Note: My daughter, Amanda, 21, a Mills College senior, sat in on Nicole Erny’s Beer Class on Belgian sours at The Trappist in downtown Oakland last Saturday.  Here’s her report: The opinions are her own. I love Orval, fresh, when the regular ale yeast has done its worth or long-aged when the Brettanomyces  (wild) yeast has soured the beer. Amanda, obviously, prefers the long-aged version.

Tasting notes:

• Orval- fresh, sharp, dry

• Duchesss de Bourgogne - high acid, vinegar smell and initial taste, heavy

• Rodenbach Classic - dry, mildly sour.

• Oud Beersel Kriek lighter, tart, fruity, not sweet

• Oud Beersel Kriek Vielle has a more lactic smell (almost like baby powder) and a wetter taste than the kriek

• Girardin 1882 Black Label delicate, tart, complex, easy to drink

• Cantillon Iris - Very intense, and it was totally lost on me.

IT MAY BE A LITTLE KNOW FACT, but not all college students like waking up to drink at noon.  As much as I love the Trappist beer cafe in Oakland, with its narrow bar and claptrap of beer bottles lining the walls, it was tough to steel my stomach for the featured class: The Sour Beers of Belgium.

But upon arrival it became evident that not everyone taking the class shared my sentiment. A line of about 15 people had formed outside the bar, mostly couples, all eagerly chatting and waiting to be let in. And once we were let in, even more beer lovers flooded the bar, where Nicole Erny, our friendly sour-beer guide, was popping corks.

The setup was nice, with “students” lining the bar and the far wall, each with several information sheets, a glass of water and at each place setting, a  bowl of bread cubes to clear the palate after each tasting. Nicole and her two assistants stood behind the bar, lecturing on Flanders Red and Lambics, holding up pictures of the odd processes that make the classicly sour Belgian beers we were sampling.  Instead of regular, sweet fermenting, beer yeast,  sours are partly or entirely fermented by wild yeast, the unruly yeasts that permeate the air everywhere.

The choice of an extremely fresh Orval, from the Belgian Trappist brewery,  as the starting beer made me a bit queasy. Without any age on the beer at all, the soap taste overpowered the sour, but luckily the selections got better from there. We tried Duchesse de Bourgogne, and classic Rodenbach (these being examples of  “burgundies of Belgium‚”) and then moved into Lambics, the spontaneously fermented beers brewed only in the Senne Valley on the edge of Brussels.

By the time we hit Lambics, order in the bar was dissolving. The cluster of men next to me were playing with their iPhones and the volume was getting a bit loud all around. It had been an hour, we had started late, and I could tell people were getting a bit knackered. Nicole held the fort down, however, churning out glass after glass, first Oud Beersel Kriek, then Kriek Vielle, spurring us all onward.

The krieks  –  beers fermented with cherries – were received very warmly by the crowd. People liked the fruit aromas and taste, even if the beer was dry or sour. The geuze – a sour beer blend of fresh and aged Lambic – came next, a Girardin 1882 Black Label, which was unfiltered and deliciously tart, probably my favorite on the list, and a Cantillon Iris, whose subtleties, I’m afraid, came out a bit charred on my sour-overloaded tongue.

The dishwasher (the hardest working member of the Trappist team, I think) was steaming and everyone (for some ungodly reason) was allowed a “free,” full pour. The iPhone guys were ecstatic. I saw people trying a lot of new things but a fair portion ordered a Rodenbach Grand Cru, the only sour on tap.

My overall reaction? A good time, and I don’t doubt that any future class will fill up. It’s worth trying, and at $30 dollars it’s a fun way to spend two hours. Did I come away with any shocking beer knowledge? Not really. Did I come away knowing that a fresh Orval tastes like the stuff I use to scour my tub? Yes. And frankly, sometimes knowing which beers your highly dislike is the start of becoming a real beer buff, and that’s worth drinking at 12 noon any day.  - Amanda Brand