What’s Brew'n at Mugg’s Place? Sour Farmhouse Ale

Since I have some time before classes start up again, I’ll be brewing next week. I’ve been planning a farmhouse for a while, which I want to be ready by the Spring.

Farmhouse ales (also called saisons) originated in the French-speaking parts of Belgium. Back in the day, everything was grown, produced, brewed, and consumed on a single farm (hence the name "farmhouse"). These beers were usually made during the late winter months, when the weather's cool and there wasn't much else to do around the farm. Farmhouse ales are gold in color, usually sitting around 6-9% ABV.

They also have a fruity/citrusy smell, which comes from the yeast instead of the hops. You can read the full "official" description at the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines. This is a style that you can make non-sour (called "clean") or sour. Historically, this beer would have had at least a little tartness to it from naturally-occurring bacteria. This is also a great style to age in oak. I’m going to try to replicate that slight acidity in my brewing process.

Different styles call for different kinds/amounts of grain, hops, and yeast. This is why there are so many styles of beer, whereas there are only a few kinds of wine (basically one for each grape, along with blends). In a future post, I’ll walk you though the brew-day process, where I make the unfermented beer. That’s where variation in malt and hops comes in. For the farmhouse, the exciting stuff happens with micro-organisms.

Beer always has yeast. The yeast eats the sugars in the unfermented beer (called "wort"), producing CO₂ and alcohol. I will be using a Belgian Saison yeast. One problem with this strain of yeast is that by the time the beer is half-fermented, the yeast starts having a hard time eating the rest of those sugars. So the folks at Wyeast have added another microbe, called brettanomyces (or "brett") into the mix. 

Brett can eat sugars that regular yeast cannot, and is super resilient. Brett can add a bit of "funk" into the beer. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, brett alone will not make a sour ale. To make the ale sour, you need to get a microbe that will produce acid. I will be using a pediococcus strain (or "pedio") from WhiteLabs. Pediococcus works slowly.

It can take a year or more for pedio to make a beer as sour as some brewers like, but I’m only going for a mild tartness. My hope is that the beer will be as tart as I want it in 3-5 months. Of course, I will be adding a couple of ounces of French oak chips along the way!

Sour beer is always an experiment. Comments welcome!

-the Mugg