Tasting Day and Mixing Day

The beer that will be tasted after my first blending
session. I can only hope it tastes as good as it looks.

Last night I went over to my friends house to watch the hockey game.  Naturally we wanted to drink some beers.  Since this weekend was set to be my first taste of the newly bottled sour stout I took over my 12oz "taster" bottle.  I also took over some beer from my red sour barrel along with the clean red Belgian I recently made so we can mix up some goodness.  Lets start with the mixing session.

Mixing Session:

I brought two pints of beer.  One a clean red Belgian ale and the other the 2 year aged sour red that has been sitting in my Cabernet Sauvignon barrel.

We started out by tasting the two without any mixing so we knew what flavors we were dealing with.  Once we knew what we had to work with we could then figure out where to go with our ratios.

The clean version was exactly that - very clean Belgian flavor from the WLP 550 Belgian yeast.  It had a light banana flavor.  Not nearly as strong as some of the German Hefeweizen beers.  It was sweet while still being thin.  You can really smell the caramel from the C60 malt but it only comes through in the final beer as generic sweetness.

Next up the barrel aged sour red.  First impression is that its sour.  That's good for making sour beer!  Behind the sourness is a weird harshness.  Astringent is the best way I can describe it.  My buddy said it was harsh but he liked it.  I did not know really what to think of it.  I too liked it but then also felt it had a burn to it.  This harshness was only up front.  It faded quickly.  This beer was also strangely sweet.  I can somewhat pick up a vanilla that might of been contributing to that perception.  There is a little tannin quality showing through too, but in no way is the beer saturated with oak flavor.

Looking at the tasting notes after trying both we came to the conclusion that all we really wanted to do was remove that harshness - or at least calm it down - while maintaining a sour edge.

We started with a 1:1 ratio.  This was not very sour.  All of the harshness has been removed from the upfront flavor with only a little in the back.  This is not our mix though.  A sour beer needs to be, well, sour.

Next up was a 2:1 ratio.   That harshness returned on this one.  this version atcually tasted more oak like than the straight version.  This is a learning lesson that those flavors may be in the beer and they may just be masked.  In this case the harsh flavor that we are getting was probably blocking us from tasting the oak and barrel flavors.  Too harsh.  On to the next mix.

3:2 ratio was still sour but it wasnt very astringent.  It had an overall smoothness that the others did not have.  Again some new flavors crept in.   This round we were getting what we could only describe as a piece of funky fruit.  Sounds pretty good right?  We thought this was a really good mix.  It wasnt as sour as I hoped for but it seems pretty balanced.  Let's try one more with a bit more sour in it.

3.5:2 ratio.  The harsh flavor came back to almost the same level as the 2:1 ratio without picking up too much more on the sour side.

In the end we like the 3:2 ratio and that is where I am going to start.  The reason I say that is where I am going to start is because I still have plenty of my sour stout that has a very sharp acid bite to it.  I may mix in a bit of that to pump up the final acidity in the mixed beer.

_________

The sour stout showing its tight bubbles from
carbonation. Also a bit of lacing.

Now onto the tasting.  The moment we have been waiting for.  It feels like I have been brewing sours for 2 years and have nothing to show for it.  A bunch of quick sour methods while I waited for my original batch of sour red to age in the barrel.  That first beer was far too oakey.  So back to the drawing board.  Next up with the sour stout.  I bottled it right around the 1 year mark but then time got in the way and it slipped into a two year aging process.  It was far too sour so I needed to blend.  Had to wait for that beer to age long enough and now here we are.

I did a 1.5 clean to 1 sour mix for this beer.  Mixed them together and let them sit for a week to mingle and marry together.  I then bottled with fresh yeast and priming sugar.  Then a long 4 weeks ensued.  I really wanted to taste the beer at the two week mark but I was able to make it the full 4 weeks (well actually 3 weeks and 6 days).

I took the bottle opener grab the bottle and just hoped I would hear that hissp sound when you crack open a beer. 

HISSSSSSSP! 

Good sign.  Next I wanted to see some resemblance of a head when I poured the beer.

Glug, glug, glug. HISSS. 

A very tight bubble head formed and quickly falls.  The tight beading sticks with the beer throughout and even leaves some lacing on the glass.  SUCCESS.  A carbonated sour beer!  Im way to excited at this point.

Now my nerves switch over to the ultimate questions - how does it taste? 

I take that first sip.

To my surprise, the beer is super balanced.  It's not as sour as I expected but you know you're drinking a sour beer.  You get a faint hint of the roasty and toasty stout flavors but in a very good way.  They dont clash with the sourness of the beer.  A balanced beer.  (for a sour)

After my first sip I just smile from ear to ear and tell my buddy he better try it.  At this point I was too happy to really critique the beer.  I will do that on the next taster or the first 750ml bottle. 

After my buddy drinks the beer he says "I wish you brought a full case of this because we could drink it all tonight"  The weird thing is that he was right.  This beer ended up being a very refreshing sour.  Not heavy like the head and color would suggest.  Crisp, sour, light and bright. 

I'm sure there are some flaws but I can look for those another day.  Today was about the joy of actually tasting 2 years of work in a small glass.

Now - ONTO THE RED!