Philly Sour
Sunshine Sour
Molly Rose brewing
Todays readings will both come from Peter and Gabriel, and Phillip from the Book of Genesis,
Genesis: MCMLXXV
1. In the beginning, brewers created the beer and the glass. 2. Now the beer was flavourless, and the glass was empty, flatness was over the body of the beer, and the flora of yeasts and bacteria were hovering over the surface of the brew. 3. And the brewers said “let there be booze” and there was booze. 4. The brewers saw that the booze was good, and separated the light from the dark ales. 5. The brewers called the light ‘pale’ and the dark they called ’stout’. And there was evening, and there was thirst – the first beer o’clock. 6. And the brewers said “let’s not bother with hygiene because we don’t know what it is yet, and let sour beer appear.” And it was so. And they called it a day, as they were still dusty from the night before – The first hangover. 7. Then the brewers said “Let the sours be fruitful and multiply.” And it was so. 8. The brewers set the sours with natural wild yeasts and bacteria, with lactobacillus, and pediococcus, and even with bretanomyces. And a heady flora did grow, and was diverse, and multiplied. 9. And there were oud bruins, and there were Berliner weisses, and there were Flanders reds, and there were goses, and there were faros, and there were lambics, and there were wild ales. And the brewers drunk of them, and saw that they too were good. 10. And the brewers said “Let the sour beers of the Old World come to the New; let the oud bruins, and the Berliner weisses, and the Flanders reds, and the goses, and the faros, and the lambics, and the wild ales become strange and new.” And they did. And they were mostly good. 11. And the brewers said “let there be pedants, to separate the beers from the beers”. 12. So the pedants argued over points of style, and the IPA’s were separated from the black IPAs, which were called Cascadian Dark Ales. 13. The brewers called the styles “Old World” and “New World”. And the brewers saw that it was good.
Genesis: MCMLXXXIII
1. When sours began to increase in number on the New World and new styles were born to them 2. The beers of the Old World saw that they were interesting and married any of them that they chose. 3. The first New World sours were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the brewers discovered new strains of yeast and brewed by them. 4. The brewers saw how great the wickedness of the punters had become on the market, and that every iteration of the sours were becoming simply more like fruit flavoured lemonades. 5. The brewers regretted that sours had become so lolly-watered, and their thirst went unslaked. 6. So the brewers said ‘We will focus on hazy NEIPAs and let sours fall into step with seltzers.’ 7. But Molly Rose found favour in the eyes of the punters.
Molly Rose and the Philly Sour
8 This is the account of Molly Rose and the Philly Sour. Molly Rose was a righteous New World brewery, blameless among the forced souring of the time, and brewed faithfully by the old precepts. 9. Molly Rose brewed with oak, and wild yeast, and time. 10. Molly Rose had many beers, but chief among them here is the Philly Sour. 11. And Molly Rose was told to make a can 1/3 of a cubit, or one and one half lesser cans as a home for the Sunshine Sour. 12. Philly sour pours canary yellow, fizzy, fuzzy. The beer pours clear but the haze that had settled in the bottom of the can muzzes the clarity. 13. Philly Sour, called Sunshine Sour, has a classic sour profile, being sharply tart, and possessing a character of vinegar, with savoury finish and funky bret notes. 14. The character of the beer can be likened to a dry white wine, or a dry prosecco. And it is good. 15. And did notes of spice come through that sourness, at the dry savoury finish, notes of cardamom especially shine through an almost lagery crispness. 16. And yea, though it is not oaky, can you taste the presence of the wood. 17. But lo, for the beer is not exclusive to the styles of the Old World, for like the sun do the taste of mangoes, and of orange, and of apricoty peaches shine through before the almost lambic finish does present itself. 18. And the lambic finish does present itself, occluding the flavour of mangoes, and of orange, and of apricoty peaches with vinegary sharpness and crisp savouriness and spice. 19. And lo did the people drink of it, and they were put in mind of a tropical Orval, a thing that surely could not exist. 20. But Molly Rose told them it was so, and so it was. 21. And the bret funk orange and mango of the Philly Sour was much like being fooled into feeling refreshed – as the acid brings the water springing to the mouth, and the crisp finish echoes refreshment. 22. And as there is fruit present at the start, your brain is massaged into feeling refreshment even as you tongue tells you that you may have just eaten a party sized bag of salt and vinegar chips, such is its excoriation. 23. And with this delightful offering the brewers were pleased, and yea, even the punters were pleased, and the pedants could not decide how to define it, and yea were the brewers and punters pleased all over again. 24. And though you may not want to have more than one at a time, it was very, very good.
Here endeth the lesson.
Exit Pursued by a Beer 