I have not tried any, but I do hope you get some replies. I may have to see if I can find such things. Even if I find I do not care for them, at least I will have tried them and have an idea of what they are about.

My fave beer of all time is Rodenbach. To me it tastes like the bastard child of beer and wine. Unfortunately the Rodenbach Grand Cru was disappointing. It's like drinking vinegar.

Grand cru is a sour belgian red. All sours have at least some vinegar taste and smell to them cuz they're double or triple fermented and aged 12 to 18 months. I just had a grand cru the other day and it was fantastic. Sounds like you don't like sours lol.

Welllll Rodenbach is sour enough for me. Maybe I should revisit their Grand Cru. There's a specialist shop in a city nearby that does it. Also Kronenbourg Grand Cru isn't sour.

Well there are sour varieties, some beers within them might not always taste sour. Apparently grand cru is a vague description which can mean a lot of things. I just happened to have a grand cru recently that was indeed a flemmish red sour. That grand cru you didn't like is also a flemmish red, which is a sour variety of beer, and it also has a 98% on beer advocate and i guess is considered one of the finest sours of that variety you can get. The duchesse du bourghase flemmish red i just had which i really liked was VERY vinagar-ey, in fact it smelled horrible, literally like rotten vinagar.

Not all sour beer varieties taste super sour, but flemmish red, flemmish brown (aka oud bruin), geuze , and kriek are all considered sour varieties. To try and make them popular to non aficionados, some shitty breweries are dumping a bunch of sugar in them to make them more palatable for the general public.

I suppose it's one of those subjective designations like 'vintage'. I do love Rodenbach for its sourness. Maybe I need to acquire the taste further to appreciate their Grand Cru. I've already done that for bitterness for the sake of high-cacao chocolates. So worth it. Distinguishing the background flavours of a single plantation chocolate is like wine tasting. It's funny watching peoples faces screw up when they drink dispersible aspirin/paracetamol, because I'm immune to that bitter taste! So I need to do that for sour things too.

Any road up, do yourself a favour and try Rodenbach and its Grand Cru. It's gorgeous and it sounds right up your street.

So i found a bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru.

Yeah, that was absolutely amazing. If you don't like that, you don't like belgian sour ales. It was a big bottle so i planned to drink it over a couple days but yeah, i couldn't stop lol. downed the whole thing in about 20 minutes.

Now now, no one likes an elitist.
Like I mentioned, love the flavour, haven't quite mastered the taste. I'll get there some day. Glad you enjoyed!

I'm, not being an elitist. I'm saying that as far as sours go, it's a very good one and a good representative of the strengths of the variety, if you don't like it, you probably don't like the variety as opposed to you maybe not being sure if it's just a shitty beer in general.

I've had a few belgian trippels and i hated all of them, for all i know they were poor representatives of the variety. Finally i had one that's considered one of the finest in the world and it tasted ass. I just don't care for them. Although funny i say that, i had my first ever trippel i actually liked just the other day.

I'm not sure you understand the difference between the basic tastes and flavour. What I'm saying is I love Rodenbach but the Grand Cru is too sour for me. That doesn't mean I don't like that variety of beer, it's just that I have a threshold on the basic taste that you have surpassed. Once I acquire that taste, nothing will stand between me and the wondrous flavour of Rodenbach Grand Cru. For now, I'll stick to the regular variety, but I'll get there in the end.

That's why I drew a parallel with cacao. I don't eat that because it's bitter. I eat it in spite of it being bitter, because it has a wonderful flavour. Bitter things don't perturb me anymore because I've acquired that taste.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Rodenbach.

Well when you said "normal" rodenbach it sounded like it wasn't a sour variety and frankly i've never had a sour beer that didn't have some pretty heavy vinegar smells and tastes (the grand cru actually had about the least vinegar overtones of any sour i've had), so the vinegar complaint also made it sound like it wasn't a sour, and that you don't like sours cuz they pretty much ALL have vinegar overtone. If you think grand cru is vinegarish, try duchesse du bourghais. First sip is almost like drinking balsamic vinegar. I didn't know till i looked it up that normal rodenbach is also a sour. If the grand cru tastes like vinegar to you, i can't imagine how normal rodenbach tastes, but they have some near bye apparently, i'll pick up a bottle and see how I like it.

Always. I've had some great examples from my local posse of hop jockeys - I'm sure there is a club near you.

I'm only really familiar with American Wild Ales but I'm thinking you'd like most of them since they are tart and fruity, sometimes they just lack the Belgian yeast and spices. It takes a toll on the wallet though. But here's a list. Happy hunting.

Drie Fonteinen: Oude Geuze & Drie Fonteinen Kreik
De Brabandere: Petrus Aged Pale & Oud Bruin
Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V. : Monk's Cafe
Brouwerij Boon: Boon Oude Geuze
Brouwerij Verhaeghe: Duchesse De Bourgogne
Goose Island: Lolita, Belgian Style Ale Class of 88' & Madame Rose
The Bruery: Rueuze, Sour in the Rye & Oude Tart
New Belgium: La Folie, La Terrior & Transatlantique Kreik
Russian River: Supplication, Consecration, Temption & Sanctification
Lost Abbey - Red Poppy, Framboise De Amarosa, Cuvee De Tomme
Bear Republic: Tartare (on-tap)
Green Flash: Little Freak (on-tap)
Jolly Pumpkin- La Roja

I've had some of those, specifically the consecration, petrus bruin, and a couple others, all fantastic.

Thanks for the lists. A couple of those like the la roja and boon are ones i'm already trying to hunt down. Thanks a lot!

I also had the duchesse which is one of the gnarliest beers i've ever had. It smells awful and i didn't like it at first but with each sip it tasted better and better. By the time i got to the bottom of it I loved it.

Oh I forgot another local brewery that has some pretty awesome stuff. Almanac Brewery in they bay area uses California local fruit in all of their sours and they are pretty easy to find at good beer stores. Look for Farmer's Reserve No. 1-4, Farmer's Reserve Pluot, Dogpatch Sour, Valley of the Heart's Desire, Golden Gate Gose, Flowering Gose (on-tap) and Brandy Barrel Peche.

Jolly Pumpkin beers are all at least a bit sour and sometime funky like you've tasted before in duchesse. Jester King from Texas and Descheutes from Oregon also occassionally have some sour offerings.

Interesting. I live in the SF bay area and had never heard of almanac. Looks like the dogpatch is really well regarded.