Monday 7 January 2013

Sour


Sour. I have known sour-faced men and women (not that many though for who wants to spend that much time with them) for whom the world is one big frustration; the sort of person I would desperately talk to when I was younger and in a new part of town and attempting to become part of the crowd in a pub I laughingly called my local.

I have had a sour look from a stranger when I suggested that she might like to dance and maybe afterwards could I buy a drink for her (not surprising if you had ever seen me attempt to dance during my — not that enthusiastic — clubbing days).

Sour beer I have had, enough of it to flood an ark on with assorted fauna clambering aboard, a kind of Life of Pi in reverse. I was in a pub just over the border in Devon where the landlord was sitting drinking with his cronies. When I asked for a pint I heard him say to the barmaid ‘pull it through a bit, it’s not been used for a couple of days’. I couldn’t finish it as my face was making strange shapes while my Jack Russell was picking a fight with the pub dog. Meanwhile another pub on Exmoor had warm Exmoor Beast on tap — in the middle of July, in a village whose largely ancient inhabitants seemingly went to bed at 8pm (ever had lambic porter?).

On the other hand one of my favourite post pub meals was sweet and sour pork (especially when fried in batter), while my wife and son chew on gummy, sugary sweets called sours when we go on a long car journey — when I chew on these I always feel that my face makes the sort of shapes that if translated into physical exertion would be called jazz dancing. They’re quite refreshing though and take your mind off the price of petrol.

And then there’s lambic and gueuze — along with sweet and sour pork the acceptable face of sour. Though it did take me about 10 years to really get Cantillon — back in the 1990s I used to put a sugar cube in my Christmas morning bottle of gueuze. 

I’ve been thinking about the word sour throughout the weekend, partly due to the fact I’m off to Sharps this week to brew a Black Gose (possibly) with Stuart Howe and due to a conversation I had with WildBeer’s co-founder Andrew Cooper on Thursday. I was writing a feature on them (and I will be honest, I regard them as one of the most exciting breweries in the country at the moment) and I’d called up to get some quotes, as you do. We got to talking about a sour beer that the brewery might be doing and then onto the semantics of the word sour.

‘Brett and I had a meeting today,’ Andrew told me, ‘and we were discussing what to brew and how to talk about it. We want to do sour beers in the spring, but there is the case of what language to use and how do we get it across to the public and try and keep a positive connotation. We haven’t made up our mind yet whether we should call them sour beers. There are lots of positive things that are sour, beautiful sour lemonade for instance, but it is something different to the audience.’

I like this thoughtful approach to beer. I’m interested in how some beers can be explained to drinkers beyond geeks (who might wet themselves at the thought of sour). Mention sour to people in my two local pubs and they might pull a face, but then you can ask them if they have enjoyed beef stroganoff (sour cream) or sauerkraut or just plain sweet and sour pork. It’s a bit like bitter. On it’s own, bitter is incredibly negative, but allied to espresso or Angostura bitters then it makes sense.

For me sour is similar to difficult music, literature and inclines in the mountains. It would be easy to walk away and think life is easier if I continue in the other direction, but on the other hand.

As I write I’m listening to some Benjamin Britten songs — sung in German, just piano and singer, slightly angular in their construction, not easy listening, possibly the musical equivalent of lambic or gueuze. I love them, I get something from listening to them, I don’t know what I get but there is something that stirs my soul about them. I struggled with these at first but I kept coming back and now they make some sort of emotional sense.

Sour beers are like that. Sure you can dismiss them and walk away, that’s fine. But on the other hand, they have a history and a provenance, a heritage, a small home base but by using the right words you can get them across to a wider audience — and by getting them across to a wider audience I believe it’s another way to help raise the profile of good beer.


20 comments:

  1. What doesn't help is when brewers rebrand failed batches as 'Belgian-style' to shift them.

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    1. that's certainly something I've suspected in the past when a Brewery not known for use of wild yeasts suddenly produces a 'sour'. Not encountered it in the past couple of years but I'm still wary of 'sour' experiments.

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    2. Would still love to know who has done this, without it being libellous of course…

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  2. Who does that? Be interested to get a comment from a brewer who has done that.

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  3. Just as you asked "ever had a lambic porter"? Well, almost. Two porters that were definitely sour, and both were rather good :) One was Cosmos Porter by De Dolle, which was one of the most surprisingly delightful beers I think I've had, and then Deutscher Porter by Freigeist Bierkultur, which I did not expect to be sour, but really liked. Then again, these were supposed to be sour :)

    I get your point about the negative connotations of the word sour. It's a bit like the word bitter for Germans, Beer gets labelled "herb" instead of "bitter" these days. However, I've been encouraged by the reactions of some friends to the likes of Cantillon, but a brewery can't personally guide every customer.

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    1. Good point about bitterness in Germany, hence herb on Jever presumably?

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    2. Indeed. "Edel-herb" gets used a lot. In one case, Hoevels Bitterbier, from Dortmund, got renamed "Hoevels Original" when Radeberger took over the brand, presumably because they thought the idea of Bitterbier wouldn't sell too well. I have a couple of the old glasses though.

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    3. You could argue that mild gets a similarly linguistic makeover in this country — Batemans Dark, whihc used to be Dark Mild

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  4. ATJ -- here's one example, but we've heard of others. Certainly a common problem in home brewing comps, we're told -- if it goes wrong, enter it as 'Belgian'.

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    1. The Chilean one sounds interesting, but for the others I thought you were on about certain pro brewers, but home brewers have the freedom, lack of commercial pressure and chutzpah to follow nay path I suppose.

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    2. There are a couple of pros we *suspect* have done it, but hard to say for sure.

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    3. Aha, maybe you could email me your suspects…would be interested to see

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  5. I've heard the same rumors as well.

    A few months ago I drank a Czech brewed rauchweizenbock that was past its best. The sourness made it very interesting and made me ponder if the pre-lager Czech beers weren't a bit like that, and, if right, made me understand why and how lagers became the staple so fast.

    Anyway, I've tasted many a sour beer (intentionally sour, mind you) and, though I understand the fascination some people have for them, they have failed to win me over (with the exception of Gose, perhaps).

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  6. Now you have to say which Gose you like? ;-) Mine is Bayerischer Bahnhof.

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    1. I had that one on tap here. Gorgeous. And Ritterguts bottled a few times, very nice, too, specially with blue sheep cheese.

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    2. I also had the one they sell at Ohne Bedenken with pieces of bread covered in lard — found that one too sharp but I understand that others like it more than the Bayerischer one — I gave in and added some kummel to it as was suggested I do, as a non spirits drinker that wasn’t a good idea, especially next morning…

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  7. Brodies have done a London Sour and two flavoured editions, cherry and peach, proper Belgian style sours, might have to pop over to the William IV later....

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  8. Tried the cherry one in Brewdog Bristol, though I thought the intention owas Berliner Weisse rather than Belgian

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  9. I think it was the London sour I had at IndyMan.Our group thought it superb. I also seem to remember that it's not a beer you could drink a lot of. A pint max?

    Ben

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    1. You’re right they’re not session beers and why not? Beer shouldn’t just be about lashings of pints — on the other hand I remember lashings of Boon gueuze accompanying a wonderful meal in Brussels’ Spinnekopke a couple of years ago.

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