What does sour beer taste like?
Sour beer tastes tart and tangy, closer to sparkling lemonade or dry cider than to lager, with almost no bitterness, often lots of fruit and sometimes a wild funk.
Sour beer
tart, fruity, barely bitter
Sour beer is beer that bacteria (the friendly kind, from the same family that makes yogurt) have made tart on purpose. The result tastes more like a sparkling lemonade or a dry cider than a lager, with almost no hop bitterness. Fast modern versions, often called kettle sours, are clean and tangy and usually loaded with fruit: raspberry, passion fruit, mango. Older Belgian styles like lambic and gueuze age in barrels and get funkier, drier and more complex. Most sit at 4 to 7%.
Where you’ll see it
On craft beer lists and in brewery taprooms, usually named by style (gose, Berliner weisse, lambic, Flanders red) or just called a fruited sour, with whatever fruit is in it.
Order it if you like tart things and hoppy, bitter beer isn't your thing.
Quick questions
- Is sour beer just beer that went bad?
- No. It's soured on purpose with bacteria and wild yeast. A good sour beer tastes bright and tart, not spoiled.
- Are sour beers strong?
- Usually not. Most are 4 to 7%, though some barrel-aged Belgian sours and big fruited ones go higher.