Sour is the new hoppy

I'm not sure exactly where this statement originated, I know it's been attributed to a brewmaster at Goose Island over a year ago, but I've been hearing it a lot more lately. As far as new beer releases, it seems to be proving true. Just last week I had Ommegang's Zuur, a Flemish sour. Now today I read about Avery's Quinquepartite, a mix of various private stock sour ales they've had lying around for a while.

Now I'm not really a big fan of trends, especially when it comes to something that should take a lot of care and time to create. I really don't get the whole hipster attitude of being in on "the next big thing". Honestly, is it really too much to just enjoy something for what it is? What I really don't like about this trend is the possibility of breweries trying to "get in" on it while it's still popular.

I am by no means an expert on sour ales. I've had a few that are easy to obtain and not extremely expensive. I know Dan has a few to save for a special occasion. However, as I understand it, a good sour beer has a few properties that do not easily lend itself to trends. For example:

1. A good recipe is hard to formulate.
2. They take a long time to properly age.
3. The ingredients that go into them are expensive.

In fact, sour beers so far have been seen as somewhat of a risk for breweries to produce. There was a great NY Times article last month on just this point. Part of it stems from a lack of knowledge about the style, but I don't necessarily believe that making sour beers a trend will fix that problem. Instead I imagine people tasting a sour beer and ignoring their taste buds entirely, simply thinking that because it's sour it must be good. To some extend it exists already with "hop heads" who only care about how many IBUs you can cram into a single beer. It would be a shame to see the extreme efforts of those producing great sour beers already go unappreciated because of some new fad.

- Adam