Sour beers… how I love them. I’ve never been big on drinking (or brewing) sweet beers. Aside from the occasional Christmas beer or Russian Imperial Stout, I tend to gravitate towards the dryer side of beer. And then there are sour beers.

What I described the other day to someone as “Beer 301,” sour beer is a small niche in the craft beer world full of wild yeast, complex bacteria and spontaneous fermentations. And while “wet mildew,” “horse blanket,” and “rotten cherry pie” and not desired tasting notes to the everyday beer-drinker’s palate, they were just the types of flavors we were looking for at this past weekend’s April Sours event at Jimmy’s No. 43

View this gallery or click any image to view full sizeGALLERY: View all April Sours Photos

April Sours was basically a crash course in wild beers. From Brussel’s quintessential Brasserie Cantillon Brouwerij to American wild beer forunners Allagash and Jolly Pumpkin, five countries and over two dozen beers were represented (alongside much needed snack bites from Jimmy’s Kitchen.) The beers ranged from delicate and inviting Montegioco Quarta Runa – a peach beer with subtle sour notes – to the abrasively puckerish Hanssens Oud Geueze.

The best offerings fell somewhere in between. Our favorite was Cantillon’s Cuvee des Champions, an oak-aged, unblended lambic dry-hopped with Styrian Goldings. While its subtle aromas of mint and black pepper were not translated to the palate, the oak and hops added a nice complexity to the acidic backbone of unripened raspberries, lemon rind and wet spices. Another favorite was the BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon Chien Grand Cru Edition. BFM has been hit or miss with me lately as a lot of my bottles have been completely lacking in carbonation but the Grand Cru – their flagship beer – never disappoints. Less sour than the Cantillons, the Abbaye de Saint Bon Chien is incredibly vinous with lot of green grape, sour apple and pear notes. There is a subtle spice and a bit of caramel as well but the dominant player is sour fruits. If you have a refined wine drinker that you are looking to convert, this may be the bottle to do it.

The American showings were equally as strong although less assertive in their acidity. Our favorite – in part due to its balanced level of tartness – was the Allagash Vrienden, a limited collaboration brew with Colorado’s New Belgium Brewery. Brewed with wild yeasts from both breweries, Dandelions greens and elderberries, Vrienden was slightly acidic, mildly earthy, and filled with mango and papaya notes. Also notable was Jolly Pumpkins La Roja, an oak-aged and blended Flanders Red ale that exhibited the most balanced complexity I’ve tasted in a Jolly Pumpkin beer.

We were sad that a few of the listed beers did not show up at the event (at least not while we were there) as we were looking forward to trying some of the more obscure offerings such as Hanssens Experimental Raspberry and De Dolle Oerbier Reserva as well as revisiting some old favorites such as the Montegioco Bran Reserva. But with a list of this magnitude, our disappointment was quickly distinguished with another glass of the Cuvee des Champions.

If you missed April Sours then be sure to join Jimmy’s no. 43 on April 28th as they celebrate the 30th anniversary of Belgian beer importers Vanberg & DeWulf.

RELATED LINKS:
Maggie Hoffman covers April Sours over on Serious Eats:Drinks
View our April Sours gallery

Always pushing the limits of Belgian inspired American beers, Portland, Maine’s Allagash brewery have developed their very own Koelschip for creating spontaneously fermented beers similar to the lambic style. While sour beers utilizing wild yeasts such as Brettanomyces have been popping up all over, all of the American versions of these are brewed using cultivated yeast strains. That is, until now.

The new Koelschip – aka a very large open air room with a steel tank and wooden ceiling (see photo above) – will change all that. For a few months out of the year, the weather by the Allagash brewery will be just right for cultivating “good” wild bacteria which accumulate on the ceiling and then fall into the beer tank. The beer is then pumped back indoors for fermenting and later aged in barrels.

Check out the awesome video below and keep an eye out for the first batch (no release date announced). In the interim, grab a glass of Allagash’s amazing Interlude which is a sour Belgian that was “accidentally” infected with local yeast and started this whole adventure. More photo’s here.


UPDATE: Beernews.org reports that this beer will make its wordwide debut tomorrow, December 16th in Philadelphia:

So when does the beer make its U.S. debut? Tomorrow night according to Felicia D’Ambrosio of the Philadelphia City Paper: “Rob Tod, owner of Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine, will visit Philadelphia to make the U.S. debut of the first-ever American spontaneously fermented lambic in a Tria Fermentation School class on Thursday, Dec. 17. Hyped lambic-heads have already sold the class out, a testament to Philadelphia’s devotion to the rarest and weirdest of all artisanal beer styles.”