Sour Beer: A Taste for the Tart

Just getting into the exciting world of craft beer? You might not be familiar with the tongue-tickling category of sours. If the words “sour” and “beer” together do not immediately entice, you are not alone. Sours can be a divisive subject, even among beer lovers. Within the category there is a wide variety of styles, making it laborious to narrow down what you may or may not love. 

As with almost all things beer, sour beer is an ancient style currently in the midst of a creative renaissance. For newcomers, the best place to start is with gose (GOES-uh). Once popular, gose existed in relative obscurity until several years ago, when a few disrupters set about its return. 

Gose is a traditional German-style unfiltered wheat beer with two distinct additions: coriander and salt. Its unique tart flavor is due to the use of lactobacillus bacteria in the brewing process. The addition of salt mimics the high salinity of the German river Gose, where the style originates. Salt also creates a thirst-quenching quality, something that its enthusiasts really love. Finally, coriander adds a perk of enthusiasm and floral brightness that complements the sour palate.

The most friendly and palatable gose usually involves fruit. Anything from blood orange to raspberry to yuzu to hibiscus can be found in gose form. As summer draws to a close, make time to check out the “Sol Crusher” blueberry gose from Big Elm Brewing in Sheffield. This is a good gose to help your taste buds get used to a tart beer. The blueberry accents a pleasantly mild palate that will not give you the squinty-eye pucker. 

Gose typically weighs in at about 4-4.5% alcohol. Pair it with various culinary delights: the briny quality will cut something creamy or fried, and nicely accent an artisan pickle plate. 

A gose is a “kettle sour,” which exists on one end of the sour beer spectrum. True beer aficionados could pontificate for days about this spectrum, as it is vast and complex. Although it is tricky to simplify, opposite the kettle sour we find the barrel sour. A barrel sour is an exercise in patience, requiring more time to achieve a layered, nuanced palate. The base beer can be anything from a low-alcohol blond to a brown or red ale. 

After brewing, the base beer is inoculated with lactobacillus and allowed to mature in oak barrels. Fruit can be added a few months into this process, followed by additional time in barrel. The Cascade Brewing Apricot is a delicious example of this style ($13.99, 375 ml). Pouring a beautiful golden color, you are met with a pleasant funk in the nose, a round mouth feel and plenty of carbonation. The bright apricot is well integrated and subtle. This particular style takes well to aging and will reward with additional complexity after time in the bottle.