The last 2 sours I’ve picked up have both been gushers. While I didn’t lose the whole beer, it was enough to be annoying.
They were Cascade and Prarie Artisian sours FWIW. Is there any point in contacting the brewery as an FYI for them, or is this somewhat common for the style?
Being a Belgian sourhead myself I can assure you this is NOT common for the style, but simply poor fermentation handling. You can have a gusher in a non-brett beer, and then you have an infection. I can understand that, these things happen. But when you have a sour beer gusher something is fundamentally wrong.
Sorry, I have mixed feelings about Prairie. Last year I went to SF in the summer. My first beer was a Prairie brett beer, and it was my first beer in the States that went down the drain. No gusher, simply not tasty.
Awfully coincidental that both of two different brands would gush. Were they opened too warm?
Is that a thing? Both weren’t chilled very long, maybe 4-5 hours in the refrigerator.
CO2 comes out of solution much easier as temp warms. A lot of American sours are effervescent, so they can foam over if too warm. Try again but chill over night
Yep. Give them a good 24hrs in the fridge before opening. The beer needs time to absorb the CO2 again.
Prairie has received a lot of flack for their poor bottling practices. Their beers are known gushers around here. Many people (including myself) won’t buy Prairie anymore over the gushing and the fact that the owner declines to respond to anybody about it.
I’m surprised you had that problem with the Cascade. I haven’t heard that happening much. I would reach out to them and let them know. They might be more responsive.
There’s a reason Prairie never tries to brew the same beer twice…
Got a response from Cascade today and nothing yet from Prairie…
“Our beers are highly carbonated and if served above our suggested serving temp of 40 degrees, which is listed on the bottle, there is a chance that it could become a gusher. Let me know if you have any other questions.”
gasp
I did not expect that kind of a response from Cascade. Serve at 40? Too damn cold.
In all fairness, you just need to open the bottle cold but you don’t have to drink it that cold.
Are you saying that’s a feature?