American Wild Ale

ABV varies · IBU varies · SRM varies · Serve 45-55F · Glass Tulip · Extras barrels, blending

Identify

Almost anything. Pale gold to black, clear or hazy, and the head often does not last because the microbes have eaten what was holding it up. The one reliable visual clue is a beer that looks thinner than its strength suggests. Drier and lighter than the base beer would predict, because these microbes eat sugars ordinary yeast leaves behind. Then some mix of tart acidity, tropical or stone fruit, and funk that reads as hay, leather or barnyard. Barrel aged examples add oak, vanilla and sometimes wine or spirit notes.

Place

The United States, from the late nineteen nineties onward. American brewers copying Belgian sour and wild beers, then stopping copying and doing their own thing. The word American describes the attitude rather than the address.

Cause

Ask an American wild ale brewer about the malt bill and you will get a short answer. Ask about the barrels and you will be there for an hour. That tells you where the flavour comes from. The house culture. Most of these breweries keep their own blend of yeast and bacteria, built up over years.

Confused with

Gueuze, which is the Belgian original and is spontaneously fermented rather than pitched. Flanders Red, which is a specific recipe rather than an open category. A fruited kettle sour, which is soured in a day and carries no funk at all.

Numbers

This is a container, not a recipe. The BJCP gives it no strength, no bitterness and no colour, because the entrant is expected to say what the beer was supposed to be. Treat the bars and chips above as a rough centre of gravity rather than a target. The field mark that does hold is a sensation.

Will you like it, Order and Try

Dry cider, or a dry sparkling wine. The dryness is the first thing you will notice. Tropical fruit and stone fruit: pineapple, mango, apricot, peach. Young Brett gives all of those. Farmhouse cheese, or anything you would describe as earthy or barnyardy in a good way. Wine, especially if you enjoy talking about the barrel it sat in.

Pair, Judge, Myth and Remember

Very bitter or heavily hopped food, because acidity and bitterness cancel each other out badly. Also anything delicate, since a funky barrel aged beer will simply flatten it. Sweet desserts fight the drier examples rather than matching them.