Sour Power

Behind the scenes with brewers making bold, sour beers

Once a niche curiosity, sour beers have found their way into the mainstream, bringing tart, funky, and complex flavors to breweries. Unlike hop heavy IPAs, sours embrace acidity over bitterness, appealing to both adventurous drinkers and wine lovers. But how did we get here?

Sour beers are made using some of the world’s oldest brewing traditions. From Belgium’s lambics to Germany’s gose and Berliner Weisse, sours rely on wild fermentation and naturally occurring bacteria to create their signature tang. Yet, for decades, these styles eluded the U.S. beer scene, overshadowed by lagers, stouts, and IPAs. It wasn’t until the early 2010s that commercial craft brewers in the States began experimenting with spontaneous fermentation, barrel-aging, and fruit infusions.

What separates sours from other beers is the brewing process. Unlike conventional beers, which use carefully controlled yeast strains, sour beers invite wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, like Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus, into the mix. This alchemy creates a spectrum of flavors, from teeth sucking tart to subtly funky, sometimes with juicy fruit notes or earthy undertones.

Fast-forward to today, and sour beers are no longer just a fringe fascination. From hazy, fruit-packed kettle sours to the rich complexities of barrel-aged wild ales, they’ve become a fixture at commercial and independent breweries. Whether you love them or find them weird, sours are here to stay, and Traverse City is a great place to indulge.

Jolly Pumpkin: All Sour, (Almost) All the Time

“Jolly Pumpkin was the first all sour brewery in the United States,” says CEO Tony Grant.

It all started back in 2004 when founders Ron and Lori Jeffries began making sour beer. Today, they sell four signature sours year round, six seasonal sips, several limited flavors, and only recently began brewing and selling their first two non-sour beers.

There’s more than one way to go about it when brewing sour beer. Kettle souring, mixed fermentation, spontaneous fermentation, and blending are all different techniques a brewer might use to make their sour. Mixed fermentation uses a combination of yeast and bacteria.

“All of our sours age in oak barrels for months or years before it’s released. It’s a romanticized process; it takes a long time,” says Grant. When they finally come out of their barrels, sour beers can have all sorts of wild flavors and undertones.

Jolly Pumpkin’s Bam Biere is a farmhouse ale that’s one of their most popular. “It’s been around for a long time and has a kind of funky, farmy, hay barn kind of taste to it. But it’s light and it’s something even a person new to sour beers could enjoy,” Grant explains.

With coriander and orange peel, Grant says that Blanca, a farmhouse witbier, is also great for novices.

Right Brain Brewery: Let’s Get Funky

Right Brain Brewery owner Russell Springsteen is a fan of sour beer. “We started with our first sour five years ago. It’s called Who Gose There, and it’s a cherry lime gose style beer,” he says.

Gose is a type of sour that typically includes salt, spices, and has a lower alcohol content. Right Brain brews their sours in the summer, and Springsteen lamented that they had just run out of last year’s batch.

“There are two main sours we make, Who Gose There and Blood Letter, which is a blood orange with a little lactose in there. When we have time, we do a one-off sour using a different flavor fruit or vegetable.”

Wort, a sugary mixture of malted grains, is the base of beer. Springsteen and his crew add yogurt to the wort to create a sour beer. “It’s called an overnight sour,” he says. “We buy the freshest yogurt we can from the store because we need the lactobacillus bacteria culture. Then we keep the wort and yogurt at a certain temperature all night long to keep the mixture warm. The bacteria begins eating the sugar, and that’s what creates the sourness.”

When it reaches the right pH level, the wort mixture is sterilized. Then, yeast is added and it’s fermented. “That’s one way to make a sour,” says Springsteen.

Silver Spruce Brewing: Traditional Pucker

At Silver Spruce Brewing, you’ll find mostly lagers and sours on the menu. “We brew mostly traditional styles,” says co-owner Scott Stuhr. “Almost all of our beers take a long time. We’ll have a couple other things like an IPA or a stout, but it’s really lagers and sours.”

Silver Spruce uses a mixed fermentation method to make their sours, and local fruit plays a powerful part in the process.

“We source all of our fruit from here, [and] we use all whole fruit. A Brett beer you would get at Silver Spruce is very comparable to one you would get in Belgium,” says Stuhr.

Brett beer is beer fermented with Brettanomyces, a wild yeast that gives it unique flavors and aromas. Unlike traditional brewer’s yeast, Brett works slowly, adding complexity. It thrives in barrels and can continue working for months or even years.

“Our Brett beers spend two years on oak,” Stuhr tells us. “Some of them get fruit added after that and refermented on stainless, and some of them won’t. Those are pretty popular, but you have to want one of those—you have to know what you’re getting yourself into. They can be a little funky, they have some character from the French oak or the American oak. It’s going to feel almost more like a red wine.”

Here to Stay

Sour beer brewers work with nature instead of against it. By inoculating barrels with wild microbes or allowing spontaneous fermentation, they create brews that are tart, complex, and oddly likable. It’s a high-risk, high-reward game.

“Sour beers are in this particular category where it’s a little bit more than commoditized consumption. It’s experiential, it’s niche, it’s something to introduce people to,” says Grant.

Stuhr has seen an uptick in younger generations tending towards sours. Folks visiting from out of town, “they see sours on our menu and their eyes light up.”

And whether you love sours or hate them, you can’t know until you try.

“Those who like sour beers, they drink them,” says Springsteen. “And they convince their friends to drink them, too. Everyone has a different palate, but if you have it in your head that you don’t like it but you haven’t tried it, just try it.”

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