Experimenting with Philly Sour Yeast

Back for another episode, we have Denny and Jerry telling us about their experimentation with Philly Sour yeast from Lallemand Brewing.

Every year the AHA hosts Big Brew on the first Saturday of May. Pike Peak Brewing is awesome enough to host our homebrew club every year for Big Brew every year at their Monument location, huge thank you! (Pikes Peak Brewing didn’t sponsor this video https://www.pikespeakbrewing.com/). They talk with us before hand and we come up with the idea for a grain bill, and then they make a batch of wort for us. All you have to do is bring a bucket, and they let us have some for a very reasonable price.

Last year (2022), when all was said and done, Chris came out of the brew house and let us know that he had some wort left over, and asked if anyone wanted it. Jerry and Denny decided to take advantage of it.

During the brew session, Mike was talking to Jerry and Chris about Philly Sour yeast, and when Jerry and Denny went to one of the local homebrew stores, Fermentations, they saw that they had Philly Sour yeast.

The funny part is that Jerry and Denny didn’t have any experience with it, nor did they know much about it, so they sprinkled it on the wort for a couple of days, and then boiled it. They didn’t realize it wasn’t a Lactobacillus culture, and used it like you would use a Lactobacillus culture in a regular kettle sour.

Yes, it’s a bit unorthodox, but it worked! From what we’ve read online, Philly Sour starts by making the lactic acid, and then when it’s happy, it starts fermenting the beer. So in this case, they were able to get some lactic acid before they boiled the wort and pitched some US-05 yeast.

The beer is slightly tart, very approachable, and was certainly worth the purchase price of the wort (free). Like a traditional Berliner Weisse, Jerry and Denny added some syrup, and it’s a versatile beer that is exceptionally refreshing on a warm day.

Since Pikes Peak made the wort, we don’t have a specific recipe, but if you’re looking to brew a Philly Sour based kettle sour, you can find a recipe here
https://cobrewtalk.com/mikes-peach-kettle-sour-using-philly-sour-yeast-all-grain-homebrew-recipe/