Sour Beer Brewing with Mike Mraz – BeerSmith Podcast 42

This week my guest is Mike Mraz, an award winning homebrewer who joins us to talk about brewing sour beer styles. Mike will tell you how to brew those distinctive sour beers like Belgian Flanders, Lambics or Sours at home.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (47:02)

Mike Mraz is this week’s guest. Mike started brewing beer in 2006, and was California Homebrewer of the Year for both 2008 and 2009. He won the Maltose Falcons best of show in 2008 and 2012, and finished third place in Pale Ale at this year’s National Homebrew Awards. Mike is also a regular guest on the “Can You Brew It” show.
Mike describes some of the popular sour beer styles.
We talk about the basic methods for brewing sour beers – including Brettanomyces (Brett), Lactobacillus and sour mashing.
Mike starts by providing details of how he brews with Brett, including when to add it and how to age it.
We talk about Lactobacillus (Lacto) and how it differs from Brett
Mike shares his thoughts on bottle conditioning sour beers, as well as the use of fruit
We discuss the use of wood and oak in your home brewed beer, and how to get the most out of it
Sour mashing is another technique for making sour beer – Mike walks us through the basics of sour mashing
We briefly talk about some of the more exotic sour beers like Lambic
We finish by discussing how to mix sour and regular beers to balance them out

Thanks to Mike Mraz for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!