I went to the Sour, Lambic & Berlinner Weisse festival at Cajun Cafe on the Bayou in Tampa this weekend.  The flyer listed an impressive selection of sour beer, about half from Florida, about half from Belgium, and a few others (including BFM from Switzerland and Ommegang from New York).  There were also a few other domestic bottles that were not on the program (more on that later).

There were a couple of tables run by shops, with a wide selection of imports.  And there were several local breweries, brewpubs, and homebrew groups with broader selection of their brews.  I think my favorites of the afternoon were:

• BFM’s Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien (2007): they actually had four years of this brew (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010), with pretty significant differences between the years.  2006 was very funky but not very sour at all.  The 2009 and 2010 bottles were good, with varying sourness, funkiness and other flavors.  But the 2007 was really strong and tart, with just enough funkiness to make it interesting.
• Hanssens’ Oude Gueuze: There were a several bottles from Hanssens, with various fruits.  But I think the plain gueuze was the best.  A very clean and sour gueuze.
• 3 Fonteinen’s Schaerbeekse Kriek: This was the one kriek I really wanted to have when we were in Brussels, but couldn’t find.  I was not disappointed to have it at last: it had a great, almost gritty cherry base, with a big tart lambic bite.  Probably the best kriek I’ve had, with a nice combination of cherry and lambic flavors (instead of just having one of them prevail as often happens).
• Cascade’s Sang Noir: I was really glad to see a few Cascade bottles were there.  This was a very nice, strongly cherry-flavored kriek, with a richness and creaminess that you don’t often see in sour beers.
• Mikkellers’s Funky E *: The first glass of this I had was terrible and watery — I think it probably fell over in the ice bath.  But they opened up a second bottle and I’m glad I gave it another chance.  It had a nice oakiness, and more malty sweetness than most sours.

Another real treat came just after the second glass of Funky E * — I saw the server pull a bottle of Pliny the Elder out and put it in the ice bath under the counter.  I don’t know if he was planning on sharing, but I said “Hey! I saw that!” and he gave me a glass.  Within a few seconds, a crowd formed and the bottle was soon gone.  It definitely lived up to the reputation as being a very balanced, world-class IPA.  And I was a little amused to see the biggest commotion at the sour fest was for an IPA.

In fact, there were really only two disappointments of the afternoon:

• I’d never had Berliner Weisse before, and I had several examples from a range of breweries.  I didn’t find any of them better than drinkable, and most of them I poured out.  So I can scratch that style off my list.
• I didn’t like the offerings from Cigar City (one of the berliner weisses) or Saint Somewhere (a strange refermentation of their Saison Athene).  I generally count on them to make beers I like (and sometimes love), so that was a little sad.