Tropical Twist!
Twist your way into summertime with this zingy and refreshing sour! Best enjoyed fresh from the ice bucket on a hot summers day...or just when you want to pretend it's one.
There are many methods you can use to brew a sour beer. Previously we have brewed sours used kettle souring and Kveik yeast.
Gary, one our of shift brewers, lead the way with this brew and chose to sour the beer using Lactobacillus. The principle use of Lactobacillus is to take sugars from the wort and convert them into lactic acid, lowering the pH and causing the sour taste.
No hops were used during the brewing process, but Gary did do some dry-hopping later. Hops contain alpha acids which are isomerised in the boiling stage. These isomerised alpha acids are the primary cause for bitterness in beer, which helps balance out the residual malt sweetness, but can damage the cell membranes of the lactobacillus and severely limit the growth of the bacteria. Once the bacteria had done their job, he pitched our house yeast strain, followed the fermentation through and added some citra at the end of fermentation. Too many hops could cause a big rise in bitterness in the product and bitter and sour don’t really go well together.
To achieve the tropical flavours, Gary did some testing with varying additions of flavours. We do this with a lot of our flavoured beers to make sure we reach the taste we want. He then added the chosen amounts of orange and mango purees at the start of fermentation. We want any fermentable sugars from the fruit to be converted by the yeast before processing.
The end result is this zingy, moreish mix of tropical flavours that instantly quenches your thirst.
Summer time here we come. Grab your cans and fire up the barby!
You can buy your cans of Tropical Twist here.