Sour Beer

Tart, light, and utterly quenching, a great Berliner weisse is the perfect summertime beer, and it can win the hearts and minds of stone-hearted skeptics. Best of all, it doesn’t need to be difficult to brew.

Featuring dried shrimp, salted crabs, fish sauce, fresh lime juice, tamarind paste, tomatoes, peanuts, and bird’s eye chiles, this one’s not for vegetarians... or anyone with a peanut allergy... or a shellfish allergy... or anyone who doesn’t like “spicy.” But that’s Thai food for you.

Tannins are a key part of what makes many great fruit beers taste like fruit—and it’s something you can easily adjust as a brewer.

Josh Weikert prowled his local produce aisle following a simple principle: Buy what looks best, and go with the freshest fruit you can get. That led him to guava and passion fruit, a dynamic for this Brazilian-inspired tart fruit beer.

Brazil’s take on tart fruit beer—the Catharina sour—has its own name and moves, but brewers anywhere can follow the steps.

Temescal, Prison City, 1840 Brewing, and others share their stories about making clean sours with Berkeley Yeast’s Galactic strain.

On your next camping trip, just a half-cup of that tart fruit beer you brought along is enough to brighten this simple treat that’s perfect for an open fire.

Sometimes, the least “beer-like” beer can be the fun one that wins friends and influences people. In this clip from his video course, Sapwood Cellars cofounder Michael Tonsmeire makes the case for smoothie-style fruit beers.

Sapwood Cellars cofounder and ”Mad Fermentationist” Michael Tonsmeire discusses practical aspects of adding aseptic purees and fruit juices to the tank, including volume and pulp.

Sapwood Cellars cofounder, brewer, and ”Mad Fermentationist” Michael Tonsmeire shares his expertise in all things fruit—sourcing, selecting, processing, blending, brewing, barrel-aging, and more.

This highly complex yet super-drinkable, dry-hopped, mixed-culture, gin barrel–aged golden ale combines the expertise of the two authors and cofounders at Sapwood Cellars—and it went on to become one of our Best 20 Beers in 2022.

For brewers who read and sponge all the info they can find, it may be hard to believe: The authors of two of the most influential brewing books of the past decade run a brewery together. In suburban Baltimore, Scott Janish and Michael Tonsmeire are experimenting at Sapwood Cellars.

In recent years, brewers have been packing more and more fruit into their fruited beers, often evoking familiar and festive desserts. Now, let’s complete the circle and put a splash of that beer into this cobbler, ideal for sharing over the holidays.

Brewers who want to build an enjoyable level of acidity into a beer have a growing number of options. Gordon Schuck, who cofounded Funkwerks as well as Jessup Farm Barrel House in Colorado, digs into those techniques and explains the pros and cons.

Long dismissed as gimmicky and relegated to a bit part, fruit beer has never gotten the respect it deserves. Yet the craft of brewing with fruit is poised to enter a golden age, with a bag full of tricks and seeds planted to grow much wider appeal.

In Longmont, Colorado, this small passion project devoted solely to spontaneously fermented beers trusts in data and science to better understand and guide their fermentation, aging, and blending.

From fresh catch to fridge favorite, this bright and flavorful warm-weather dish is a perfect foil for the refreshingly tart beer—your choice—with which it’s made.

For the director of brewing operations at California’s The Bruery, sensory evaluation is what drives decisions, and beers earn their shot at becoming bigger releases by working their way up the tiers.

For the head brewer of Urban South in New Orleans, focusing on tight process, healthy lactic fermentation, and quality fruit is the difference between dull and delicious quick-soured beers.

Sour and wild beers exist on a complex plane of myriad flavors and aromas produced by bacteria, yeast, ingredients, and by-products. Randy Mosher breaks down the building blocks of what we sense, to help us identify what we enjoy.