Vander Ghinste & Sour Beer

With the steady rise in popularity of sour beers over the past few years, it's important to remember where these mouth puckering began.

Like with most good beers, some of the oldest sours have deep roots in Belgium - or Flanders to be precise.

The Vander Ghinste brown Flanders sour ale is one of the best sours out there, but it can be hard to find. Once you do get your hands on one and taste it, like all good Belgian beers, your socks won't get knocked off.

On the contrary, as with refined goods of all kinds, the Flanders sour ale defines the limits of what a good sour ale can be: sour but not overpoweringly so, with a silky light body and an effervescent array of tart and sweet dried fruit laced throughout.

Again, as with most things that happen to be refined, many people seem to seek 'lesser' sours out instead of the magnificent Flanders sour ales. After speaking with the bar tender at Portland's fantastic The Abbey Room about this, the reason isn't any clearer as to why that is the case, but I imagine a simple lack of marketing and advertisement are leading factors.

Anyways, that means more Flemish sour ale for me🍻