Cru and Classic Red. Loved Grand Cru, liked Classic Red. What’s great about Grand Cru is that it’s almost as good as Duchesse but about half the cost (at least from the local stores). The Classic Red is almost as cheap as domestic craft beers.
Great brewery! If you can get Caractère Rouge buy all you can.
Love most sours, but think the Duchess is fucking disgusting and tastes like drinking vinegar.
Wow those are great prices. I frankly like Rodenbach’s various offerings much more than I like Duchesse (which is still all right, don’t get me wrong. Clearly Snarky disagrees, LOL.), so even better. Haven’t had a domestic version that compares, yet.
The various species of Gueze might as well be different beverages entirely, even if they’re both sour beers. More wine-like than beer, IMHO. I still need to try Cantillion. Our grocery stores carry a surprisingly wide selection of beers and lambics, but the closest source I’ve heard of for Cantillion is Louisiana.
I love Rodenbach’s beers, and have been lucky enough to see their brewery and meet their brewmaster.
IME American breweries are often slapping a gose label on anything sour. Sometimes on beers they’ve just pumped with fruit juice and citric acid.
One of my sons is a VP for beer distribution company. Which means every single week he brings me at least 6 different beers to try. It’s a living hell.
He loves the sour beers. But I’m with you, I don’t care for them at all.
But to each his own. The more beer choices we have the better!
I almost never drank beer until I moved to Charlottesville, where you can scarcely walk 50 paces without tripping over another craft brewpub. I quickly discovered that sours were definitely up my alley. Let me recommend Victory Sour Monkey. Not only is it tasty, but at 9.5% ABV, it will get you messed up quick!
Victory brewery in general produces a nice line of beers.