[quote=“SA Brew”]The number 1 reason I ding sour reds in a competition is that they are missing the acetic character. I have had a lot of Belgian commercial reds and they all have it. The ones that are sweeter and less sour are definitely the ones I don’t buy again. It can also be over done. I think some of the La Folie examples are over the top. Of course Berliner Weisse does not have it, but that is not the style being discussed here.
Yes. My blending was a blend of sour beers and an oak aged beer that was on the oak for a couple of months. Blending in an equal amount of fresh wort would certainly cause bottle bombs.
It does not matter how you get the oxygen in there, you just need some for the acetic character, and you don’t want any insects or debris getting in your fermentation vessel while it develops and ages.
Our club has a few bourbon barrels. They have all made good sour beers. Most of the guys in on the barrel program brew and primary ferment a new beer to add to the barrel when they pull out some beer to be bottled or kegged. You can keep your bugs going, but you have to keep them fed by putting a new beer on them.[/quote]
Yeah it is ok to an extent.
I see the opposite to much aecetic, and untrained pallets mistake it for sour.
It’s not hard to get acetic in a beer at all. THere is way more oxygen getting in a bucket, BB or glass over the course of a year than a barrel.
You can keep bugs going…you do not necessarily have to feed them constantly. THink of bottle dregs people have harvested bugs from really really old bottles
