Why didn't you warm me?

So I tried sour beer for the first time.
By Redchurch.
It tasted like out of date orange juice. Only worse.

Also tried barley wine. Big Butt by the Black Isle Brewery (my local and one of my favourite breweries.) Tbh, I didn't think I'd like it, I wasn't wrong. A lot like cough medicine, blackcurrant and treacle. Too strong, but I can't blame it for that. All qualities shared by Buckfast. Still better than the sour beer though.

Its good to try new beer styles, even if you don't expect to like them imo. Anything else I should be wary of?

iamthefly said:

So I tried sour beer for the first time.
By Redchurch.
It tasted like out of date orange juice. Only worse.

Also tried barley wine. Big Butt by the Black Isle Brewery (my local and one of my favourite breweries.) Tbh, I didn't think I'd like it, I wasn't wrong. A lot like cough medicine, blackcurrant and treacle. Too strong, but I can't blame it for that. All qualities shared by Buckfast. Still better than the sour beer though.

Its good to try new beer styles, even if you don't expect to like them imo. Anything else I should be wary of?

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well, boon oude gueze is extremely sour - I love it.

a better intro to sours would be a rodenbach or duchess de bourgone.

equally for wheat beers an erdinger is a good start but a weihenstephaner as will carling said 'tastes like antiseptic' - he is of course a heathen probably only used to drinking his namesake :lol: I love it but it's a long way away from erdinger!

iamthefly said:

So I tried sour beer for the first time.
By Redchurch.
It tasted like out of date orange juice. Only worse.

Also tried barley wine. Big Butt by the Black Isle Brewery (my local and one of my favourite breweries.) Tbh, I didn't think I'd like it, I wasn't wrong. A lot like cough medicine, blackcurrant and treacle. Too strong, but I can't blame it for that. All qualities shared by Buckfast. Still better than the sour beer though.

Its good to try new beer styles, even if you don't expect to like them imo. Anything else I should be wary of?

Click to expand...

Be wary of nothing. Try it and if you don't like it, don't brew it more than twice.:thumb:

I make very conservative, English beers, myself, that are very boring, by the standards on this Forum, but that does not mean you should.

JFDI

Why are they classed/taste as sour beers? I suspect they taste sour but why. ..?

Clint said:

Why are they classed/taste as sour beers? I suspect they taste sour but why. ..?

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It's bacteria like Lactobacillus, very commonly used. These bacteria produce very acidic flavors. I personally like them but once you make one, the FV and kegs have to be separated and only used for those. Really really hard to kill the bacteria.

Did you enjoy lager/hoegarden/guiness the first time you tried them?

Try new styles is great as you can find something you really want to brew yourself, or something you don't want 40pints of.

its your beer, you should enjoy it - its nice if others do, but everyone has different palates.

For me things to avoid are extra's added in to give your beer an interesting `flavour'.
Top of the list is `spruce beer' - beer made with the tips of pine shoots. Tasted like drinking some sort of cleaning fluid! Very popular in the late 1700's, early 1800's.
There again, last night I had a bottle of `spill the beans coffee porter' from Aldi. The label forgot to mention that there was enough vanilla in it to open an ice cream factory...

Cwrw666 said:

For me things to avoid are extra's added in to give your beer an interesting `flavour'.
Top of the list is `spruce beer' - beer made with the tips of pine shoots. Tasted like drinking some sort of cleaning fluid! Very popular in the late 1700's, early 1800's.
There again, last night I had a bottle of `spill the beans coffee porter' from Aldi. The label forgot to mention that there was enough vanilla in it to open an ice cream factory...

Click to expand...

I'm with you on that in general, especially adding a shot of spirits to beer, I've tried tequila beer, rum etc. All manky.

Spruce is actually one of like to try and plan on brewing. I sometimes make spruce tip tea when the trees are really fragrant; it's sweet and orangey and floral. They probably boiled everything out of the tips for an hour rather than using a tea infusion for liquor, or maybe they had too much wood and/or picked at the wrong time of year.

I planned to make a spruce beer before I knew it already existed as a thing. Try picking a pocket full for a cup next time you pass a sprue in spring, but you gotta pack the mug with tips. It will at least convert you to spruce tea if not beer. Plus it's cool to just grab nature and eat it.

I shall be wary of the Aldi porter and prepared for disappointment with spruce beers though.

Thanks