Last year was my first serious year of brewing funky and sour beers. A lot of what I brewed was aiming for bold fruit flavors. I added fruit to my cherry wine and apricot sour very early in their fermentations, aiming for a depth of fruit flavors in the final products. The dark saison got zante currants as soon as it went into secondary.

I think I’ll still brew that way occasionally in the future, but in general I’m going to start waiting for the base beer to mature, and then decide what further additions to make, if any.

In this case I’m going for a pale sour similar to my apricot sour, but I’ll hold off on any fruit additions at first. I’m hoping the base beer will turn out complex, sour, and funky. When it’s ready, I’ll let its final character dictate where to go from there.

Some fruit options I’m considering are peaches, sour cherries, blueberries, or wine grapes. I’ll also bottle some of it straight if it’s interesting on it’s own.

It’s sour time again! This type of beer has a long turnaround time, so I’m trying to get a lage pipeline going this winter. Hopefully next year I can start having somewhat regular releases of finished sours.

This batch is inspired by Sapwood Cellars Upper Bound: Apricot. It was the first first apricot sour I ever tried, and I thought it was fantastic. One of my favorite releases from them so far.