The Funk is Running Wild, Brother!

After two years of brewing sours it has finally happened.  I took a misstep somewhere along the line and I'm afraid all of my gear is now infected with the funk.  Bad thing?  Hell no.  It just means I need to buy more gear so I have some clean stuff again.  It also means I have even more equipment to sour even more beer.

Sounds pretty awesome to me.

So how did I figure out that my gear was infected.  Well, it was two batches in a row that had clear signs of infection.  In this case, it was the very early stages of a pellicle starting to form.  So what happens to those beers?  I just really push them off the deep end.

The Pumpkin Stout is now a Sour Pumpkin Stout.  The Blackstrap Molasses and espresso infused stout?  Yup.  A Sour Blackstrap Molasses Stout.

Something good came out of this (other than more/new gear) though.  A light went off in my mind.  I have been reading beer books one after another and even listening to beer podcast (currently listening to all of the Sour Hour episodes from the Brewing Network).  It's information overload.  One of those Sour Hour episodes talked about a sour peach beer based on the creators grandmothers peach pie.  When thinking about what to do with the Blackstrap Molasses Stout I thought of looking up a recipe for molasses baked goods.

Then the simplest thing strung together in my head.  Baking is similar to beer brewing. Flour is a grain.  Sugar is – well – sugar. And lots of baked goods utilize spices and fruit.  Sounds familiar right?

So what did I come up with?  A Dark Fruit Cake Sour Stout Recipe of course.  A cake made with molasses, coffee, fruit and spices.  My beer had molasses and coffee and sours taste pretty good with fruit and other spices.

So simple. Just a way I didn't think about brewing or flavoring in the past.  A lot of what I have been reading and listening to just all clicked together.

I will be mixing up the first batch of beers from the original sour stout recipe this weekend. The first step of really starting to roll out my sour beers for consumption.