Official Policy on Sour Stouts

Frumpty overall consider me to be a fraud, asshole and idiot so every thing he replies to of mine is to simply call my ideas idiotic. I take his replies with a grain of salt. I’m used to it.

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee

Originally posted by adamjackson
Leave it up to the brewery. I’ve had sour porters / stouts that are listed as ’wild ale’ and some as ’stouts’. Having its own category is pointless.

The problem is that this allows a brewery to use a sour ale (which tend to score higher) to get to the top of a category where the majority of representatives of that style aren’t sour and where sourness is not a trait of the base style.

Anyone want to counter argue the above or we content on these staying in the categories as is?

I agree that I think it’s stupid to consider beers like Dales Pale Ale and similar as pale ales.

I also know for a fact that Mimosa was added to ratebeer as a saison by mistake, has been asked time and again to be switched to Sour/Wild and someone is deliberately allowing it to stay in the saison category.

Originally posted by GT2
I also know for a fact that Mimosa was added to ratebeer as a saison by mistake, has been asked time and again to be switched to Sour/Wild and someone is deliberately allowing it to stay in the saison category.

Originally posted by GT2

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee

Originally posted by adamjackson
Leave it up to the brewery. I’ve had sour porters / stouts that are listed as ’wild ale’ and some as ’stouts’. Having its own category is pointless.

The problem is that this allows a brewery to use a sour ale (which tend to score higher) to get to the top of a category where the majority of representatives of that style aren’t sour and where sourness is not a trait of the base style.

I agree with Joe here in that I see time and again breweries putting something better for IPA in the APA category, DIPAs in the IPA category, APAs in the Blonde/Golden Ale category...essentially putting in a entry of a more intense style into a more modest style and then getting ranked #1 in style.

For instance, all of the Biere de Gardes on ratebeer right now are sours. Madrugada isn’t an offender like this because it scores pretty low (3.64, perhaps because people were shocked that it tastes not at all like one would expect).

Quick examples of people abusing the categories:

#1 and #2 APAs are Zombie Dust and Alpha King at 6.4% whereas at 7.5% one could argue for even a DIPA entry let alone IPA where it should be.

Belgian Ale top entries are all Brett beers, which is nice, but then it doesn’t follow that there is a Sour/"Wild" category when these wild yeast beers are getting put into the innocuous Belgian Ale category. Jolly Guava Grove from my understanding is actually sour and not just Brett wild.

#1 Witbier is BA Cellar Door, which is a Brett wild saison.

Top three Biere de Gardes are all sours. Biere de Garde I’ve mentioned before did have one variety called Biere de Garde de Lille, which was sour and barrel aged and was the best beer of the season made by the brewery. However, the style in general is not sour but in fact intensely malty and sweeter.

Mimosa as #2 in saison category at 10% and fully sour is another.

Anyway, my main argument is that we have the catch all category for Sour/Wild and we should be putting sour and wild beers in it, unless I’m taking crazy pills.

this one done yet?

Not a sour, but in a similar vein, the #1 Hefeweizen clocks in at 7.2%. That’s a weizenbock in any universe, no matter what a brewer might say. (Don’t know if the brewer actually weighed in on this case, but whoever decided, I can’t agree.)

Originally posted by KyotoLefty
Not a sour, but in a similar vein, the #1 Hefeweizen clocks in at 7.2%. That’s a weizenbock in any universe, no matter what a brewer might say. (Don’t know if the brewer actually weighed in on this case, but whoever decided, I can’t agree.)