There are a variety of ways to get sour flavor into a beer—and an almost endless variety of beers that you can add sourness to. To be clear, we’re honestly not the hugest fans of the term “sour beer.” For us, sour is a flavor descriptor and not a beer style. Sour beers can be dark, fruity, light, heavy, anything really. But that doesn’t answer the question: how do you make a beer sour?

The haze days are upon us. At this point in time, hazy beers are widely sought by craft beer fans new and old. So we wanted to take some time to unpack what haze really is, and what its purpose in beer is. Is it intentional? A mistake? We’ll explain all that and more below.

One of beer’s most remarkable aspects is its versatility. On top of the fundamental ingredients of water, grain, yeast, and hops, a brewer can add almost any extra ingredients (unless you’re in Germany, where there are literal brewing laws about what you can put into beer). Ingredients found in beer today include fruit, chocolate, coffee, nuts, waffles, cookies, spices, cocoa, marshmallows, breakfast cereal, toffee, and so much more. This is not to say that WE use all of these ingredients, just that brewers, mainly in the United States, have really been pushing the limits of what can be added to beer.

Since all the way back in 1995, the Maine community has had our back. Even though they were initially (and understandably) perplexed by our hazy, citrusy witbier, they soon found a love for it that has only grown with time. Because our community has given us so much support, we wanted to celebrate our 25th anniversary by giving back to them. So we created 25 Days of Giving.