Goin’ Wild, Baby!!!

I have been bitten by the “wild” beer bug.  That is, I have come to love sour and otherwise funky beers.  I almost think that this is a natural progression for beer geeks.  We get into it all with the quaint stout or brown ale (most likely Guiness or Newcastle on special at the random pub or dive bar).  We quickly realize that “Wow, beer can have flavor, unlike that straw-yellow piss water I have consumed en masse for the past X years”….

Then, stouts and browns and porters don’t “do it” for us anymore.  We want more flavor.  Our sights turn to Pale Ales, and IPAs and Double IPAs (I will NOT call them Imperial IPAs… they were never brewed for any imperial court in Russia). With which we imaple our tastebuds with lupulin and alpha acids, destroying any further attempt at tasting for the remainder of the evening.

THEN, we decide that hops are not enough.  We need ALCOHOL!!!!, and we will demand more of it.  Because we are American.  And we need everything BIGGER!!!!  MORE, MORE MORE!!!!! More hops, more malt, more ALCOHOL!!!! oh, wait, we just made a barleywine.  Personally, I prefer the English style, which is much more malt-forward than is its American counterpart.  I think that the higher alcohol content (7-12% ABV) mixed with the insane levels of hops used in American barleywines clash in an unpleasant, unbalanced manner that creates a harsh outcome.. unless you age them so long that the hop bitterness recedes to English levels.  Oh yeah, Imperial Stouts (yes, orginally brewed for Catherine’s court in imperial Russia way back in the before time), Baltic Porters and a variety of Belgian beers also fall into this realm.

Speaking of Belgian beers… Their often smooth flavor profile and higher alcohol contents lead them to being both a session beer, and unintended night-enders.  Dubbels, Tripels, Quads.  As the monks would say, these beers are “digestible”.   Thinking of the current season, these are the perfect Lenten beer.  Full bodied, lots of carbs.  When the monks were fasting, they would want these beers in their coffers (specifically the Dubbels and also Doppelbocks in the lagering ages).  They would fast and not eat, so they needed nutrition from something, and beer fit the bill.

I digress, though.  This is primarily about going Wild.  Embracing the unintended and natural fauna that surrounds us.  Brettanomyces, Pediococcus, Lactobacillus… Acetobacter.  Lambics, Flander’s Reds, Oud Bruin, Kriek, Geuze.  These are what I feel represent teh culmination of the beer journey.  Once you can appreciate these beers, you can appreciate pretty much any beer.  The range of natural wild yeasts used can provide a multitude of flavor and aroma sensations.  From the very tart and sour to the downright funky and musty.

My goal is to brew a Flander’s style Red Ale.  I’ve just about narrowed in on the recipe.  I’ve go the majority of ingredients, most important being the yeast strain (Roselare Blend).  I love, love, love the beer Duschesse de Bourgogne as well as Rodenbach Grand Cru.  I want to make one of these.  The major downside to this project is the fact that I will be losing a fermenter for at the very least, 2 years.  Even after this 2 year period if finished, I am likely to relegate the equipment used to brew only sour beers.  Many of the wild yeasts mentioned above are known to be difficult to clean with traditional methods.

It will be safest if I simply dedicate a full set of fermenters to wild beers.  Recipe an dbrewday notes are to follow once i narrow in on the ingredient list.  Stay tuned, same beery time, same beery channel.

and yes, I just used the word beer in an adjective form.

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