The first part of the beer in this bottle was called Seat of the Pants Sour. It came about as I was bottling one sour and didn't want to let all the great souring bugs in the yeast cake go to waste. I threw a quick all grain recipe together, brewed, chilled and pitched on the now vacated yeast cake. That was 11-14 and after primary fermentation it was set off in the "Sour Room" and forgotten about until 1-16 when I bottled 2 gallons and put 3 gallons on medium toast oak cubes.
In between that time I decided to brew a Tart of Darkness clone on 10-15. This beer was racked to secondary 5-16 along with 2 lbs dried tart cherries and 2.5 lbs dried figs. 5 months later and it's Sour play/blend/experiment time.
Now mind you that during the time this beer was in the fermenter I poured in various dregs from other sour beers that I was enjoying. I would sanitize the bung, pour the beer in a glass, swirl up the dregs, pull the bung and just pour in the dregs. Whether this makes any difference in the final product can be debated, but it does introduce different microbes not present in the original mix.
10-30-16
Bottled one gallon each straight of the SOP (Seat of Pants) oak and TOD (Tart of Darkness) cherries and figs.
Blended 1 gallon SOP with 2 gallons TOD and bottled that together.
Took the remaining 1 gallon SOP and 2 gallons TOD and put that into the 3 gallon better bottle.
Problem was that there was extra head space. Hum, wonder what I could fill the empty space with. Oh look, SAMS has frozen blueberries. So I added about 3.5 pounds of blueberries to the mix. Word of caution, blue berries contain A LOT of sugar!! That and no head space.....lets just say it got messy till things calmed down.
4-9-17 I bottled what is now being called 3 Year Beer. Hydrometer sample read 1.008. Poured the hydrometer sample into a glass and offered it to Jody to taste.......I did not get my glass back
so I'd call it a success. 3 Years later and I have 22 bottles of the finial beer and many more from the pair.Both beers and the finial product have been a great experience into sours. It's like all aspects of our brewing. It can be as simple or as complicated as you have time for or want to make it. I wonder how old my next beer will be?
