August 15, 2019 • 45 mins
Sour beers are the new big thing, but humanity‘s first brews had tart, funky flavors. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren explore the long history and microbial science behind sour beers.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and we'll come to save a production of iHeart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Annies and I'm Lauren Vogel Bob,
and today we've got another classic episode for you. This
one is about sour beer, which are all lage right now.
Oh goodness, my gracious Okay. So, so the episode originally
came out back in September. UM, and the numbers about
(00:27):
growth that we report there are like a little bit startling.
But but we've got some updates for you that are
even more startling, or even more so, yes, because I mean,
in in case, uh, sour beers are not a thing
that you look for or notice a lot on menus, uh,
which I do because I'm usually looking to order those. UM.
(00:48):
From July to July, sales of sour beers rose forty
two point seven percent in the United States. UM sales
here reached fourteen point eight million dollars, and Nielsen named
the Year of the Sour. I feel like we're we've
been in if we're like in the decade of this hour. Yeah.
Oh and I love it. You're there for every minute
(01:11):
of it. Oh gosh. Yeah, sour in the middle of
the winter, all the time they are they're very refreshing
at any time. They are, but they are pretty much
a summer beer. Um. I was at a sour beer
festival what seems like years ago, but I think was yesterday.
It was only yester yesterday, and it was really fun. Yeah,
(01:34):
it's hot, hot, hot here right. Oh, it's quite warm.
It's like it's like Laurence stays inside. There's a heat
advisory right now. Oh gosh. Yeah, So how is the festival?
It was so fun and I found twenty more coozies.
I am impressed with myself. Your entire house is just
(01:55):
going to be filled coozies at a certain point. It's
it's not terribly large. I mean, I know, anybody who
has any crafting ideas for what I can do with
all these coozies, please send them to me. So far,
all I have is make a costume out of it.
So I've become a giant coozy, yes, or like a
bath bath that could work. Maybe they're absorbent. Yeah, sure,
(02:15):
that's more or less the point of them exactly. Um. Also,
this was before we had a formalized nutrition section in
our episodes, so I wanted to say here that sours
actually tend to be lower A BV than many other styles,
which tend to be lower in calories than higher A
BV beers. So um, so they've been kind of glommed
(02:38):
onto by fitness centric folks who are looking for that
sort of low calorie thing. Drink responsibly, yes, yes, but
I suppose that's that's about what we have to say
when it comes to the update. Yes, and so I
suppose now we will let former Annie and Lauren take
it away. Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Lauren
(03:10):
Vogelbam and I'm an Eries. And today we're talking about
sour beer. Or it could really be like a a
two parter Sour Dough Part two or the prequel. Oh,
sour Dough, the prequel. But first, right off the top.
Oh hey, drink responsibly, yes disclaimer Yeah, yeah, there you go. Okay, um,
(03:34):
And we will do episodes about other types of beer
in the future, but we wanted to start with sours
because because before refrigeration and pasteurization, pretty much all beer
was sour beer. A lot of things I read called
it the original beer. Um. It was yet another accidental
discovery that we Yeah, we kind of talked about it
(03:55):
loosely briefly in our Sour Too episode, because the just
goovery of beer is probably closely related to that of bread. Yes, yes,
but let's let's go ahead and ask the question, what
is sour beer, Lauren? What is it? Sour beers are
our beers that contain a larger than usual amount of
(04:16):
sour tasting stuff That makes sense, specifically of of sour
tasting or acidic compounds um which tastes sour. Yes, while
most beers have a around like a four on the
Peach scale, sours tend to dip below that, like as
low as three. And since the Pach scale is a
log arrhythmic one, that means that they are up to
(04:38):
sour beers are up to ten times more sour than
other beers. The Peach scale, by the way, was developed
during the study of beer. Thing. I didn't know. That's great,
of course it was. Yeah. The sourness in sour beers
achieved with a combination of particular yeasts and bacteria that
produce a number of unique flavor compounds as the beer
(05:00):
for bents and yes, friends, this means that this is
another episode about bacteria poop. We got to talk about
this all the time. Fermentation isn't so much more stuff
than I realized. I really can't wait to do our
pickle episode. It's going to be great. Okay, So beer
basics one on one, all right? Yeah. To make beer,
(05:21):
you heat grains and water in a mixture called wort worked,
and then you let the wort ferment um. That is,
you either add yeast to induce fermentation, or you let
wild yeast get in and go to town. The yeasts
eat some of the sugars in the grains, and they
excrete three kind of categories of stuff, alcohol, carbon dioxide,
(05:41):
which provides the bubbles and other compounds that flavor the brew.
The yeasts that are active in making most beers are
of the saccharum mices genus, which which means sugar fungus.
By the way, sugar sugar fungus sounds so much less
sexy or equally sexy saccharam mices. I don't know anyway. Um.
These these critters do float around in the air, but
(06:03):
it's most expedient to add them into a beer yourself,
either from a fresh new culture or from the bomb
of a previous batch of beer. Barmb. You might remember
from our Saturday episode is that foam that develops on
the top of fermenting liquid. It's also the root of
the word barbie, meaning like foolish or ridiculous. And I
(06:24):
cannot believe that I didn't put that together in our
Suraday episode. I didn't either, Barby. It's such a great word.
I know. I've been trying to use that word more
often now. Now I can have an annoying fact to
throw in with it as well. Oh yeah, it's all
on now. But so to make sour beer, you also
(06:44):
want to involve some yeasts from the genus Britanna mices
often called Brett for short, either replacing or in addition
to Sacchara mices. Taxonomically speaking, Bretts are from the same
order as Sacara mices, but from a different family that
their original habitat is the skins of fruits. Brett yeasts
(07:05):
eat sugar um, including long chain, more complex sugars that
Sacara mices do not, and they excrete acetic acid, which
is the fancy name for vinegar, plus some other compounds
that add flavors. They're also more enthusiastic than Sacaro mices,
and so therefore brewers of wine and beer actually have
(07:25):
a hard time keeping them out. Um, you know that
they can tolerate a morri cetic environment. They can enter
the process therefore and and thrive during primary fermentation, during
secondary fermentation in barrels, or even during bottling. Brett is
sometimes called dakara in the wine world. Um, and it
is not people. They are not a fan of it. No.
(07:46):
And it's also sometimes called the beer ruiner. And it
has like you can have a barnyard flavor component. Yeah, yeah,
one of the one of the flavor components and adds
in there is free whently referred to as like yeah
like barnyard or like wet dog. Yeah. And I have
a friend named Brett, who I almost positive is not listening,
(08:11):
but if he is, I got such a huge kick
out of like all sentences that had Brett in there
about how always coming in and ruining everything. It was funny.
Oh that's amazing, hybrid Hi Hybrett, sorry about it? Yeah,
um uh. Sour beers also usually involve our old friends
lactic acid bacteria um, most often of the species Pediococcus
(08:35):
and Lactobacillus. Sours frequently also employ a genus of acetic
acid bacteria called aceto bacter which like brett yeasts, uh
excrete acetic acid. M. Some beers, by the way, that
are more sour than usual get that way with the
addition of non living ingredients like a like passion fruit
(08:56):
or something like that. I like the term non living ingredients.
That's fantastic. Yes, sour beer is a pretty large umbrella.
It includes a lot of stuff. One way I saw
it categorized in the beer business is um, you've got
long term sour beers, and these are beers that are
(09:17):
fermented with a mix of specific bacteria and east and
then aged, usually in a barrel for a specific amount
of time at least six months, but could be up
to two years, could be longer than that, blended and
then typically allowed to referment in the bottle to achieve
the desired level of carbonation. That's kind of the fancy
way of doing it. That's like the real way with
(09:40):
pretty heavy scare quotes around that. Yes, also uh, it
produces a more complex flavor beer, is what I read.
It's pretty close to the to the metal champagoa actually,
So that's why that's why those those those types of
beers tend to be more expensive as opposed to short
term sour beers, which are kettle soured. And you do
(10:02):
this by adding a lacto in the kettle to sour
of the beer in a matter of days before the beer,
lacto is boiled off and then fermented with brewers yeast. Yeah,
lacto being those those lacto lactic acid bacteria. Yeah, but
we're friends, So I like to call it bacto UM.
And this I saw frequently described as a one dimensional beer.
(10:25):
So these are, you know, people who beers their business
and tasting beers their business. So I'm sure that i'd
probably I could tell, but I wouldn't be too too
much about it, because it's a beer and it's delicious. Yes, yeah,
pretty much. Um. And sour beers have undergone a lot,
a lot of growth lately, if you haven't noticed. Yes,
(10:48):
in two thousand and two they made up only fifteen
in trees at the Great American Beer Festival, but that
number was one nineteen in trees. Yeah, And some yours
think that the term itself sour beer has been a
part of the problem when it comes to convincing folks
to try the product, because sour beer has traditionally meant
(11:10):
beer that's off or rotten, and it requires a leap
of faith for you to try it. Oh yeah, I
have a friend who refused to try sour cream until
until adulthood for this reason. Um, and if you're if
you're listening, Darryl, I, I'm glad that you've seen the light.
We had a lot of friends we got messages for
in this episode. I had. I thought at least that
(11:32):
I had my first sour beer less than a year
ago one of my favorite UM bars, and the bartender
described it as a vegetable beer, and I immediately said, well,
that sounds clear, but I've got to try it and
give me some of that horrible sounding thing. I've got
to try this vegetable beer. And I tried it. I
didn't like it because I was expecting beer and it
(11:52):
was like, not what I think of puckery. Yeah, it
was very puckery. It's actually one of my favorites now
though I kept drinking it because I'm a straight and
I'm not gonna throw anything away, and uh, it grew
on me. And yeah, it's at Atlanta by Orpheus. Oh yeah,
that's an excellent one. But doing the research for this episode,
I realized I've had a lot of sour beers. I
(12:13):
just didn't That's not how I thought of them. And
we will talk about that more later. But before we
get to that, let's take a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor.
(12:35):
So let's go to the way back, the way back,
the way way back. Like humans don't have wheels yet,
but they have figured out that if you let grains
plus water like hang out for a while, the result
is maybe tasty and definitely will make you feel away.
It's similar, like we said at the beginning to sour dough.
(12:57):
Brewers would wait and hope for a while back to
here and yeast to work their magic. Uh. And they
didn't really know that's what they were waiting or hoping for. No,
but they knew that if the spars exactly um And
while they didn't control the brewing process in this way,
they did they could distinguish between a good sour or
a bad sour or rotten sour. And they probably knew
(13:20):
that there was a difference in flavor based on the
season that this thing happened to this magical thing happened. Yes,
some historians theorized that beer and they love humans have
for it was the impetus for us to start doing
agriculture at all. Oh yeah, which, if true, means beer
has been around for like ten thousand years. Were you
(13:42):
actually got a listener mail about this, so I'm glad,
I'm glad we're going to discuss it. The theory goes that,
based on the discovery of piles of animal bones and
large stone barrels that may have been used to brew
like a grass beer at true, for some reason, I'm magic,
(14:03):
just like handfuls of green grass. That's totally inaccurate. You're right. Um,
they found these things at eleven thousand plus year old
temple ruins in southern Turkey. Um, and they think the
humans may have settled down there to build a temple
to worship more. And we all know the best way
to get people to help you out when you're moving
(14:24):
or building a temple is with food and beer bribe, right, Yeah, clearly. Yeah,
so from there you need to domesticate grains, not for bread,
but for all your barberry beer. Yes, So, according to
this theory, beer cane before bread, or at least in
this particular instance. But it is just theory. Yeah. Interesting,
(14:49):
it's pre written history by long shots. Yeah oh yeah.
And the bones, by the way, they could tell, were
like barbecued, so it's like barbecue and beer. Oh man, Actually,
help somebody move right now. Yep, there's a side. The
oldest written record of beer comes to us in the
six thousand year old Hymn of Ninkasi, and it goes
(15:13):
as follows, Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out
the filtered beer of the collector vet. It is like
the on rush of Tigris and euphrates. Wow, yep, that's beautiful.
Evidence found at a Mesopotamian trading outpost and present day
Iran indicates barley was being fermented there by three thousand
(15:35):
five b C. The Sumerians were making beer around that
time too, and a little south of Egypt and ancient
Nubian culture was fermenting an ale like beverage called bousa. Yes,
ancient Sumerian text mentioned eight barley beers, eight immer beers,
which is a type of wheat, and three mixed beers.
(15:57):
And they described the experience of drinking beer and written
documents as exhilarated, wonderful, and blissful sounds. About right. Yeah, yeah,
drink responsibly. Um. But by the way, this was about
the time that humans invented wheels for pottery, and then
for wheeled vehicles of a few hundred years later. Um,
the first wheeled chariot probably happened around thirty two BC.
(16:21):
So humans had beer four thousands of years before anyone
had to worry about designated drivers. Well, you know, that's
that's very so interesting. I guess that makes sense because
food is more important than moving stuff at a certain point. Yeah.
Still kind of kind of strange, I think though. Yeah.
(16:41):
The ancient Babylonians had records of twenty types of bruise
by two thousand BC, and each citizen got a daily
beer rashtion in an amount fitting to their social status. Yeah,
you could even be paid for working beer. The ancient
Egyptians had records of five types of beer and had
a five thousand year old saying that went, may you
(17:02):
have bread that doesn't go stale and beer that doesn't
go sour, which they think, in this case meant rotten,
because all beer would have been so at the time. Yeah.
At the time, By the way, beer brewing was done
almost entirely by women. M HM. They also had over
(17:22):
one hundred medicinal prescriptions for beer. Again in a case
of the like, they're like, we like this stuff, so
let's find ways to make this work, right. Yeah, makes
you kind of careless, that's true. Um. The ancient Greeks
and Romans, though they thought that beer was a barbarian drink.
(17:43):
They had so many great opinions. They really they really did. Um.
They were much more partial to wine. Surprise, Um, there
are a record circuit five of beer being brewed by
Germanic groups, but they were kind of looked down upon.
And here's a quote from historian Tacitus to drink the
two tons have a horrible brew fermented from barley or wheat,
(18:07):
a brew which has only a very far removed similarity
to wine. And horrible brew. Yeah, brewers at the time
would add things like honey to enhance like the flavor
and smell. A lot of the earliest beers were made
with grains that still had to husk on them. So
a lot of the ancient carvings to pick people drinking
(18:30):
beers out of straws like literal straws, and they're very long.
I found the carvings interesting, very long straws. If we
skip ahead to Europe in the Middle Ages, the Catholic
Church got involved in beer brewing, mostly to make money.
Many Christians viewed beer as a gift from God until
(18:50):
the nineteenth century brought with it concerns of alcoholism. The
whole temperance movement we've talked about before. We have it
was also seen as less of a risk and drinking
water because water had all the bacteria. Yeah, you didn't know.
It makes makes sense. A lot of bacteria can't live
in a environment that's as acidic or alcoholic as as beer. Yeah,
(19:13):
makes sense. Early North American settlers, um, women were the
family bereers in this case of beer, using things like pumpkins, artichokes,
and corn. Pumpkin beer goes way back. I know, we'll
have to do an episode, okay, okay, at different time. Yeah. Uh.
And it was such a staple that bride ale was
sold during weddings with all proceeds benefiting the bride, and
(19:36):
during and after giving birth, women drink groaning beer. That's
what it was called. Yeah, that's not my favorite terming.
Groaning beer. That sounds like a haunted beer product. I
don't know, and or something that you drink during Festivus,
like during the airing of greevances. Yeah, that would befitting. Yes. Yes.
(20:01):
In Germany as early as the ninth century, hops were
added to beer, and this practice slowly spread over the
next couple of centuries. From there, brewers came up with
some brewing guidelines and started mass producing beer as opposed
to the then standard of just making your own um
and the guidelines were adopted across Europe and by fifteen
(20:22):
sixteen is generally agreed upon date. Uh Germany enacted the
Beer Purity Law, which was meant to reassure the medieval
beer drinker that all that was in his or her
beer was hops, malted barley and wheat east and water.
So that's that's pretty far back. Yeah, I have these guidelines. Well,
(20:43):
I mean, you know, people have been working on it
for what like nine thousand years at that point. I
guess they did have a long time to think about it.
If we hop over to medieval Belgium, where many of
the sour beer styles we enjoyed today were perfected, Belgian
brewers would fill these huge troughs called cool ships by
the way, wool ships. That's awesome with wart, the unfermented
(21:06):
liquid that you that will be beer, uh, that you
get from mashing the malt you got from barley. Right,
we mentioned that earlier. Um, and you always pulling them
up into the highbrary ceilings where they kept the windows
open so that these wild use in bacteria could flow
it on in. And and yeah, get get all up
(21:27):
in the wart, hanging out in the cool ships. Yes,
it sounds like a very fun process. Around this time,
some of the styles of Sara beers started becoming more defined.
And here a few examples. But don't be mad if
don't mention your favorite. There are a ton of them. Yes. Um.
The trough plus pulley plus window brewing method resulted in Olympic,
which I also called a true lambic. And I've had
(21:49):
a lot of these before I had my first what
I thought sour beer in Atlanta about a year ago.
So I have been drinking surer beer for a bit longer.
For for for a longer time than that. Yeah, you could,
if you want, You can blend fruit into it or
not or not. Yep. After the wild bacteria yeast exposure occurs,
(22:12):
the beer is barrel aged for about six months to
a year, and this is the oldest beer style in Belgium.
Then they usually age it in the wooden barrels because
the breathable porous would kind of acted as a breeding
ground for all kinds of sour and funkifying bacteria, and
it also helped to flavor. Yeah, some of the oldest
(22:33):
breweries in Belgium famously refused to dust or even like
remove cobwebs from their barrel rooms to avoid disturbing the
natural colonies of micro organisms that are hanging out there.
That's kind of beautiful. It's like you've got your own
little tiny city you can't see. Yes, I know making here.
Just dude, just doing the stuff. Um, pooping a lot
(22:54):
delicious flavors. Um. I'm pretty sure a true Limbic is
a single vintage, but sometimes older and younger vintages are
blended together to create another style of sour that's called
a gaze. And I think I'm saying that right. Um.
These go through a secondary fermentation after they're bottled, leading
to a kind of Champagney mouth feel and a more
balanced acidity. Another style is creek Creek creek that is
(23:20):
soured with tart barillo cherries, that's good. Yeah, before hops
were discovered and almost universally agreed upon as the thing
to use, as put down by the Germans in their
beer purity law that you you used fruit are herbs
for flavoring and bittering. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in Belgium,
which is when most I tried most things, I enjoyed
(23:43):
many a creek and I think they made it. There
was like a university there where the students made sold
beer help pay for their school. That's so cool. It
was cool. I think it was a creek in in
creek and other fruit lambics by the way that the
fruit is added during the bear all aging process and
it sets off a secondary fermentation man champagne. All all
(24:06):
these throwbacks in this episode. There's West Flanders Sour red Ale,
where the acidification of beers was seen as something like
a conservation method. Yeah, the low pH keeping the not
so good bacteria from propagating. Older morricidic beer was mixed
in with the newer batches to keep that bad stuff out.
(24:27):
And then we got to talk about the goza, not
to be confused with the other things. That sounds a
lot like goza, yes, but has more use involved in
the spelling exactly. Records suggest that in mere By, Germany,
because we're moving away from Beltim into Germany. The Sara
style beer called Goza was a local favorite in Leipzig,
which is a town one miles east of its hometown
(24:50):
of Gosler by the eighteenth century. Gozes are known for
their salty quality, along with the sarnus which you get
with the dish and of salts, what and coriander to
the malt before fermentation goes as they undergo two fermentations
as well, the first and the wooden barrels and second
(25:11):
in the bottle where a stopper is created out of
the dead yeast earlies. I know this one experienced a
super super high and then is super low in terms
of popularity. In nine hundred there were eighty Ghostshenka. I
don't know. I think so um or licensed goes of
taverns in Germany. But after World War Two the last
(25:34):
remaining goes of factory was closed. Elipsig Brewery revived the
Goza in six but when the owner of the brewery
died in nineteen sixty nine, the goes and went with him.
It wasn't until the nineteen eighties, the reopening of a
ghost in Schenka started repopularizing the style, and it's currently
making a major comebout. Google trends data from eleven to
(26:00):
shows that searches for gozas have outpaced that of sour beers,
especially in the South where the weather is more inviting
to the start salty beverage. But it's it's like trending
and it's super what was going up. But it is
definitely a personal favorite of mine. It's just real, real
weird tasting. It's got a lot of flavors. I like it.
It's good. You definitely need to. It's one of those
(26:22):
things you need to go in and know what you're getting,
I think, because otherwise you'll have an experience. Like yeah,
I always warned people. I'm like this beer is salty,
and they look at me and I'm like, no, really,
try it, try it, just no, just no. Yeah. Another
German sour, the Berliner Weissa, was developed around this time
as well, possibly in medieval Hamburg, but it was mostly
(26:44):
enjoyed in you guessed it, Berlin, Berlin. I know, And
actually the product is now a protected appelation in Germany.
As in brewers making it outside of Berlin. Can't call
it that, yeah, which is kind of predict ulous in
all areas. Napoleon nicknamed this beer the Champagne of the North. Well,
(27:06):
that's pretty, that's nice. Nice words from Napoleon. Eighteenth century
English brewing books typically had a chapter on how to
fix sour beer. But again it's it's hard to definitely
say if they met sour as in rotten or as
in the flavor of sour. But it is around this
time with the arrival of commercial refrigeration and bottling, coupled
(27:29):
with the ever increasing railways and routes and trains that
made it easier to mass produce and sell beer. There
were three thousand two d breweries up and running by
eighty in the US. And some some of this, some
of this refrigeration type research was also and and you know,
the general spread of scientific inquiry was leading to some
(27:51):
really interesting other research into microorganisms. Exactly in eighty three,
Danish scientist mL Hansen reproduced Pure East, the first of
its kind, at Carlsberg. Carlsberg like the beer that Carlsberg yep.
This meant viwers didn't have to depend on tricky inconsistent
(28:14):
wild yeast. Similarly, Louis Pastor's pasteurization meant that verwers could
get rid of the bacteria behind the sureness if they
so chose, and many of them did. In the late
eighteen eighties, a few researchers isolated secondary yeasts is what
they were calling them, that that created those sour, funky
flavors and beers that specifically in English and Irish beers. Then,
(28:38):
in three bleeding into nineteen o four, another employee of
Carlsberg's labs, one Niel's Clawson, identified and published his research
on one of these secondary yeasts, calling it Britanno mices clauseny,
meaning British fungus, and also, you know, giving himself a nice,
nice props. Yes, And we had to retake this bit
(29:01):
because I had a moment of insane excitement that this
could possibly be the same guy behind that the Clossen,
could be Classen's pickles, it could be we don't know
that for sure, I'm going to look it up immediately
after this. So a lot of breweries went to work
on isolating yea strains and making them proprietary, and this
(29:21):
meant a more consistent product that could be produced anywhere
at any time without waiting with your fingers crossed on
those wild yeast in bacteria. And that meant that sour
beers became more and more rare. And speaking of if
you're looking at sour beer in the US, it should
be no surprise to anyone that prohibition kind of put
(29:43):
a damper on things. Uh, kind of slow the whole
beer thing now in general. Yes, And by the time
it was repealed, most breweries in the US had shut down.
One of the largest survived by making near beer, non
alcoholic beer. That's how most of them, any of the survivors,
(30:04):
that's how they survived. Yeah. And post prohibition, the US
government imposed very strict regulations on beer brewing that pretty
much made it impossible for smaller breweries to weather And
it wasn't until President Carter lifted some of these regulations
in ninety nine that smaller breweries started opening. And at
(30:25):
the time they were less than one hundred breweries in
the US. Today, the Brewers Association estimates set there are
over three thousand. And a quick note about beer and
in Asia, beer doesn't really have a long history in Asia.
The oldest brewery in Europe. Germany's the hens to Fund
Brewery was founded in seven sixty eight CE. Asia's oldest
(30:50):
brewery is two hundred years old, and it was set
up by the British for the British in the Himalayas.
Japan's first brewery, modern day Kieran was established in eighteen
sixty nine by a Norwegian American fellow, and the second
largest brewery in China Seemed now only goes back to
nineteen o three, when it was established by German settlers.
(31:11):
Um And this isn't to say at all that beer
in Asia was founded by immigrants or anything of the story.
It's just that the history is very, very young in
the region. They're much more into their wine and sucky. Yeah, yeah,
we will talk about yes, oh yeah, oh so that's
going to be a thirsty, thirsty episode. Yes. Convergially speaking,
(31:32):
it wasn't until the nineteen seventies that Belgian style sour
beers were first available for purchase in the US. Even
into the late nineties and still now I hear it's
just rare. It wasn't uncommon for people to return cases
of sourer beer because they thought it had gone bad. Yeah,
they tried it, they were like, oh no, it is wrong. Here,
(31:52):
take it back. American microbrewers didn't start experimenting with sours
until the nineteen nineties, when brands like omagong Oli, Gosh
and New Belgium Brewing decided to use more Belgium approach
to the whole thing instead of the English style norm
of the time. But they still weren't making sour beers
(32:14):
as we know them. They were kind of one offs. Um.
Some breweries were experimenting without a fruit to beer, like
New gliss Wisconsin, Belgium read that was brewed with cherries,
or Southampton public houses sour style beers. But again these
were rare. You didn't you didn't really find them in stores.
But New Belgium decided to invest in a barrel aging
(32:36):
program in n and by two thousand and one, La
fally A blended sour aged and barrels won a gold
medal at the Great American Beer Festival. Yeah, it was
one of the first of its kind brewed in the
US and by a popular enough brewery that the word
got out. Yes, word did get out. Port Brewing Company,
(32:56):
whose owner had experimented with Brett the yeast, not the
person uh and loved the flavor of wild East followed
suit on the West coast and as the craft beer
movement took off in the US. So it is sour beers.
Even Millard Cores is experimenting with sours these days. The
Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beer had one hundred
(33:19):
and fifty six sours and a sympnauseum about sour beers
a recent one um and how to make them attracted
two beers and they had to turn brewers away. They
just didn't have space, I mean, not for the brewers,
but not for bres. But that Yeah, it's nice and
a little fun fact that I ran across. Guinness, who
(33:40):
is very secretive about their brewing process, claims that the
sour no and their beer comes from three to four
percent of old vinegarized beer that they store and wooden
containers blended into each new batch, which, if that's true,
it's the most widely consumed sour beer in the world.
Oh wow, yeah interesting. Okay, so we have some other
(34:07):
interesting stuff to tell you about organic chemistry. But first
let's take another quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So let's get into
(34:29):
flavor science for a minute. Here. One way that you
get sense and flavors is via chemical compounds called Esther's
and okay, organic chemistry. We can we can do this.
We can get through this together, friends, we can. Okay.
So In a yeast cell, like brett Uh, esters are
created by by enzymes when the cell is trying to
(34:51):
get work done but it doesn't have enough energy to
get work done, cells have to make chemical reactions happen,
turn turning it by of raw materials or reactants into
a bunch of products that it wants. Okay um, And
sometimes those chemical reactions take more energy than is readily available.
(35:11):
Uh Like. Well, let's say that you're trying to put
a nail into a wall, right, but all you've got
is the nail and the wall and your bare hands.
It's going to take a lot of work to get
that nail. In, enzymes give you a hammer. M okay
uh like like in in that yeast cell or or
in its cell membrane. These enzymes create esters, which interact
(35:34):
with the raw materials to allow the chemical reaction to
happen at a lower energy. By in hammerton nail, the
work gets done for any professional organic chemists out there.
I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. But but please
write in and let me know if I'm terribly wrong
and lying to people. But it's a nice way, constructive. Yes,
(35:54):
oh please please do Okay, alright, So, so you've got
these esters that cells have created in order to do
some stuff. They they hang out in or around a
yeast cell until they're broken down by more other enzymes
in order to help do more other work. In some cases, though,
the rate of ester production is much higher than the
rate of esther breakdown, and that's when you wind up
(36:17):
with a whole bunch of a particular esther in the
yeast cells. General environment and ester's are compounds, like I said,
that trigger our senses of taste and smell. They're what give,
for example, fruits and flowers their scents and flavors. A
couple of examples. Let's take ethyl hexanoate. It's a product
of the growth process in both uh saccaro mices and
(36:38):
bread yeasts, and it's also found in unripe bananas and pineapples.
Um or or another another esther, ethyl syringe gate. It
comes from an interaction of alcohol with an acid that's
naturally present in oak barrels, and it's also present in
tobacco and figs. Okay, so so so these these esters
(37:02):
that are in various other foods and products that we
run into and and that have sense because they have
sense our stuff that happens in in beers, and they
happen more often in sour beers than regular beers because
esters are created from acids plus alcohols, and because Brett
(37:23):
and the bacteria and sours create acids, you get more
esters in these finished alcoholic products. Makes sense to me.
I always thought esters for those things that like you
put it under someone's noves after they passed. I think
that's where that I think that's where that comes from.
That that that is that is an ester. It's a
it's a scent compound vial. Yeah, Okay, they go into perfumes,
(37:48):
they go into artificial foods and flavorings and yeah, and
any time that you're smelling a flour, you're basically just
inhaling and esters. I will be sure to ruin someone's
romantic moment. Next time I see smelling of flower, you're
inhaling some esters right now, Hey, just allowed to let
you know that, Yeah, ruined people's fun. That's great. So
(38:11):
all of these esters that are going to work in
sour beers mean that that although beers have been sour
for much of history, making like a really good refined
sour beer is kind of difficult. Breadths are notoriously unpredictable
and get a lot of that barnyard taste into stuff,
(38:32):
which not everyone is excited about. Um. Also, some brewers
avoid sours because once you welcome these yeasts and bacteria
into your brewery, you risk cross contamination um, cross infection
with your non sour beers. Rights. Yeah, it's also quite
um quite an investment. Oh yeah, and all that time.
(38:54):
Uh and and for for this reason, wineries and non
sour beer brewers generally want to get rid of wooden
barrels that have been infected with Brett and those souring bacteria,
but sour beer manufacturers are super happy about taking them.
It all kind of works out, it does, yeah, uh
as as we've mentioned, they're generally aged for at least
(39:15):
a year uh with with beer. Kind of like anyone's
just saying a wooden barrels have to be watched. I
eat tasted um very carefully. Because of the relatively low
alcohol and high pH of beer versus wine. So there's
even a sour beer project, just like the Sour Dough Project.
There's so many crossovers. Their goal is to understand this
(39:39):
quote microbiological mystery. It's very similar to the sour Dough project.
They want you to send in samples and they're going
to analyze it and map it. So. Oh, that's wonderful.
Look it up if you're interested. Yeah. Oh, and a
note about pairing sour beers. A note about notes uh uh. So, so,
(39:59):
the the acidity of sour beers is really great for
cheese courses. Um. Also also there's there's all that complexity
and little salt twinges that helps set cheeses off. Um.
The more powerful sours are really great with with very
powerful dishes that could stand up to them. You know,
a barbecue, fatty, grilled meats and fish, mushrooms, distinctive shellfish
(40:21):
like like crabs or muscles, um, and anything savory that
you've made with plums, okay, plumps and specific uh yeah yeah.
Um that the more delicate sours are nice with like
spicy foods and salads and lighter proteins of mild milder
fish or chicken. Um. But you know, really, as as always,
get out there and try stuff and find out what
pairings you like. Yeah, there's no well, very few. There's
(40:47):
a couple of wrong ways to drink to drink a beer,
but there's somethings I personally would avoid, but you know,
whatever works for you exactly. Well, that is our episode
on our beer. Um. We probably there's gonna be a
video about this, Yes, we hope. So we're set to
go film and a couple of brewers, local local brewers
(41:11):
in in the near future. And if that happens, then
by the time this episode comes out, the video will
probably be done. Yes, it's like time travel. It is.
It's a very fun game of prediction and chance. Yes, um.
And and we will absolutely do more other episodes about
more other styles of beer and get into a few
(41:34):
of the fun facts that I was. I was just like, no,
I can't go down that rabbit hole. I have to
have to re center back back to sour beers. So yeah,
really excited about all of that in the future. Absolutely,
But for now, let's read some listener mail. Listener mail
Chad sent as this note, I greatly enjoyed your episode
(41:55):
concerning sura dough. The information helped me further appreciate my
own sour dough col sure, which sits beside the butter
and yeast in my refrigerator. Her name is Pearl, and
I recently realized that because of her, I've developed a
strange habit. I made this culture from scratch, meaning I
was able to experience the quote dirty sock smell at
(42:15):
its start, and I am fascinated that it now smells
like sweet buttermilk, so much so that I caught myself
inviting my family to smell the culture as I attempted
to do impart my excitement concerning this transformation. About midway
through handing the Mason jar to my dad, I thought, dude,
this is weird. Don't make this a habit anyway. I
(42:38):
love your show. Pearl seems to enjoy it as well
as it gives her culture. See what I did there?
Love it? Thank you? Yes? And I don't know. I
don't think it's that weird. If if we ever end
up at your house, please let us smell Pearl. Now
it feels a little Oh no, it feels weird. I
(42:58):
made it weird. It's okay, okay, Megan wrote in response
to our French food episode. When I was in college,
I did study abroad for five weeks in Strasbourg, France. Yes,
the professor that was with our group banned McDonald's. She
told us that we didn't come all the way to
France and just to eat McDonald's. Well, my college roommate
(43:20):
was also on the same trip and we got a
little homesick and decided to comfort ourselves with some Mickey D's.
So as we were walking bags in hand to secretly
eat our contraband McDonald's, of course we ran into our professor,
and of course she reprimanded us, but it was totally
worth it because it was so delicious, like a million
times better than what they serve over here. Hands down,
(43:43):
no regrets about traveling to France to eat McDonald's. We
have had so many listeners, so many listeners right in
about experiences at McDonald's in other countries, especially in France
and Japan, which I find fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, and that
(44:04):
brings us to the end of this classic episode. Yes,
although although I do have one update for y'all, um,
I did not after the episode was over, but just
now go check um the pickles claws in Pickles were
founded not by Niels Clawson mentioned in this episode, but
by m Claus Clawson of Chicago. What a name, Clause
(44:28):
Claws And I know, I love it. I hope he
dressed up as a lobster one year. I hope he
pulled a Lauren. I hope that many people pull a Lauren. Actually,
I don't know. I'm like that it depends on what
kind of Lauren you're gonna pull. I mean, the lobster.
It's more people need to be dressed as lobsters. Well
(44:50):
now I can't shake the image of him dress as
Santa Claus in a lobster outfit. And okay, anyway, we
hope that you enjoyed this classic episod and we would
really enjoy hearing from you. Oh yes, you can email
us at hello at saborpod dot com. We're also on
social media. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and
(45:10):
that other one on Twitter. Yes, where we are at
saber Pod All three. Savor is a production of I
Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcast in my
Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers, Dylan Vagan and
Andrew Howard. I believe the original superproducer on this was
(45:31):
Tristan nick neil. Tristan McNeil. Tristan McNeil. Yes, I believe
so yes, thanks to them, Thank you to you for listening,
and we have lots more good thanks are coming your
way
Hello, and we'll come to save a production of iHeart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Annies and I'm Lauren Vogel Bob,
and today we've got another classic episode for you. This
one is about sour beer, which are all lage right now.
Oh goodness, my gracious Okay. So, so the episode originally
came out back in September. UM, and the numbers about
(00:27):
growth that we report there are like a little bit startling.
But but we've got some updates for you that are
even more startling, or even more so, yes, because I mean,
in in case, uh, sour beers are not a thing
that you look for or notice a lot on menus, uh,
which I do because I'm usually looking to order those. UM.
(00:48):
From July to July, sales of sour beers rose forty
two point seven percent in the United States. UM sales
here reached fourteen point eight million dollars, and Nielsen named
the Year of the Sour. I feel like we're we've
been in if we're like in the decade of this hour. Yeah.
Oh and I love it. You're there for every minute
(01:11):
of it. Oh gosh. Yeah, sour in the middle of
the winter, all the time they are they're very refreshing
at any time. They are, but they are pretty much
a summer beer. Um. I was at a sour beer
festival what seems like years ago, but I think was yesterday.
It was only yester yesterday, and it was really fun. Yeah,
(01:34):
it's hot, hot, hot here right. Oh, it's quite warm.
It's like it's like Laurence stays inside. There's a heat
advisory right now. Oh gosh. Yeah, So how is the festival?
It was so fun and I found twenty more coozies.
I am impressed with myself. Your entire house is just
(01:55):
going to be filled coozies at a certain point. It's
it's not terribly large. I mean, I know, anybody who
has any crafting ideas for what I can do with
all these coozies, please send them to me. So far,
all I have is make a costume out of it.
So I've become a giant coozy, yes, or like a
bath bath that could work. Maybe they're absorbent. Yeah, sure,
(02:15):
that's more or less the point of them exactly. Um. Also,
this was before we had a formalized nutrition section in
our episodes, so I wanted to say here that sours
actually tend to be lower A BV than many other styles,
which tend to be lower in calories than higher A
BV beers. So um, so they've been kind of glommed
(02:38):
onto by fitness centric folks who are looking for that
sort of low calorie thing. Drink responsibly, yes, yes, but
I suppose that's that's about what we have to say
when it comes to the update. Yes, and so I
suppose now we will let former Annie and Lauren take
it away. Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Lauren
(03:10):
Vogelbam and I'm an Eries. And today we're talking about
sour beer. Or it could really be like a a
two parter Sour Dough Part two or the prequel. Oh,
sour Dough, the prequel. But first, right off the top.
Oh hey, drink responsibly, yes disclaimer Yeah, yeah, there you go. Okay, um,
(03:34):
And we will do episodes about other types of beer
in the future, but we wanted to start with sours
because because before refrigeration and pasteurization, pretty much all beer
was sour beer. A lot of things I read called
it the original beer. Um. It was yet another accidental
discovery that we Yeah, we kind of talked about it
(03:55):
loosely briefly in our Sour Too episode, because the just
goovery of beer is probably closely related to that of bread. Yes, yes,
but let's let's go ahead and ask the question, what
is sour beer, Lauren? What is it? Sour beers are
our beers that contain a larger than usual amount of
(04:16):
sour tasting stuff That makes sense, specifically of of sour
tasting or acidic compounds um which tastes sour. Yes, while
most beers have a around like a four on the
Peach scale, sours tend to dip below that, like as
low as three. And since the Pach scale is a
log arrhythmic one, that means that they are up to
(04:38):
sour beers are up to ten times more sour than
other beers. The Peach scale, by the way, was developed
during the study of beer. Thing. I didn't know. That's great,
of course it was. Yeah. The sourness in sour beers
achieved with a combination of particular yeasts and bacteria that
produce a number of unique flavor compounds as the beer
(05:00):
for bents and yes, friends, this means that this is
another episode about bacteria poop. We got to talk about
this all the time. Fermentation isn't so much more stuff
than I realized. I really can't wait to do our
pickle episode. It's going to be great. Okay, So beer
basics one on one, all right? Yeah. To make beer,
(05:21):
you heat grains and water in a mixture called wort worked,
and then you let the wort ferment um. That is,
you either add yeast to induce fermentation, or you let
wild yeast get in and go to town. The yeasts
eat some of the sugars in the grains, and they
excrete three kind of categories of stuff, alcohol, carbon dioxide,
(05:41):
which provides the bubbles and other compounds that flavor the brew.
The yeasts that are active in making most beers are
of the saccharum mices genus, which which means sugar fungus.
By the way, sugar sugar fungus sounds so much less
sexy or equally sexy saccharam mices. I don't know anyway. Um.
These these critters do float around in the air, but
(06:03):
it's most expedient to add them into a beer yourself,
either from a fresh new culture or from the bomb
of a previous batch of beer. Barmb. You might remember
from our Saturday episode is that foam that develops on
the top of fermenting liquid. It's also the root of
the word barbie, meaning like foolish or ridiculous. And I
(06:24):
cannot believe that I didn't put that together in our
Suraday episode. I didn't either, Barby. It's such a great word.
I know. I've been trying to use that word more
often now. Now I can have an annoying fact to
throw in with it as well. Oh yeah, it's all
on now. But so to make sour beer, you also
(06:44):
want to involve some yeasts from the genus Britanna mices
often called Brett for short, either replacing or in addition
to Sacchara mices. Taxonomically speaking, Bretts are from the same
order as Sacara mices, but from a different family that
their original habitat is the skins of fruits. Brett yeasts
(07:05):
eat sugar um, including long chain, more complex sugars that
Sacara mices do not, and they excrete acetic acid, which
is the fancy name for vinegar, plus some other compounds
that add flavors. They're also more enthusiastic than Sacaro mices,
and so therefore brewers of wine and beer actually have
(07:25):
a hard time keeping them out. Um, you know that
they can tolerate a morri cetic environment. They can enter
the process therefore and and thrive during primary fermentation, during
secondary fermentation in barrels, or even during bottling. Brett is
sometimes called dakara in the wine world. Um, and it
is not people. They are not a fan of it. No.
(07:46):
And it's also sometimes called the beer ruiner. And it
has like you can have a barnyard flavor component. Yeah, yeah,
one of the one of the flavor components and adds
in there is free whently referred to as like yeah
like barnyard or like wet dog. Yeah. And I have
a friend named Brett, who I almost positive is not listening,
(08:11):
but if he is, I got such a huge kick
out of like all sentences that had Brett in there
about how always coming in and ruining everything. It was funny.
Oh that's amazing, hybrid Hi Hybrett, sorry about it? Yeah,
um uh. Sour beers also usually involve our old friends
lactic acid bacteria um, most often of the species Pediococcus
(08:35):
and Lactobacillus. Sours frequently also employ a genus of acetic
acid bacteria called aceto bacter which like brett yeasts, uh
excrete acetic acid. M. Some beers, by the way, that
are more sour than usual get that way with the
addition of non living ingredients like a like passion fruit
(08:56):
or something like that. I like the term non living ingredients.
That's fantastic. Yes, sour beer is a pretty large umbrella.
It includes a lot of stuff. One way I saw
it categorized in the beer business is um, you've got
long term sour beers, and these are beers that are
(09:17):
fermented with a mix of specific bacteria and east and
then aged, usually in a barrel for a specific amount
of time at least six months, but could be up
to two years, could be longer than that, blended and
then typically allowed to referment in the bottle to achieve
the desired level of carbonation. That's kind of the fancy
way of doing it. That's like the real way with
(09:40):
pretty heavy scare quotes around that. Yes, also uh, it
produces a more complex flavor beer, is what I read.
It's pretty close to the to the metal champagoa actually,
So that's why that's why those those those types of
beers tend to be more expensive as opposed to short
term sour beers, which are kettle soured. And you do
(10:02):
this by adding a lacto in the kettle to sour
of the beer in a matter of days before the beer,
lacto is boiled off and then fermented with brewers yeast. Yeah,
lacto being those those lacto lactic acid bacteria. Yeah, but
we're friends, So I like to call it bacto UM.
And this I saw frequently described as a one dimensional beer.
(10:25):
So these are, you know, people who beers their business
and tasting beers their business. So I'm sure that i'd
probably I could tell, but I wouldn't be too too
much about it, because it's a beer and it's delicious. Yes, yeah,
pretty much. Um. And sour beers have undergone a lot,
a lot of growth lately, if you haven't noticed. Yes,
(10:48):
in two thousand and two they made up only fifteen
in trees at the Great American Beer Festival, but that
number was one nineteen in trees. Yeah, And some yours
think that the term itself sour beer has been a
part of the problem when it comes to convincing folks
to try the product, because sour beer has traditionally meant
(11:10):
beer that's off or rotten, and it requires a leap
of faith for you to try it. Oh yeah, I
have a friend who refused to try sour cream until
until adulthood for this reason. Um, and if you're if
you're listening, Darryl, I, I'm glad that you've seen the light.
We had a lot of friends we got messages for
in this episode. I had. I thought at least that
(11:32):
I had my first sour beer less than a year
ago one of my favorite UM bars, and the bartender
described it as a vegetable beer, and I immediately said, well,
that sounds clear, but I've got to try it and
give me some of that horrible sounding thing. I've got
to try this vegetable beer. And I tried it. I
didn't like it because I was expecting beer and it
(11:52):
was like, not what I think of puckery. Yeah, it
was very puckery. It's actually one of my favorites now
though I kept drinking it because I'm a straight and
I'm not gonna throw anything away, and uh, it grew
on me. And yeah, it's at Atlanta by Orpheus. Oh yeah,
that's an excellent one. But doing the research for this episode,
I realized I've had a lot of sour beers. I
(12:13):
just didn't That's not how I thought of them. And
we will talk about that more later. But before we
get to that, let's take a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor.
(12:35):
So let's go to the way back, the way back,
the way way back. Like humans don't have wheels yet,
but they have figured out that if you let grains
plus water like hang out for a while, the result
is maybe tasty and definitely will make you feel away.
It's similar, like we said at the beginning to sour dough.
(12:57):
Brewers would wait and hope for a while back to
here and yeast to work their magic. Uh. And they
didn't really know that's what they were waiting or hoping for. No,
but they knew that if the spars exactly um And
while they didn't control the brewing process in this way,
they did they could distinguish between a good sour or
a bad sour or rotten sour. And they probably knew
(13:20):
that there was a difference in flavor based on the
season that this thing happened to this magical thing happened. Yes,
some historians theorized that beer and they love humans have
for it was the impetus for us to start doing
agriculture at all. Oh yeah, which, if true, means beer
has been around for like ten thousand years. Were you
(13:42):
actually got a listener mail about this, so I'm glad,
I'm glad we're going to discuss it. The theory goes that,
based on the discovery of piles of animal bones and
large stone barrels that may have been used to brew
like a grass beer at true, for some reason, I'm magic,
(14:03):
just like handfuls of green grass. That's totally inaccurate. You're right. Um,
they found these things at eleven thousand plus year old
temple ruins in southern Turkey. Um, and they think the
humans may have settled down there to build a temple
to worship more. And we all know the best way
to get people to help you out when you're moving
(14:24):
or building a temple is with food and beer bribe, right, Yeah, clearly. Yeah,
so from there you need to domesticate grains, not for bread,
but for all your barberry beer. Yes, So, according to
this theory, beer cane before bread, or at least in
this particular instance. But it is just theory. Yeah. Interesting,
(14:49):
it's pre written history by long shots. Yeah oh yeah.
And the bones, by the way, they could tell, were
like barbecued, so it's like barbecue and beer. Oh man, Actually,
help somebody move right now. Yep, there's a side. The
oldest written record of beer comes to us in the
six thousand year old Hymn of Ninkasi, and it goes
(15:13):
as follows, Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out
the filtered beer of the collector vet. It is like
the on rush of Tigris and euphrates. Wow, yep, that's beautiful.
Evidence found at a Mesopotamian trading outpost and present day
Iran indicates barley was being fermented there by three thousand
(15:35):
five b C. The Sumerians were making beer around that
time too, and a little south of Egypt and ancient
Nubian culture was fermenting an ale like beverage called bousa. Yes,
ancient Sumerian text mentioned eight barley beers, eight immer beers,
which is a type of wheat, and three mixed beers.
(15:57):
And they described the experience of drinking beer and written
documents as exhilarated, wonderful, and blissful sounds. About right. Yeah, yeah,
drink responsibly. Um. But by the way, this was about
the time that humans invented wheels for pottery, and then
for wheeled vehicles of a few hundred years later. Um,
the first wheeled chariot probably happened around thirty two BC.
(16:21):
So humans had beer four thousands of years before anyone
had to worry about designated drivers. Well, you know, that's
that's very so interesting. I guess that makes sense because
food is more important than moving stuff at a certain point. Yeah.
Still kind of kind of strange, I think though. Yeah.
(16:41):
The ancient Babylonians had records of twenty types of bruise
by two thousand BC, and each citizen got a daily
beer rashtion in an amount fitting to their social status. Yeah,
you could even be paid for working beer. The ancient
Egyptians had records of five types of beer and had
a five thousand year old saying that went, may you
(17:02):
have bread that doesn't go stale and beer that doesn't
go sour, which they think, in this case meant rotten,
because all beer would have been so at the time. Yeah.
At the time, By the way, beer brewing was done
almost entirely by women. M HM. They also had over
(17:22):
one hundred medicinal prescriptions for beer. Again in a case
of the like, they're like, we like this stuff, so
let's find ways to make this work, right. Yeah, makes
you kind of careless, that's true. Um. The ancient Greeks
and Romans, though they thought that beer was a barbarian drink.
(17:43):
They had so many great opinions. They really they really did. Um.
They were much more partial to wine. Surprise, Um, there
are a record circuit five of beer being brewed by
Germanic groups, but they were kind of looked down upon.
And here's a quote from historian Tacitus to drink the
two tons have a horrible brew fermented from barley or wheat,
(18:07):
a brew which has only a very far removed similarity
to wine. And horrible brew. Yeah, brewers at the time
would add things like honey to enhance like the flavor
and smell. A lot of the earliest beers were made
with grains that still had to husk on them. So
a lot of the ancient carvings to pick people drinking
(18:30):
beers out of straws like literal straws, and they're very long.
I found the carvings interesting, very long straws. If we
skip ahead to Europe in the Middle Ages, the Catholic
Church got involved in beer brewing, mostly to make money.
Many Christians viewed beer as a gift from God until
(18:50):
the nineteenth century brought with it concerns of alcoholism. The
whole temperance movement we've talked about before. We have it
was also seen as less of a risk and drinking
water because water had all the bacteria. Yeah, you didn't know.
It makes makes sense. A lot of bacteria can't live
in a environment that's as acidic or alcoholic as as beer. Yeah,
(19:13):
makes sense. Early North American settlers, um, women were the
family bereers in this case of beer, using things like pumpkins, artichokes,
and corn. Pumpkin beer goes way back. I know, we'll
have to do an episode, okay, okay, at different time. Yeah. Uh.
And it was such a staple that bride ale was
sold during weddings with all proceeds benefiting the bride, and
(19:36):
during and after giving birth, women drink groaning beer. That's
what it was called. Yeah, that's not my favorite terming.
Groaning beer. That sounds like a haunted beer product. I
don't know, and or something that you drink during Festivus,
like during the airing of greevances. Yeah, that would befitting. Yes. Yes.
(20:01):
In Germany as early as the ninth century, hops were
added to beer, and this practice slowly spread over the
next couple of centuries. From there, brewers came up with
some brewing guidelines and started mass producing beer as opposed
to the then standard of just making your own um
and the guidelines were adopted across Europe and by fifteen
(20:22):
sixteen is generally agreed upon date. Uh Germany enacted the
Beer Purity Law, which was meant to reassure the medieval
beer drinker that all that was in his or her
beer was hops, malted barley and wheat east and water.
So that's that's pretty far back. Yeah, I have these guidelines. Well,
(20:43):
I mean, you know, people have been working on it
for what like nine thousand years at that point. I
guess they did have a long time to think about it.
If we hop over to medieval Belgium, where many of
the sour beer styles we enjoyed today were perfected, Belgian
brewers would fill these huge troughs called cool ships by
the way, wool ships. That's awesome with wart, the unfermented
(21:06):
liquid that you that will be beer, uh, that you
get from mashing the malt you got from barley. Right,
we mentioned that earlier. Um, and you always pulling them
up into the highbrary ceilings where they kept the windows
open so that these wild use in bacteria could flow
it on in. And and yeah, get get all up
(21:27):
in the wart, hanging out in the cool ships. Yes,
it sounds like a very fun process. Around this time,
some of the styles of Sara beers started becoming more defined.
And here a few examples. But don't be mad if
don't mention your favorite. There are a ton of them. Yes. Um.
The trough plus pulley plus window brewing method resulted in Olympic,
which I also called a true lambic. And I've had
(21:49):
a lot of these before I had my first what
I thought sour beer in Atlanta about a year ago.
So I have been drinking surer beer for a bit longer.
For for for a longer time than that. Yeah, you could,
if you want, You can blend fruit into it or
not or not. Yep. After the wild bacteria yeast exposure occurs,
(22:12):
the beer is barrel aged for about six months to
a year, and this is the oldest beer style in Belgium.
Then they usually age it in the wooden barrels because
the breathable porous would kind of acted as a breeding
ground for all kinds of sour and funkifying bacteria, and
it also helped to flavor. Yeah, some of the oldest
(22:33):
breweries in Belgium famously refused to dust or even like
remove cobwebs from their barrel rooms to avoid disturbing the
natural colonies of micro organisms that are hanging out there.
That's kind of beautiful. It's like you've got your own
little tiny city you can't see. Yes, I know making here.
Just dude, just doing the stuff. Um, pooping a lot
(22:54):
delicious flavors. Um. I'm pretty sure a true Limbic is
a single vintage, but sometimes older and younger vintages are
blended together to create another style of sour that's called
a gaze. And I think I'm saying that right. Um.
These go through a secondary fermentation after they're bottled, leading
to a kind of Champagney mouth feel and a more
balanced acidity. Another style is creek Creek creek that is
(23:20):
soured with tart barillo cherries, that's good. Yeah, before hops
were discovered and almost universally agreed upon as the thing
to use, as put down by the Germans in their
beer purity law that you you used fruit are herbs
for flavoring and bittering. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in Belgium,
which is when most I tried most things, I enjoyed
(23:43):
many a creek and I think they made it. There
was like a university there where the students made sold
beer help pay for their school. That's so cool. It
was cool. I think it was a creek in in
creek and other fruit lambics by the way that the
fruit is added during the bear all aging process and
it sets off a secondary fermentation man champagne. All all
(24:06):
these throwbacks in this episode. There's West Flanders Sour red Ale,
where the acidification of beers was seen as something like
a conservation method. Yeah, the low pH keeping the not
so good bacteria from propagating. Older morricidic beer was mixed
in with the newer batches to keep that bad stuff out.
(24:27):
And then we got to talk about the goza, not
to be confused with the other things. That sounds a
lot like goza, yes, but has more use involved in
the spelling exactly. Records suggest that in mere By, Germany,
because we're moving away from Beltim into Germany. The Sara
style beer called Goza was a local favorite in Leipzig,
which is a town one miles east of its hometown
(24:50):
of Gosler by the eighteenth century. Gozes are known for
their salty quality, along with the sarnus which you get
with the dish and of salts, what and coriander to
the malt before fermentation goes as they undergo two fermentations
as well, the first and the wooden barrels and second
(25:11):
in the bottle where a stopper is created out of
the dead yeast earlies. I know this one experienced a
super super high and then is super low in terms
of popularity. In nine hundred there were eighty Ghostshenka. I
don't know. I think so um or licensed goes of
taverns in Germany. But after World War Two the last
(25:34):
remaining goes of factory was closed. Elipsig Brewery revived the
Goza in six but when the owner of the brewery
died in nineteen sixty nine, the goes and went with him.
It wasn't until the nineteen eighties, the reopening of a
ghost in Schenka started repopularizing the style, and it's currently
making a major comebout. Google trends data from eleven to
(26:00):
shows that searches for gozas have outpaced that of sour beers,
especially in the South where the weather is more inviting
to the start salty beverage. But it's it's like trending
and it's super what was going up. But it is
definitely a personal favorite of mine. It's just real, real
weird tasting. It's got a lot of flavors. I like it.
It's good. You definitely need to. It's one of those
(26:22):
things you need to go in and know what you're getting,
I think, because otherwise you'll have an experience. Like yeah,
I always warned people. I'm like this beer is salty,
and they look at me and I'm like, no, really,
try it, try it, just no, just no. Yeah. Another
German sour, the Berliner Weissa, was developed around this time
as well, possibly in medieval Hamburg, but it was mostly
(26:44):
enjoyed in you guessed it, Berlin, Berlin. I know, And
actually the product is now a protected appelation in Germany.
As in brewers making it outside of Berlin. Can't call
it that, yeah, which is kind of predict ulous in
all areas. Napoleon nicknamed this beer the Champagne of the North. Well,
(27:06):
that's pretty, that's nice. Nice words from Napoleon. Eighteenth century
English brewing books typically had a chapter on how to
fix sour beer. But again it's it's hard to definitely
say if they met sour as in rotten or as
in the flavor of sour. But it is around this
time with the arrival of commercial refrigeration and bottling, coupled
(27:29):
with the ever increasing railways and routes and trains that
made it easier to mass produce and sell beer. There
were three thousand two d breweries up and running by
eighty in the US. And some some of this, some
of this refrigeration type research was also and and you know,
the general spread of scientific inquiry was leading to some
(27:51):
really interesting other research into microorganisms. Exactly in eighty three,
Danish scientist mL Hansen reproduced Pure East, the first of
its kind, at Carlsberg. Carlsberg like the beer that Carlsberg yep.
This meant viwers didn't have to depend on tricky inconsistent
(28:14):
wild yeast. Similarly, Louis Pastor's pasteurization meant that verwers could
get rid of the bacteria behind the sureness if they
so chose, and many of them did. In the late
eighteen eighties, a few researchers isolated secondary yeasts is what
they were calling them, that that created those sour, funky
flavors and beers that specifically in English and Irish beers. Then,
(28:38):
in three bleeding into nineteen o four, another employee of
Carlsberg's labs, one Niel's Clawson, identified and published his research
on one of these secondary yeasts, calling it Britanno mices clauseny,
meaning British fungus, and also, you know, giving himself a nice,
nice props. Yes, And we had to retake this bit
(29:01):
because I had a moment of insane excitement that this
could possibly be the same guy behind that the Clossen,
could be Classen's pickles, it could be we don't know
that for sure, I'm going to look it up immediately
after this. So a lot of breweries went to work
on isolating yea strains and making them proprietary, and this
(29:21):
meant a more consistent product that could be produced anywhere
at any time without waiting with your fingers crossed on
those wild yeast in bacteria. And that meant that sour
beers became more and more rare. And speaking of if
you're looking at sour beer in the US, it should
be no surprise to anyone that prohibition kind of put
(29:43):
a damper on things. Uh, kind of slow the whole
beer thing now in general. Yes, And by the time
it was repealed, most breweries in the US had shut down.
One of the largest survived by making near beer, non
alcoholic beer. That's how most of them, any of the survivors,
(30:04):
that's how they survived. Yeah. And post prohibition, the US
government imposed very strict regulations on beer brewing that pretty
much made it impossible for smaller breweries to weather And
it wasn't until President Carter lifted some of these regulations
in ninety nine that smaller breweries started opening. And at
(30:25):
the time they were less than one hundred breweries in
the US. Today, the Brewers Association estimates set there are
over three thousand. And a quick note about beer and
in Asia, beer doesn't really have a long history in Asia.
The oldest brewery in Europe. Germany's the hens to Fund
Brewery was founded in seven sixty eight CE. Asia's oldest
(30:50):
brewery is two hundred years old, and it was set
up by the British for the British in the Himalayas.
Japan's first brewery, modern day Kieran was established in eighteen
sixty nine by a Norwegian American fellow, and the second
largest brewery in China Seemed now only goes back to
nineteen o three, when it was established by German settlers.
(31:11):
Um And this isn't to say at all that beer
in Asia was founded by immigrants or anything of the story.
It's just that the history is very, very young in
the region. They're much more into their wine and sucky. Yeah, yeah,
we will talk about yes, oh yeah, oh so that's
going to be a thirsty, thirsty episode. Yes. Convergially speaking,
(31:32):
it wasn't until the nineteen seventies that Belgian style sour
beers were first available for purchase in the US. Even
into the late nineties and still now I hear it's
just rare. It wasn't uncommon for people to return cases
of sourer beer because they thought it had gone bad. Yeah,
they tried it, they were like, oh no, it is wrong. Here,
(31:52):
take it back. American microbrewers didn't start experimenting with sours
until the nineteen nineties, when brands like omagong Oli, Gosh
and New Belgium Brewing decided to use more Belgium approach
to the whole thing instead of the English style norm
of the time. But they still weren't making sour beers
(32:14):
as we know them. They were kind of one offs. Um.
Some breweries were experimenting without a fruit to beer, like
New gliss Wisconsin, Belgium read that was brewed with cherries,
or Southampton public houses sour style beers. But again these
were rare. You didn't you didn't really find them in stores.
But New Belgium decided to invest in a barrel aging
(32:36):
program in n and by two thousand and one, La
fally A blended sour aged and barrels won a gold
medal at the Great American Beer Festival. Yeah, it was
one of the first of its kind brewed in the
US and by a popular enough brewery that the word
got out. Yes, word did get out. Port Brewing Company,
(32:56):
whose owner had experimented with Brett the yeast, not the
person uh and loved the flavor of wild East followed
suit on the West coast and as the craft beer
movement took off in the US. So it is sour beers.
Even Millard Cores is experimenting with sours these days. The
Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beer had one hundred
(33:19):
and fifty six sours and a sympnauseum about sour beers
a recent one um and how to make them attracted
two beers and they had to turn brewers away. They
just didn't have space, I mean, not for the brewers,
but not for bres. But that Yeah, it's nice and
a little fun fact that I ran across. Guinness, who
(33:40):
is very secretive about their brewing process, claims that the
sour no and their beer comes from three to four
percent of old vinegarized beer that they store and wooden
containers blended into each new batch, which, if that's true,
it's the most widely consumed sour beer in the world.
Oh wow, yeah interesting. Okay, so we have some other
(34:07):
interesting stuff to tell you about organic chemistry. But first
let's take another quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So let's get into
(34:29):
flavor science for a minute. Here. One way that you
get sense and flavors is via chemical compounds called Esther's
and okay, organic chemistry. We can we can do this.
We can get through this together, friends, we can. Okay.
So In a yeast cell, like brett Uh, esters are
created by by enzymes when the cell is trying to
(34:51):
get work done but it doesn't have enough energy to
get work done, cells have to make chemical reactions happen,
turn turning it by of raw materials or reactants into
a bunch of products that it wants. Okay um, And
sometimes those chemical reactions take more energy than is readily available.
(35:11):
Uh Like. Well, let's say that you're trying to put
a nail into a wall, right, but all you've got
is the nail and the wall and your bare hands.
It's going to take a lot of work to get
that nail. In, enzymes give you a hammer. M okay
uh like like in in that yeast cell or or
in its cell membrane. These enzymes create esters, which interact
(35:34):
with the raw materials to allow the chemical reaction to
happen at a lower energy. By in hammerton nail, the
work gets done for any professional organic chemists out there.
I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. But but please
write in and let me know if I'm terribly wrong
and lying to people. But it's a nice way, constructive. Yes,
(35:54):
oh please please do Okay, alright, So, so you've got
these esters that cells have created in order to do
some stuff. They they hang out in or around a
yeast cell until they're broken down by more other enzymes
in order to help do more other work. In some cases, though,
the rate of ester production is much higher than the
rate of esther breakdown, and that's when you wind up
(36:17):
with a whole bunch of a particular esther in the
yeast cells. General environment and ester's are compounds, like I said,
that trigger our senses of taste and smell. They're what give,
for example, fruits and flowers their scents and flavors. A
couple of examples. Let's take ethyl hexanoate. It's a product
of the growth process in both uh saccaro mices and
(36:38):
bread yeasts, and it's also found in unripe bananas and pineapples.
Um or or another another esther, ethyl syringe gate. It
comes from an interaction of alcohol with an acid that's
naturally present in oak barrels, and it's also present in
tobacco and figs. Okay, so so so these these esters
(37:02):
that are in various other foods and products that we
run into and and that have sense because they have
sense our stuff that happens in in beers, and they
happen more often in sour beers than regular beers because
esters are created from acids plus alcohols, and because Brett
(37:23):
and the bacteria and sours create acids, you get more
esters in these finished alcoholic products. Makes sense to me.
I always thought esters for those things that like you
put it under someone's noves after they passed. I think
that's where that I think that's where that comes from.
That that that is that is an ester. It's a
it's a scent compound vial. Yeah, Okay, they go into perfumes,
(37:48):
they go into artificial foods and flavorings and yeah, and
any time that you're smelling a flour, you're basically just
inhaling and esters. I will be sure to ruin someone's
romantic moment. Next time I see smelling of flower, you're
inhaling some esters right now, Hey, just allowed to let
you know that, Yeah, ruined people's fun. That's great. So
(38:11):
all of these esters that are going to work in
sour beers mean that that although beers have been sour
for much of history, making like a really good refined
sour beer is kind of difficult. Breadths are notoriously unpredictable
and get a lot of that barnyard taste into stuff,
(38:32):
which not everyone is excited about. Um. Also, some brewers
avoid sours because once you welcome these yeasts and bacteria
into your brewery, you risk cross contamination um, cross infection
with your non sour beers. Rights. Yeah, it's also quite
um quite an investment. Oh yeah, and all that time.
(38:54):
Uh and and for for this reason, wineries and non
sour beer brewers generally want to get rid of wooden
barrels that have been infected with Brett and those souring bacteria,
but sour beer manufacturers are super happy about taking them.
It all kind of works out, it does, yeah, uh
as as we've mentioned, they're generally aged for at least
(39:15):
a year uh with with beer. Kind of like anyone's
just saying a wooden barrels have to be watched. I
eat tasted um very carefully. Because of the relatively low
alcohol and high pH of beer versus wine. So there's
even a sour beer project, just like the Sour Dough Project.
There's so many crossovers. Their goal is to understand this
(39:39):
quote microbiological mystery. It's very similar to the sour Dough project.
They want you to send in samples and they're going
to analyze it and map it. So. Oh, that's wonderful.
Look it up if you're interested. Yeah. Oh, and a
note about pairing sour beers. A note about notes uh uh. So, so,
(39:59):
the the acidity of sour beers is really great for
cheese courses. Um. Also also there's there's all that complexity
and little salt twinges that helps set cheeses off. Um.
The more powerful sours are really great with with very
powerful dishes that could stand up to them. You know,
a barbecue, fatty, grilled meats and fish, mushrooms, distinctive shellfish
(40:21):
like like crabs or muscles, um, and anything savory that
you've made with plums, okay, plumps and specific uh yeah yeah.
Um that the more delicate sours are nice with like
spicy foods and salads and lighter proteins of mild milder
fish or chicken. Um. But you know, really, as as always,
get out there and try stuff and find out what
pairings you like. Yeah, there's no well, very few. There's
(40:47):
a couple of wrong ways to drink to drink a beer,
but there's somethings I personally would avoid, but you know,
whatever works for you exactly. Well, that is our episode
on our beer. Um. We probably there's gonna be a
video about this, Yes, we hope. So we're set to
go film and a couple of brewers, local local brewers
(41:11):
in in the near future. And if that happens, then
by the time this episode comes out, the video will
probably be done. Yes, it's like time travel. It is.
It's a very fun game of prediction and chance. Yes, um.
And and we will absolutely do more other episodes about
more other styles of beer and get into a few
(41:34):
of the fun facts that I was. I was just like, no,
I can't go down that rabbit hole. I have to
have to re center back back to sour beers. So yeah,
really excited about all of that in the future. Absolutely,
But for now, let's read some listener mail. Listener mail
Chad sent as this note, I greatly enjoyed your episode
(41:55):
concerning sura dough. The information helped me further appreciate my
own sour dough col sure, which sits beside the butter
and yeast in my refrigerator. Her name is Pearl, and
I recently realized that because of her, I've developed a
strange habit. I made this culture from scratch, meaning I
was able to experience the quote dirty sock smell at
(42:15):
its start, and I am fascinated that it now smells
like sweet buttermilk, so much so that I caught myself
inviting my family to smell the culture as I attempted
to do impart my excitement concerning this transformation. About midway
through handing the Mason jar to my dad, I thought, dude,
this is weird. Don't make this a habit anyway. I
(42:38):
love your show. Pearl seems to enjoy it as well
as it gives her culture. See what I did there?
Love it? Thank you? Yes? And I don't know. I
don't think it's that weird. If if we ever end
up at your house, please let us smell Pearl. Now
it feels a little Oh no, it feels weird. I
(42:58):
made it weird. It's okay, okay, Megan wrote in response
to our French food episode. When I was in college,
I did study abroad for five weeks in Strasbourg, France. Yes,
the professor that was with our group banned McDonald's. She
told us that we didn't come all the way to
France and just to eat McDonald's. Well, my college roommate
(43:20):
was also on the same trip and we got a
little homesick and decided to comfort ourselves with some Mickey D's.
So as we were walking bags in hand to secretly
eat our contraband McDonald's, of course we ran into our professor,
and of course she reprimanded us, but it was totally
worth it because it was so delicious, like a million
times better than what they serve over here. Hands down,
(43:43):
no regrets about traveling to France to eat McDonald's. We
have had so many listeners, so many listeners right in
about experiences at McDonald's in other countries, especially in France
and Japan, which I find fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, and that
(44:04):
brings us to the end of this classic episode. Yes,
although although I do have one update for y'all, um,
I did not after the episode was over, but just
now go check um the pickles claws in Pickles were
founded not by Niels Clawson mentioned in this episode, but
by m Claus Clawson of Chicago. What a name, Clause
(44:28):
Claws And I know, I love it. I hope he
dressed up as a lobster one year. I hope he
pulled a Lauren. I hope that many people pull a Lauren. Actually,
I don't know. I'm like that it depends on what
kind of Lauren you're gonna pull. I mean, the lobster.
It's more people need to be dressed as lobsters. Well
(44:50):
now I can't shake the image of him dress as
Santa Claus in a lobster outfit. And okay, anyway, we
hope that you enjoyed this classic episod and we would
really enjoy hearing from you. Oh yes, you can email
us at hello at saborpod dot com. We're also on
social media. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and
(45:10):
that other one on Twitter. Yes, where we are at
saber Pod All three. Savor is a production of I
Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcast in my
Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers, Dylan Vagan and
Andrew Howard. I believe the original superproducer on this was
(45:31):
Tristan nick neil. Tristan McNeil. Tristan McNeil. Yes, I believe
so yes, thanks to them, Thank you to you for listening,
and we have lots more good thanks are coming your
way
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