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American Wild Ale / 28D

Straight Sour Beer

Unfiltered BJCP Styles Style Profile

Official BJCP guideline sections attached for full style exploration.

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Not listed in the selected certification scopes
Source
BJCP 2021 Beer Style Guidelines

Overall Impression

A pale, refreshing, sour beer with a clean lactic sourness. A gentle, pale malt flavor supports the lemony sourness with moderate fruity esters.

Aroma

A sharply sour character is dominant (moderately-high to high). Can have up to a moderately fruity character (often peach, apricot, lemon, or tart apple). No hop aroma. Supportive pale malt dominates, usually biscuity or crackery. Clean fermentation.

Appearance

Very pale in color. Clarity ranges from clear to somewhat hazy. Large, dense, white head with poor retention. Effervescent.

Flavor

Clean lactic sourness dominates and can be quite strong. Some complementary, bready, biscuit, crackery, or grainy flavor is generally noticeable. Hop bitterness is undetectable. Never vinegary or bitingly acidic. Pale fruit character can be moderate including a citrusy-lemony or tart apple fruitiness may be detected. Finish is off-dry to dry. Balance dominated by sourness, but some malt and estery fruit flavor should be present. No hop flavor. Clean.

Mouthfeel

Light body. Moderate to high carbonation. Never hot, although higher gravity examples can have a warming alcohol character. Crisp acidity.

Comments

A stronger version of a Berliner Weisse-type beer with less restrictive grist, and no Brett. This beer style is typically are used as a base for modern beers that are heavily flavored with fruit, spices, sugars, etc. – those should be entered in 28C Wild Specialty Beer.

Characteristic Ingredients

Most or all of the grist is pale, Pils, or wheat malt in any combination. Lightly-kilned malts for more malt depth may be employed. Carapils-type malts can be used for body. Pale sugars can be used to increase gravity without body. No lactose or maltodextrin. May be produced by kettle souring, co-fermentation culture (yeast and LAB), or using specialty yeast that produce lactic acid. No Brett.

Style Comparison

Lower gravity examples can be very much like a Brett-free Berliner Weisse. Compared to a Lambic, is generally not as acidic and has a clean lactic sourness with restrained to below sensory threshold funk. Higher in alcohol content than both.

Vital Statistics

IBU
3 - 8
SRM
2 - 3
OG
1.048 - 1.065
FG
1.006 - 1.013
ABV
4.5% - 7%

Style Attributes

pale-color sour top-fermented

Similar Styles: How to Tell Them Apart

Use these guideline-based sensory contrasts to organize comparative tasting practice.

Both are pale, refreshing, highly carbonated, lactic-sour beers with low bitterness, bready grain, fruit, and a dry finish. Gose is a lower-intensity historical wheat sour defined by restrained salt and coriander, while Straight Sour Beer is cleaner, more sharply sour, and free of spice, salt, hops, and funk.

Compare with: 23G. Gose

By aroma

  • Straight Sour Beer is dominated by moderately high to high clean lactic sourness with peach, apricot, lemon, or tart apple over pale biscuit or cracker malt.
  • It lacks Gose's coriander, salt, doughy wheat, and yeasty sourdough character.

By taste

  • Straight Sour Beer presents strong clean lactic acidity with undetectable bitterness and no hop flavor.
  • Bready, biscuity, crackery, or grainy malt and moderate pale fruit support an off-dry to dry finish.
  • No funk, vinegar, salt, or spice should complicate the direct lemony-sour profile.

Quick tell: Strong clean lactic sourness without salt, coriander, or funk identifies Straight Sour Beer.

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