Catharina Sour
Catharina Sour: Brazil's light, tart wheat beer with fresh fruit, born in Santa Catarina and listed by the BJCP as local style X4. Taste, strength and fruit.
- Family
- Wild & sour
- Origin
- Brazil
- Strength
- 4.0–5.5% ABV
- Bitterness
- 2–8 IBU
- Colour scale
- 2–6 SRM (4–12 EBC)
A Catharina Sour pours pale straw to gold, from clear to hazy and very fizzy, under a white head; fruit can tint both beer and foam. It tastes of fresh fruit first, which must be easy to name, with a clean lactic tartness behind it, a neutral or lightly bready malt and no hop bitterness to speak of. It is light in body and refreshing, at 4–5.5% alcohol. The fruit is often tropical, but need not be.
Where it comes from
Brazilian brewers made beers like it under other names, but the style took its name in 2015, when craft and home brewers defined it at a workshop in the state of Santa Catarina, with local fruit suited to a warm climate. It has spread across Brazil and South America, in breweries and in home-brewing competitions. Most brewers sour Pilsner malt and wheat in the kettle with lactobacillus, ferment with a neutral ale yeast and add fresh seasonal fruit late. The BJCP lists it as local style X4.
Next to its neighbours
It is close to a fruited Berliner Weisse, a little stronger and with more fruit, and cleaner than a gose, which takes salt and coriander.
Catharina Sour in numbers
- Classic examples
- Cerveja Blumenau, Cervejaria Liffey, Cervejaria UNIKA
- Original gravity
- 1.039–1.048
- Final gravity
- 1.004–1.012
- Classic examples
- Armada Daenerys; Blumenau Catharina Sour Pêssego; Istepô Goiabêra; Itajahy Catharina Araçá Sour; UNIKA Tangerina Clemenules
- BJCP style
- X4 Catharina Sour
Sources
Checked .
- X4. Catharina Sour, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
