Legend has it that great Delta blues artist Robert Johnson, hungry for fame and fortune, met Satan at the Crossroads. The devil granted Johnson’s wishes in exchange for his soul, and soon he was widely admired for his effortless playing and artistry.
Today’s brewers, it would seem, are cutting deals with their own personal devils. Where once you would never invite the devil to come dance in your brewery, many brewers are now opening their doors to Satan’s minions of sour (Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus) in the hopes of joining the ranks of legendary beers and bellowing out the low pH blues.
In many ways, brewers are stumbling over each other as they race to the sour beer crossroads. Breweries that have never dabbled in the black art of sour beers are wielding machetes in the hopes of blazing trails and entirely new paths. And in doing so, many of them are dancing with Lucifer himself as they polka and cha-cha-cha their way into unfamiliar arenas. So it begs the questions: Are these beers any good, and how did we get here?
Historically, sour beer producers have never had to cut deals with the devil. They chose to embrace his personality years ago. Their Old World methods of wort production were designed to only make sour beers. Yet they represent such a small percentage of brewers making beer this way that their use of micro-organisms and wild yeasts is as if they are witch doctors.
The lambic producers around Brussels and the red ale producers surrounding Flanders share a commonality of sour beer aged in oak barrels for extended periods of time (up to three years). Here, the barrels are used as vessels of hope in the purest sense. Each barrel acts as its own micro universe, and there is only a degree of certainty surrounding each vessel.
In Belgian sour ale production, oak barrels act more as stewards than as custodians. Wort is sent to these barrels in the hopes that all the environmental factors will come together to produce an exceptional beer. Modern-day brewers, conducting most fermentations in stainless steel, are far more custodial in their zest to produce clean and predictable fermentations and resulting beers.
Yet there is a new breed of sour beer producers who are attempting both. And this group is hell-bent on challenging the status quo. While not seeking fame and fortune in the purest sense, they are clearly tempting the devil’s due and making some exceptional beers at the same time. And many of their beers are marrying the flavors of oak with sour beer production.
It was once thought that only Belgian brewers were the best producers of sour beer in the world. And while clearly they remain the specialists of spontaneous fermented beers, there is a brave new world of sour beers from all corners of the globe available to the adventuring enthusiast willing to seek out new and unusual sour beers.
