10 of the best sour beers in the UK

Sour is the new buzzword of craft beer, a phrase that on first hearing might suggest undrinkable beers best suited for the sink. However, just as bitter is positive and appealing when it applies to a pint, sour is just as palate pleasing when it comes to beer (after all, no one flinches when in the company of a whiskey or Pisco sour).

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Influenced by classic European beer styles such as Berliner Weiss, Leipziger Gose and Belgian Lambic and often with added wild yeasts such as Brettanomyces (which adds an earthy, ‘funky’, barnyardy note, like the best Burgundy reds), modern sours are quenching, refreshing, tart and complex beers that marry well with food and are adept in engaging the palate of drinkers who don’t always plump for beer. As if that wasn’t enough, as the sun seems set to shine, sour beers are ideal summer stunners. Here are 10 of the best.

10 of the best sour beers in the UK

1) Brew by Numbers, 3 Is a Magic Number, 5.5%

Good things apparently comes in threes, including this luscious, mouth-watering, thirst quenching collaboration between the Bermondsey-based Brew By Numbers and two other Dutch breweries. There are also three grains — barley, oats and wheat — plus the pH value is three, which makes for a sharp, palate puckering, tart and fruity sour. Think bitter lemon, lime and orange co-mingling with assertive but not overwhelming sourness and you’ve got an ideal refresher that will make your taste buds go all a-quiver.

The brewery opens its doors on a Saturday, where its beers can be tasted and bought brewbynumbers.com; try also eebria.com

2) Burning Sky , Monolith, 7.4%

The quiet East Sussex village of Firle is home to Burning Sky brewery, which was set up by Mark Tranter in 2013 after leaving Dark Star, where he was head brewer. Tranter’s sours are influenced by Belgian saisons and lambics, which sleep the sleep of the just within massive casks that once held wine. Monolith is a dark beer, slightly reminiscent of stout or porter, but with added Brettanomyces yeast and lacto-bacillus, all of which lead the beer on a merry dance over the time it spends in a barrel. The result is a Janus-faced beer — it looks like a stout, but has an earthy, acidic note on the nose, while on the palate it’s bittersweet, delicately acidic, has hints of mocha before finishing with a tart and rich finish. Monolith is the right name for this monster.

Available from beergonzo.co.uk

3) Buxton Brewery, Red Raspberry Rye, 4.9%

Some people go to Buxton to take the waters, others visit to try the exemplary beers of Buxton Brewery at their tap in the centre of town. Founded in 2009, the brewery produces a vivid selection of brightly hopped beers and rich, contemplative stouts, but there’s also a sense of experimentation and exploration as this fruity version of their Berliner Weisse demonstrates. It’s tart and stimulating on the palate with a glorious swoon of sharp raspberry notes, while the addition of malted rye adds a bready sweetish contrast. A beer to perk up a summer’s day, but it’s also a sensation with a slice of chocolate cake.

Available from the brewery’s online shop buxtonbrewery.co.uk

4) Chorlton Brewing Company, Citra Sour, 5.2%

Manchester-based Chorlton is the brainwave of former fine artist Mike Marcus, who brings as precise approach to brewing as he did when he wielded a paintbrush. Classified as a hoppy sour ale, Citra Sour is a vibrant life-affirming beer with the US hop variety Citra producing a fragrant orangey, grapefruit-like, piny nose with a gentle sourness in the background. It’s clean and crisp on the palate with a bracing acidity and fruitiness, which gives it a refreshing, mouth cleansing quality. This is a complex and charismatic beer that the brewery suggests is a winner if paired with fish and chips.

Available from beermerchants.com

5) Elgoods Brewery, Coolship Lambic, 6.7%

A coolship (or cooler) is an antique piece of brewing kit that brewers used to cool their beers in before the development of more sophisticated, electrically-driven equipment (though Belgian lambic brewers still use them). Based in East Anglia, Elgoods is a traditional family brewery, better known for golden ales, milds and bitters. However, after an American visitor saw that they still had a coolship in situ and unused, he suggested that they make a lambic with it. The result is this tart and softly acidic beer, grapefruit-like in its embrace, daubed with a soft sweetness and gifted with hints of sherry. Versions with added fruit have also been brewed.

Available elgoods-brewery.co.uk

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6) Kernel Brewery, London Sour, 3.2%

Kernel is one of the pioneers of the current craft beer boom in London. Founded in 2009 by Evin O’Riordain, the brewery was initially known for its boldly hopped IPAs and pale ales and rich porters and stouts. London Sour is a departure, a modern take on Berliner Weisse (an old beer style that was once dubbed the ‘Champagne of the North’ by Napoleon’s French troops), and a refreshing, tart beer with a delicate hint of lemon. Versions have had raspberries and sour cherries added, while it’s also been blended with the brewery’s saison, the latter being first aged in Burgundy wine barrels.

See thekernelbrewery.com on where to find London Sour; the brewery is also open Saturdays where bottles can be bought.

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7) Magic Rock Brewing, Salty Kiss, 4.1%

It’s a long way from Huddersfield to Leipzig, but with Salty Kiss, this Yorkshire brewery has managed to pay tribute to Gose, a unique style of beer native to the Saxony city. Yes, there is salt in the brew, but just enough to give it an edge of palate brininess, while gooseberries and sea buckthorn add a tart fruitiness. The result is a vinous, delicately sour and lightly salty pale beer with a background hum of sweetness, a brush of lemony citrus mid palate and a finish that is dry, tart and crisp. Several versions of beer have been made, including, one aged in a Tequila barrel and another with added limes.

Currently only available on keg from various outlets, see magicrockbrewing.com for details (it will be regularly available in can from the autumn).

8) Siren , Calypso, 4%

The Berkshire town of Finchampstead was hardly a place known for brewing innovation until Siren made it their base in 2013. Among a portfolio that includes a boldly hopped IPA, a rich breakfast stout and a luscious Limoncello IPA, there is this luminous sour beer that has an extra layer of flavour due to it being dry hopped, which gives it a gorgeous aroma, depending on what variety of hop that is used (every time it’s brewed, a different hop is used). There are also versions matured in white wine barrels, all of which add to the glory and complexity of the beer.

Available from beerhawk.co.uk

^{Sour beers from Siren Craft Brewery (A.DIDENKO)}

9) Thornbridge Brewery, Sour Brown, 7%

Oak-aged Flemish brown ales are left to mature for up to 18 months, often in massive wooden tuns called foudres; this results in dry, tart and assertive beers. It’s very much a unique style for the area and few breweries outside have managed to get it right. But Thornbridge, being the godfathers of the modern craft beer revolution in the UK, do, as their beer Sour Brown demonstrates. Aged in Burgundy wine casks, with rhubarb, Morello cherries and raspberries added, it is a grand old master of a Flemish brown. It’s tart, vinous, earthy, sour and sweet, fruity as in cherry, currant and plum-sweetness and all wrapped up in a cedar wood dryness. This is a remarkable beer that deserves to be studied on a long summer’s evening, possibly with a pile of steamed mussels to hand.

Available from alesbymail.co.uk

10) Wild Beer Co, Sourdough, 3.6%

As the name suggests, the kind of beers that Wild Beer produce out in the wilds of east Somerset have a certain non-conformism about them. Their beers are aged in barrels, blended and exposed to various wild yeasts. For this sprightly and tantalisingly tart variation on a Berliner Weisse, a 58-year-old sourdough yeast has been used to start fermentation (supplied by Bristol-based Hobbs House Bakery). The beer is aged in oak barrels and inoculated with Brettanomyces wild yeast. It emerges blinking into daylight with a mellow fruity sourness that makes it an ideal late morning sharpener, preferably in the company of a smoked salmon bagel.

Available from wildbeer.myshopify.com with information of other outlets here, wildbeerco.com/find-us