26 Oct Girls Pint Out GetS Soured On Education at Deviate Brewing
Deviate Brewing hosted the ladies of Girls Pint Out on Wednesday night and educated them, and everyone else in the brewery, a little about sour beers.
Mike Orkey and Greg Ortwein – owners and brewers of Deviate Brewing – were the educators for the evening. The class started with Mike discussing the origins of sour beers, which have apparently been around since the dawn of beer making.
Education
All beers had some sort of sour component to them before the Louis Pasteur discovery that yeast causes fermentation in beer. The discovery sparked the ability to create pure yeast culture, which negated the sour components of beers.
So what makes sour beers sour? Wild yeast and bacteria. Before cultured yeast, brewers would reuse the yeast from their previous batch which would contain the wild yeast and bacteria needed for the sour taste. Mike did a great job breaking down every minute detail in sour beers. It was like attending a chemistry class, but you learned about beer and got to drink some as well.
After the origin lesson, Mike and Greg discussed the process of creating a sour beer. Not only are sour beers unpredictable, but they can take months to completely ferment. Greg mentioned that he used yeast from three different beers from three different breweries to create their sour beers.
Beers
Deviate Brewing offers a Berliner Weiss - Lactic Prophylactic – on tap and created two special sours for Girls Pint Out.
Lactic Prophylactic is only 3.8 percent ABV and seemed to be on the lighter side of sours. The two beers made for Girls Pint Out were not available on tap, but I did get a chance to try them both.
The other sour beer was Sweet Tarts and Strawberries. This was the Berliner Weiss that had strawberries added during the fermentation process. Some people got a reddish-colored beer, while others got a yellowish-colored beer. Greg explained the reddish beer had fermented longer with the strawberries, while the yellowish beer had not.
Atmosphere
There was a pretty good turnout for the event from Girls Pint Out, which I assume is pretty common. Everyone appeared to be having a great time drinking sours, eating doughnuts and candy, and getting educated on beers. And when Mike and Greg opened it up to the floor for questions, the attendees didn’t hold back!
Greg and Mike have been homebrewing for 18 years, so they know not only how to make a tasty beer, but they also know the history and science behind them. If they continue to do these kind of education events, I would recommend everyone attend one, and I definitely recommend everyone try out Deviate Brewing. Some of the best and unique beers I’ve had in Indianapolis.
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