Acid Session 2

Onto my second hoppy sour after my first attempt .

I was quite pleased with the first attempt, it came out quite a complex, dry sour with an interesting hop character. It was however quite a long turn around, no-boil, 100% Brett and with a lighter hop flavour than I'd like.

Going more traditional with a kettle-esque sour (I talked a fair bit about ways to hop sour beers in the linked post above) and full boil before a heavy whirlpool addition. The previous beer is more interesting than this, but simple, sour & hoppy is what I'm after today. Recipe is for Mosaic and Simcoe, but I am all out.

The brewery I got the recipe fruits various versions of this and I'll decide if I want to closer to bottling. They have used Pineapple, Raspberry and Oranges.

Recipe adapted from the folks of Crooked Run Brewing - .

Today is Brewday 1. Mash, Boil, Pitch Lactobacillus Plantarum and wait. Day 2 will involve a boil and the hops once the wort has soured to ~3.5

Empress Sour - Acid Session 2

Original Gravity (OG): 1.060 (°P): 14.7
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014 (°P): 3.6
Alcohol (ABV): 6.05 %
Colour (SRM): 4.1 (EBC): 8.1
Bitterness (IBU): 19.8 (Average)

68% Pilsner
26% Wheat Malt
6% Flaked Wheat

1.8 g/L Kohatu(12% Alpha) @ 4 Minutes (Boil)
1.9 g/L Centennial(12.2% Alpha) @ 4 Minutes (Boil)
2.9 g/L Kohatu(12% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)
2.9 g/L Centennial(12.2% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop)


Single step Infusion at 69°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 18°C with English Ale Yeast

Recipe Generated with

Plantarum Pills

Great recipe, i never used kohatu hops yet. Where do you buy the plantarum pills for souring?

pH down to 3.55 and no infection. I guess I best get this boiling!

Hi rlemkin
What do you do with the Lactobacillus Plantarum tabs before pitching? And how many? I see in your Berliner Weisse you used 2 but in above lots?

Need to get this one bottled soon. I ended up using Kohatu exclusively to try and cut down on open packets of hops. It really accentuates the lemony tartness so far. Quite limey and floral, no so much 'tropical fruit'

I then added the zest of one orange per gallon. It's basically hoppy orange juice at the moment..

A wee blog post going through the brew day in more detail - https://wildbeeerblog.wordpress.com/201 ... hoppy-ale/

Bottled today. Taste and aroma are predominantly lime and orange. Pretty fantastic at this stage. Will be interesting to see how the fruit flavour changes with time and if the oil from the orange zest limits head retention even further. It remains hoppy orange juice...

Interestingly this has the best head retention of any sour beer I've brewed. All dem hops.

Happy to send a bottle of this out to a few folk in exchange for feedback, if anyone is interested?

Thanks for the feedback on this beer . Useful notes and I'm going to try to work this into the next iteration of the beer.

This also came in second today on it's table (Fruit, Spice & Seasonal) at the Welsh homebrew comp today which is nice! They deserve a shout out, it's a great and ridiculously efficient competition.

Version two is souring as I type. Unfortunately it's rattled down to a pH of 3.25. So there goes my idea to make it less acidic, oh well!

I'll post the full recipe later if anyone is intersted. Gist of it is a bit of Caramalt, higher mash temp and lots of US hops. Slightly less Orange.

Does the sourness soften with age?

You could age it with oak chips - I found that they definitely have a softening quality that rounded out the beers I've tried this with.

Or, maybe blend it with a non-soured beer to knock it back a little. Something like a straight up pale ale with minimal bittering would do the trick.