This week on Beer Sessions Radio™, host Jimmy Carbone is celebrating July Good Beer Month with cohort and summer co-host Ben Keene and talking about the very recent resurgence of an ancient German brew, Gose (our friend and New York Times beverage writer Eric Asimov chose it as his beer of the summer!).
This episode (listen here) is all about the sour! The panel includes this year’s Best in Show National Homebrew Competition winners – Peter Salmond, Oskar Norlander and Erik Norlander – whose Lambic beat out 7,600 beers that were entered in the 2015 competition. The grown of homebrewing in America is astounding. In 1979 there were 34 contestants in NHC competion. Now all beer categories, including sours, see hundreds of different styles in each category.
What’s the difference between a Lambic, a Berliner Weisse, a Gose and other beers that fall under the “sour” rubric? What goes into making an award-winning sour beer (hint, four years of seasoning a Zinfandel oak barrel and eight years of honing a recipe).
Also in the studio are Mary Bauer head brewer at the new Lagunitas facility in Chicago (food science and chemistry major) and Mark Sljukic (Lagunitas national sales rep), a facility with traditional American style hoppy beers that also is creating sour beer offerings. Mary discusses the challenges of flavor matching beers in Chicago with their Petaluma parent. Mary explains how their trained tasters test Lagunitas beers. Mark discusses the many small town breweries he’s come across in his travels and the impressive beer pedigree that is developing in the southeast (Birmingham!).
Finally, the panel chooses their favorite sours for the summer:
- Mary – Singlecut’s Kim Hibiscus Sour Lagrrr!
- Mark – Cuvee De Castleton from Captain Lawrence, also the sours from Peekskill
- Peter – Anything from Oregon’s Cascade
- Erik – Tilquin Gose
- Oskar – Lindeman’s Cuvee Rene
- Ben – Wicked Weed Serenity
- Jimmy – Freigeist Rhubarb Gose
Enjoy summer with sour beers!