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Anywhere around here that sells belgian sours or anything? Curious if I can try the trick of fermenting using the bottle dregs from a bottle conditioned beer to whip up a sour. Also curious to try some more examples of the style (I have already tried goseface kilah from good robot and the daytimer from unfiltered, both good.)

Berliners are fairly simple from what I've heard if you can maintain a temp of 110f for the lactose to sour.

I wouldn't call the Gose from Good Robot a Belgian (or German) sour, as theirs uses more traditional yeast for fermentation. It is true that traditional Goses use lacto, but theirs does not. Unfiltered's Daytimer and Big Spruce's Silver Tart are both sours, first fermented using lacto, and then a second yeast. That's lacto (short for lactobacillus), not lactose (the sugar), just to clear up any confusion from Chuckles above me.

Propeller released a mixed fermentation lambic-style beer in the last year, but there were only a few bottles of it to go around. Harvesting from that would probably make for a good beer (and a lot of permanently-inoculated gear).

There used to be some Oud Beersel lambic at Premier Wines, before it changed to RockHead. I'm unsure if they still carry it, as their website is useless.

Bishop's Cellar carries Duchesse de Bourgogne, a very decent Flanders Red (typified by Rodenbach), and Trois Mousquetaire's Gose (which does have a light sourness. It may be difficult to get dregs from those bottles, but are worth trying.

Check out Stillwell's collection of bottles (and occasional taps) of sours, though I don't know if they'll let you walk out with the bottle. Maybe if you ask nicely

I was at Rockhead a couple of days ago and they do have three Oud Beersel in stock again, along with Duchesse de Bourgogne.

Toni wrote:I was at Rockhead a couple of days ago and they do have three Oud Beersel in stock again, along with Duchesse de Bourgogne.

chalmers wrote: Check out Stillwell's collection of bottles (and occasional taps) of sours, though I don't know if they'll let you walk out with the bottle. Maybe if you ask nicely

We could definitely get you some dregs from any bottle of sour beer you'd like to drink at Stillwell, but I'd also just recommend ordering a lab pitch online. Way easier! Check out the Yeast Bay offerings from OBK: http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/The_Yeas ... _s/191.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CPR wrote:

chalmers wrote: Check out Stillwell's collection of bottles (and occasional taps) of sours, though I don't know if they'll let you walk out with the bottle. Maybe if you ask nicely

We could definitely get you some dregs from any bottle of sour beer you'd like to drink at Stillwell, but I'd also just recommend ordering a lab pitch online. Way easier! Check out the Yeast Bay offerings from OBK: http://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/The_Yeas ... _s/191.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seconded. Harvesting bottle dregs can be fun but it is far less reliable and with sours it is always hard to tell exactly what you're going to get. The homebrewers who use bottle dregs in their sour beers are usually starting with a pitch of a yeast and bacteria blend from white labs, wyeast, or the yeast bay, and they add the dregs later for complexity.

In addition, this technique will never give you a "quick" sour. The bacteria in most sours work quite slow, and bottling before they are done can lead to bottle bombs. If you want a quick sour look into souring the wort with lactobacillus (this usually takes 1-3 days) and then pitching any yeast strain you like. I recently brewed a sour like this with Brett Lambicus as the primary strain and I am very happy with how it turned out. While it doesn't approach the complexity of true lambic it is good enough for a beer that was completed in 6 or 7 weeks! It has a light/medium sourness/tartness, a nice fruitiness with some very subtle funkiness.