"It's fruit punch beer." - Kevin G

Even beer can taste just like candy.  Although we do not want this lying around for children to discover, sour beers may be a nice alternative for those who are not into the bitterness of beer.  As Nathan Berrong once stated in a CNN article, it is a "sour funkiness that is unlike any other beer imaginable."  And right he is.  The first time I had a sour beer of any kind it was in Manayunk bar with my dear friends Rosie and Michelle.  The scantily-clad server offered the special - a Dirty Hoe.  Intrigued by the name and the combination of Hoegaarden and Framboise, we ordered a round.  After clinging our glasses and gratuitously expressing our love for one another, we sipped.  The smooth, calm wheat of the Hoegaarden was energized by the tart, lip-puckering Framboise.  We loved it.  At the time, I had no idea that Framboise was even a beer.  It had that very fruity-almost-from-concentrate taste.

As Kevin G, the least beer-interested man I know, once said, "It's fruit punch beer."  He really is not that far off regarding its flavor.  The basic components remain the same: water, yeast, hops, and barley.  What alters the taste is the process itself.  Adding specific spores of yeast and aging in oak barrels produces what we see in these flamboyantly labeled bottles. Additionally the aging process can take between 6 months to 3 years, significantly longer than most beers.  What else is great about sour ales?  They can be saved.  Blending other ingredients to the batch may make a seemingly mediocre brew instead something exceptional.  Does that mean that two wrongs could make a right?  

Many breweries who produce both sour and other beers keep them separated so as not to contaminate the fermentation process of the "normal" batches.

So let's raise a glass to the fruit punch beer.  Slainte!