A Dissident from the Larder
After dinner at a friend's house last night, I found myself enjoying a Dissidents he brought up from the basement. 
I had a bottle of this not long ago from my own larder, and it was extremely sour--lambic sour, brettanomyces- ate- all-the-sugars- and-part-of-the-bottle sour. Much of the other elements of the beer found themselves shouldered aside by an austere, Sahara dryness.
So imagine my surprise when his bottle produced an entirely different Dissident. The malt and cherry had not been annihilated, but interestingly, had conspired to produce a cinnamony gingerbread quality. The sour wasn't aggressive or even insistent, and it definitely played side man to the sweeter, maltier element.
Fascinating. Wild yeasts are unpredictable, aren't they?
I had a bottle of this not long ago from my own larder, and it was extremely sour--lambic sour, brettanomyces- ate- all-the-sugars- and-part-of-the-bottle sour. Much of the other elements of the beer found themselves shouldered aside by an austere, Sahara dryness.So imagine my surprise when his bottle produced an entirely different Dissident. The malt and cherry had not been annihilated, but interestingly, had conspired to produce a cinnamony gingerbread quality. The sour wasn't aggressive or even insistent, and it definitely played side man to the sweeter, maltier element.
Fascinating. Wild yeasts are unpredictable, aren't they?