The Thing About Sour Beer...

I know it's been a while since my last post, I apologize in advance. Let's chalk it up to I've been doing a lot of brewing, and very little writing. This year is going to be a year of experimentation and fine tuning old recipes. More info to come on results from National Homebrew Competition, other local competitions, and everyone's favorite homebrew festivals.

I was thinking of making this a Facebook post, but my ideas kept getting longer than a paragraph and a picture (That seems to be the social media limit for attention span). This weekend we brewed 10 gallons of Cat's Out the Bag Cream Ale with the intention of making two separate batches of beer, by pitching different yeast strains.

The first batch is the usual cream ale, which we will add mangos to in the keg. Our cream ale has always been a way to experiment with fruit and spices, because it is a light, crisp, and fruity beer to begin with, a blank canvas for experimentation. Other adjuncts added to our cream ale include peaches, vanilla and lactose, and a combination of lemon, basil, and thyme.

The second half of the batch is where things get interesting. We will be making a sour ale, and pitching fresh apples into the secondary fermentation. Now before I go any farther, let me give some background on the topic of sour beer. Sour ales have a long history in the brewing world, with as wide-ranging of style as IPAs, stouts, and bocks. When you hear sour beer, it could be Lambic, Berliner Weisse, Flanders Red, Oud Bruin, Gose, or any other wild ale.

I'd encourage you to try different styles of sours, IPAs, stouts, etc. before making a blanket about not liking sours, IPAs, stouts, etc. That's a conversation for another post. Feel free to contact me at itsgoodbeer@gmail.com if you ever have questions about beer styles, are looking for recommendations, or any other beer related information.

Quick crash course in microbiology... Typical beer yeast is "saccharomyces cerevisiae". Sour bacteria in beer is "brettanomyces", "lactobacillus", "pediococcus", "acetobacter", or others but I have run out of Latin gibberish.

Now for the fun stuff. What we are brewing is considered a Lambic, a Belgian beer historically fermented in open vats, allowing any bacteria floating around in the air to end up in the beer. It is this unusual process which gives the beer its distinctive flavor: dry, vinous, and cidery, usually with a sour aftertaste.
During fermentation, instead of producing foamy Krausen, sour bacteria produce pellicles, or a thin film, which traps the CO2 gas. Below is a picture of the pellicles formed on our lambic after 24 hours of fermentation.

I know it looks gross, but it's science!

There are many different types of Lambic ales. "Gueze" means to blend aged Lambic (typically dry) with younger Lambic (typically sweet from unfermented sugars), and is usually designated as such on the label. Fruit additions are common, and can include:

Cherry – Kriek
Raspberry – Framboise
Peach – Peche
Blackcurrant – Cassis
Grape – Druif
Strawberry – Aardbei
Apple – Pomme
Banana – Banane
Pineapple – Ananas
Apricot – Abricotier
Plum – Prunier
Cloudberry – Plaquebiere
Lemon – Citroon
Blueberry – Bleuet

Our Pomme Lambic will hopefully be the first of many fruit Lambic. One down, fourteen to go!

If you want to learn more about sour beers, or any other style for that matter, give us a shout. We are always glad to talk beer with people who love good beer.

PS. Spell check hates me after this article...

What's Happening at C'est Bon Biere (April 2015)

Hello to all of our fans and craft beer lovers. We have a lot to go over, so bear with me. There are plenty of opportunities to try some homebrewed beer from your favorite Gonzales homebrewers. There is always beer on tap at the C'est Bon Biere headquarters, and we are always welcome to entertaining guests.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to talk beer with us, we now have a email address just for that. You can reach us at itsgoodbeer@gmail.com. Pretty simple, I know. I'm trying to keep it simple for you guys. Especially after being at a beer festival for 5 hours, you might not have the best short term memory.

MAY 9- MELLOW BREWFEST
Come and visit us at our next homebrew festival in Covington, LA at Mellow Mushroom. The event is on May 9th from 4-9pm. The theme of this year's competition is Louisiana food and ingredients. We will be serving our soon-to-be-famous Blueberry Bread Pudding Barleywine. We will also be serving our Cream Ale brewed with fresh lemon zest, basil, and lemon thyme grown in our backyard garden. Yes, I know your mouth is watering!



His and Her brews will be in a head-to-head battle again at this competition. At Bayou Beer Fest in Houma, the Guilty Pleasure Chocolate Stout was the fan favorite over the I Can't Believe It's Not Butterbeer Cream Ale. Whose brews will you choose at Mellow Brewfest this year? Come and taste for yourself.

 

BARREL AGED BEERS

As many of you are aware, we now have a 5-gallon whiskey barrel for aging beer in. The first experiment begins tomorrow, when we brew a Baltic Porter, then age it for one month in the whiskey barrel. You will be the first to hear about the flavor and aroma that we get from the barrel.

 

Thank the distillers from our neighbor to the west, King's County Distillery

 

BEER FESTIVALS IN MISSISSIPPI

More details to come soon on this front. C'est Bon Biere might be traveling to Hattiesburg in early June for a local beer festival. Beers served there will be our barrel-aged porter and a long-awaited French Saison! Stay tuned on this front.

 

All in all, it's been a great start to the year. Brewing is still a great hobby, and a ton of fun. Everyone wants friends that homebrew. If you are ever interested in learning about home brewing or want to get started, just send us an email at itsgoodbeer@gmail.com. We will be happy to talk about it. Until then, drink local... drink good beer!

Oktoberfest- 'Tis the Season

As I write this blog post, I am enjoying the wonderful transition to the fall season with St. Arnold Brewery's Oktoberfest. It is amber in color, with an up-front maltinees and little hop aroma. Most people will not know how to describe a true Oktoberfest beer. This is what many think of when they hear Oktoberfest:

Biggest thirst in Germany

 It is traditionally served during the months of September through November, parallel to the German Oktoberfest season. Traditionally, an Oktoberfest beer is amber in color, low hop flavor and aroma, and some spicy or herbal character to it. The malt flavor gives the beer a slight sweetness. In my opinion, the flavor and mouthfeel of a well done Oktoberfest exemplify what a true beer should taste like.

There are a few local breweries that are rolling out new beers for the fall season. Abita Brewing has a seasonal Oktoberfest. It is a good example of a seasonal amber lager. Covington Brewhouse also released a seasonal Fest Biere, their version of a seasonal amber beer. It has a great drinkability, which is especially good on these mild autumn days in south Louisiana. Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of sampling this beer with the owner of Covington Brewhouse. He and his staff are contemplating changing this beer into a regular year-long beer instead of a seasonal. I was all in favor of that change. Currently, Covington does not have a staple beer in with the maltinees, or the amber color of their Fest Biere.

At C'est Bon Biere, we are currently brewing up an Oktoberfest to last us through the short, yet pleasant fall season in south Louisiana. It will be a German style amber ale with up-front maltiness, and a slight spicy hop aroma.

Coming this Fall!

Also on the list of new beers is our easy-drinking Cream Ale. This is no regular cream ale. It has honey malt and vanilla beans added for sweetness. The style is typically a light-bodied, light-colored ale; typical to a blonde ale or light lager. This beer was modeled off of Cali Creaming' from Mother Earth Brewing in San Diego, California. The idea is to create a taste similar to cream soda. My I present to you: I Can't Believe It's Not Butterbeer!

If either of these sound enticing to your palate, feel free to stop by and visit us any time. We will be serving our beers at Bayou Beer Fest in Houma, LA this November 15. It has been a good few months for C'est Bon Biere in creating new brews and recreating some award-winning brews.

Thanks to everyone for keeping up with us on our blog and on Facebook. This is going to be a long road to starting our own micro-brewery, and every day, we inch closer to that success. Keep up with us for the latest news about the future of the Gonzales' future first brewery!