NOLADrinks Show – 10-1-18 – The World of Sour Beer

On this week’s The NOLADrinks Show with Bryan Dias, we welcome back our resident beer experts, Matt Horney and Sal Mortillaro. We discuss the world of “sour” beers. We chat about what they are (and what they aren’t), the varying styles and production methods, and much more!

Talking Sour Beer at Old Rail Brewing Company in Mandeville. From left – Sal Mortillaro, beer judge, Bryan Dias of NOLADrinks, and Matt Horney, brewmaster of Old Rail.

NOLADrinks Show – 10-1-18 – The World of Sour Beer

We start things off with some programming notes on this week’s show. We also let you know that we are taking a planned week off (first one in a while!) next week. We will be back with a new show on 10/15.

Then, we head over to Old Rail Brewing Company in Old Mandeville, across the lake from New Orleans, for our featured interview. We welcome back frequent guests, Matt Horney and Sal Mortillaro, our resident beer experts. Sal is a certified beer judge with the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) and fresh off his stint judging at the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado. We touch on how that went. Matt is also a certified beer judge and is the brewmaster at Old Rail. We talk about their 5th anniversary taking place this year.

From there, we move into our main topic – the world of “sour” beers! Though, “sour” is not a true category, it’s more of a catch-all or umbrella term to describe various beer styles. We discuss this dynamic and mention how just over 100 hundred years ago or so, all beers were probably sour, to some degree, due to wild yeast entering the fermentation process.

We talk about various approaches and processes that make beers “sour” as well as touching on some common misconceptions including Brettanomyces. We differentiate between some of these styles. Our second segment, which features a sort of “overview” of sour beers, can be seen on our IGTV channel here!

Of course, we taste several examples including well-known styles such as Lambics, Flanders Red, American Wild, and Goze (including one by Matt). We also explore some interesting ones including a couple from California aged in used wine barrels and one made by Sal that medaled at a homebrewing competition. We talk about the production methods of each and their flavor profiles. We even talk about some ideas for food pairings with a couple of them, their often-refreshing nature, and more.

We close things out with our podcast-only segment – “Another Shot with NOLADrinks” – tasting some more beers (mentioned above) and talking “sour beers.” We finish up the show with our “Parting Shot” where I talk about exploring (and helping folks explore) the big world of beverages out there with my one degree rule!

The map below shows the location of Old Rail Brewing Co. You can subscribe to, stream, and download The NOLADrinks Show podcast using the player and links at the top of this post. See you in a couple weeks!

Cheers, You All!  

~ Bryan