swenocha wrote:Exactly what jivex5k says... Definitely an acquired taste, and one I'm so glad I've acquired, and that I've also started brewing (though I've probably wrecked my house for "standard" brewing/fermenting now... lol).
If your lucky it will only infect a few summer batches here and there
swenocha wrote:I know for the local brewery, they've bought many barrels (and had to abandon some due to bad infections), new fermenters, a new bottling line, and are now moving it to a new facility to protect the non-funky beers (and to give them some room to grow).
If you are a commercial brewer, this is the only way to sanely brew wild beers, unless you want to be tossing lots of batches that aren't supposed to be.
I've never understood the term "acquired taste". Although I know there are cases where I've "acquired" a taste for something. Cigarettes are one of the earliest of those things. They tasted nasty many, many, many, MANY years ago. But, because I wanted to be "cool" I forced myself to smoke them until I acquired a taste for them. Now that I have quit smoking I see, once again, how nasty they smell.
So when you guys are telling me that this beer has the taste of sweaty horse (if it didn't taste like sweaty horse then it would be described as "wool blanket" instead of "horse blanket") I'm thinking, "Do I have to force myself to drink this until I "acquire" a taste for it?" And now that I'm so old that I no longer have to worry about being "cool" I have to wonder if I want to put myself through that.
Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into
Are awake through years with transferred touch and go on glowing
For long years.
And for this reason some old things are lovely
Warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.
Since I've started Home Brewing there are a lot of tastes that I have put myself through to "Acquire". And man-o-man am I glad I did.
Naked Cat Brewery On Tap
Yazoo Sue Smoked Porter
Octoberfest
Le Petite Saison
Czech Pale Lager
A Toast to Big Fuzzy Russian Imperial Stout at 10%
Belgian Blond
Flower Power IPA
4 Kilts Clueless Belgian Strong
One Wort Two Yeast with Wyeast 2206
One Wort Two Yeast with WLP940
Shipwreck Saison
The best I can say is that if you want to understand what beer tasted like "back in the day" as in before Pasteur (which was really not that long ago) then at least trying brett beers, berliners, labmic, geuze, Flemish reds/browns and the like will give you some ideas. Our ancestors drank this stuff whether they liked it or not. It's what beer was more often then not if it got older then a few weeks of age, except for lagers brewed and stored in 40 degree caves as the other bugs don't like those temps so the yeast wins more often then not. Real ales were always consumed very fresh back then if you didn't want the sour/bugs in the mix too much. Elizabethan estate brewers would brew big batches of low abv beer like bitters, and the whole household would consume it in a week or two, as the next batch was fermenting with what amounts to a big bucket of krausen from the previous batch pitched as it's starter, rinse and repeat, beer didn't get old unless you wanted it to be sour or funky. That's what an "old ale" was in Elizabethan terms - similar to what a Flemish red/brown is today. With lots of age and oxidation they could achieve almost a sherry like vibe. But you would not have wanted to drink them between young and old...
Chuck, my reason was exploration. I was keeping up a beer blog quite regularly and made a point to fully appreciate every style even if I didn't enjoy it. Over time I came to love sours. The first time I had a fresh IPA it changed my opinion of them. I hated SN Torpedo, and honestly, I still don't like it very much since it's just mostly bitterness. I prefer IPAs with more hop flavor and aroma than bitterness, so once I came across Bell's Two Hearted I was already shocked from Torpedo and the bitterness was so low in comparison all I could taste were the wonderful floral and citrus flavors.
In fact, I have the very first sour beer I've tasted documented: http://briansbeerblog.wordpress.com/201 ... grand-cru/
I didn't know it was sour when I got it, and came away appreciating the style. After I stopped reviewing for a while I started enjoying more and more sour beers, a large part due to our local brewery Funky Buddha. They had all kinds of Berliner Weisse styles, and man were they sour.
