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'''Flemish red-brown beer''', also known as "Flanders red brown beer" or simply "Flemish brown beer" <ref name="lostbeers_1">[https://lostbeers.com/flemish-brown-red-or-red-brown/ "Flemish brown, red or red brown? How Michael Jackson invented a beer style out of thin air," by Roel Mulder. Retrieved 08/29/2020.]</ref><ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/?post_id=3819410974753755&comment_id=3819670174727835&reply_comment_id=3821688484526004 Casey Wellman. Milk The Funk Facebook thread on Flemish Red-Brown beer. 08/30/2020.] </ref>, is a classic Belgian beer style that is currently produced only by a small handful of breweries in Flanders, Belgium today. Some breweries outside of Flanders and Belgium aim to produce comparable beers <ref name="snauwaert">[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168160515301896 Microbial diversity and metabolite composition of Belgian red-brown acidic ales. Isabel Snauwaert, Sanne P. Roels, Filip Van Nieuwerburg, Anita Van Landschoot, Luc De Vuyst, Peter Vandamme. 2015.]</ref>. These beers, red to brown in color, are characterized as being sour and sometimes sweet, with malt flavors and fruity complexity from the mixed fermentation and sometimes hints of oak. They have often been described as "wine-like". Non-Belgian beer writers, beginning with Michael Jackson, have split these beers into two categories: "Flanders Red Ale" and "Oud Bruin". with The the arguable distinction between these two has arguably been them being that "Flanders Red Ales" are generally brewed in West Flanders and are aged in oak, while "Oud Bruin" is generally aged in steel fermenters and brewed in East Flanders, and the "Oud Bruin" version is less acetic and more malty in flavor (. Before beer writer Michael Jackson wrote about these styles, Belgian brewers did not make no such the same distinctions. Today, some modern Belgian brewers see the distinction between these types of beers differently from Jackson and even amongst each other <ref>[https://www.belgiansmaak.com/ep043-oud-bruin-flanders-red-brown-flemish-sours/ Belgian Smaak podcast EP043 | Roundtable Discussion — Everything Oud Bruin, Flanders Red, and Flemish Sours. Feb 2023. Retrieved 02/27/2023.]</ref>(~50 mins in). Rodenbach, Brewery Verhaeghe, Liefmans, and De Brabandere are examples of some of the most well known Belgian producers <ref name="lostbeers_1" /><ref>[http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000217.html "Belgium's Great Beers". The Beer Hunter, Michael Jackson. 1999. Retrieved 01/27/2016.]</ref><ref>[http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf 23B. BJCP 2016 Guidelines. Flanders Red Ale and 23C. Oud Ruin.]</ref>. Classic Belgian examples have been flash pasteurized or sterile filtered and are not alive in the bottle<ref>[http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/the-sour-hour-episode-9/ Rudy Ghequire from Rodenbach on the Sour Hour]</ref> (~35 minutes in) (also ref Mad Fermentationist dregs list). Belgian brewers are seeking to protect the term "Flemish Red Brown Beer"; see [[Flemish_Red_Brown_Beer#Protection_Seeking|Protection Seeking]] below.

The sour flavor of both Liefmans and Rodenbach comes from lactic acid and acetic acid. Oak aged Rodenbach contains 2500-5000 mg/L of lactic acid and around 1500 mg/L of acetic acid. Liefmans contains similar levels of lactic acid, but only around 1000 mg/L of acetic acid due to the stainless steel aging process. This results in beer that is perceived as less acidic compared to the oak aged Rodenbach beer <ref name="Dusart_2022" />. Compared to lambic, the aged red-brown beers have more lactic acid and acetic acid than younger lambic (perhaps due to a higher hop dosage in lambic production), but less than aged bottles of lambic (see [[Spontaneous_Fermentation#Aroma_and_Flavor_Production|Spontaneous Fermentation]]).