==Terminology and Combining Techniques==The techniques used by brewers to create sour, acidic, funky, and wild beers often blur the lines between different established techniques. This makes it difficult to always put a box around a given brewer's process. For example, some brewers will use an open vessel such as a [[coolship]] to cool their wort overnight, and collect ambient microbes from the surrounding environment similar to how [[Spontaneous Fermentation]] is done, but also will add cultures from a laboratory afterwards. Some brewers will use a [[Wort_Souring|kettle souring]] process to create acidity up front, and then pasteurize the beer and age it in a barrel without ''Brettanomyces'', thus creating an acidic beer with residual sugars. Some brewers may first sour wort, not pasteurize it, and then add ''S. cerevisiae'' and ''Brettanomyces'' to the beer to finish the fermentation, and then either steel ferment or barrel ferment the beer. The ways in which different techniques can be combined are too many to list, and are constantly evolving with the creativity of brewers. {{DISPLAYTITLE:Temp Title}}
In addition to the overlap of different processes, there are also other unresolved issues with labels such as "wild" or "spontaneous". For example, Is a beer only considered "spontaneous" if it is cooled in a coolship, or is it also "spontaneous" if the wort is simply transferred to a barrel that previously held a beer that was inoculated only by ambient microbes from cooling in a coolship? Are microbes that are [[Wild_Yeast_Isolation|wild caught]] from fruit or flowers and then isolated and cultured considered "spontaneous" or "wild" or something else? Some terminology is still up ''Use this page for debate and evolving as brewers continue to discuss themrough drafts. ''
Both of these issues not only make talking about sour/funky brewing difficult between brewers, but they also make it even more challenging to communicate to consumers what it is the brewer is doing to make the beer that they are drinking, and why that process is important. Efforts by professional brewers have recently been made to begin discussing these terms, and what effects on the market various terms might have. For example, brewers who barrel age sour beers are often critical of other brewers who produce kettle sour beers within 2 weeks and charge prices that are comparable to barrel aged sour beers. On the other side of the discussion, brewers who sour wort are critical of the term "kettle souring" being portrayed as only a "shortcut" or a way to make "one dimensional sour beer", and thus causing consumers to perhaps view kettle soured beers in a negative light despite the unique beers that can be created from such a process ([[Gose]] and [[Berliner Weissbier]] are not the only styles that can be brewed with wort souring or kettle souring techniques). Indeed, brewers who are passionate about souring wort often know just as much (and sometimes more) than brewers who use only mixed cultures, and can create both desirable and very unique beers.
As ===Environment and Survival===''Brettanomyces'' has been thought to occur naturally on the skins of fruit such as apples and grapes. However, there are only a handful of reports of ''Brettanomyces'' being identified on the skins of fruit <ref>[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.154 Lentz, M., Putzke, T., Hessler, R. and Luman, E. (2014), Genetic and physiological characterization of yeast isolated from ripe fruit and analysis of fermentation and brewing potential, J. Inst. Brew., 120: 559– 564. DOI: 10.1002/jib.154.]</ref><ref name="Comitini">[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415/abstract Occurrence of Brettanomyces bruxellensis on grape berries and in related winemaking cellar. Francesca Comitini, Lucia Oro, Laura Canonico, Valentina Marinelli, Maurizio Ciani. 2019. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415.]</ref><ref name="Renouf_2007">[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501306000231?via%3Dihub Development of an enrichment medium to detect Dekkera/Brettanomyces bruxellensis, a spoilage wine yeast, on the surface of grape berries. Vincent Renouf, Aline Lonvaud-Funel. 2007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micres.2006.02.006.]</ref>. In contrast, there are also studies that indicate ''Brettanomyces'' only being found during or after food processing, which indicates that the processing equipment may be the primary source for the ''Brettanomyces''. Although it is generally thought that ''Brettanomyces'' originates from the skins of fruit, in general, there is also a lack of direct evidence that ''Brettanomyces'' occurs in abundance naturally on fruit skins. In addition, ''Brettanomyces'' has been isolated from the surfaces of equipment in wineries and breweries <ref name="smith_divol_2016" /><ref name="Schifferdecker" /><ref name="Loureiro_2003">[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12892920 Spoilage yeasts in the wine industry. Loureiro V, Malfeito-Ferreira M. 2003.]</ref><ref name="Steensels" /><ref name="Barata_2008">[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18077036 Survival patterns of Dekkera bruxellensis in wines and inhibitory effect of sulphur dioxide. f Barata A, Caldeira J, Botelheiro R, Pagliara D, Malfeito-Ferreira M, Loureiro V. 2008.]</ref> (Table 1). For example , an ongoing survey of wild yeasts in most of the US which isolated nearly 2,000 isolates with 262 unique species has not yet found a single occurrence of ''Brettanomyces'' in the wild (so far they have only surveyed non-human inhabited wild areas of discussions regarding these challengesthe US and Alaska; substrates sampled included leaves, soil, bark, moss, mushrooms, needles, pine cones, twigs/wood, and other plant matter) <ref>[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.13.452236v1 Substrate, temperature, and geographical patterns among nearly 2,000 natural yeast isolates. William J. Spurley, Kaitlin J. Fisher, Quinn K. Langdon, Kelly V. Buh, Martin Jarzyna, Max A. B. Haase, Kayla Sylvester, Ryan V. Moriarty, Daniel Rodriguez, Angela Sheddan, Sarah Wright, Lisa Sorlie, Amanda Beth Hulfachor, Dana A. Opulente, Chris Todd Hittinger. bioRxiv 2021.07.13.452236; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.13.452236.]</ref>. It is also thought to disperse via fruit-flies (called "vectors" in the scientific literature), similar to how ''Saccharomyces'' travels, see although direct evidence for this panel has only been reported rarely and only on fruit-flies in wineries that are likely to come into contact with equipment/food/waste that is already contaminated with Jeffrey Stuffings ''Brettanomyces'' <ref>[https://youtu.be/G2nhUM5PIrg?t=309 Dr. Bryan Heit. BotB - Where (Do) The Wild Brettanomyces Roam?. ~5 mins in. Retrieved 07/10/2022.]</ref><ref name="Renouf_2007" /><ref name="Steensels">[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168160515001865 Brettanomyces yeasts — From spoilage organisms to valuable contributors to industrial fermentations. Jan Steensels, Luk Daenen, Philippe Malcorps, Guy Derdelinckx, Hubert Verachtert, Kevin J. Verstrepen. International Journal of Jester King BreweryFood Microbiology Volume 206, 3 August 2015, Pages 24–38.]</ref><ref name="Barata_2008" /><ref name="Loureiro_2003" />. ''Brettanomyces'' is known to be difficult to grow in a lab due to slow growth, specific nutrient requirements, Jeff Young or perhaps because of Blue Owl Brewinga "VBNC" state (see [[Wild_Yeast_Isolation#Wild_Brettanomyces|Wild ''Brettanomyces'']] for more information), Brandon Jones which may account for the lack of Milk evidence for fruit being the primary natural habitat for ''Brettanomyces''. More recently, techniques have been invented to more easily isolate and grow ''Brettanomyces'' <ref name="Renouf_2007" /><ref name="Comitini" />. There is also significant evidence that the natural habitat of ''Brettanomyces'' might actually be the root systems of certain plants, known as the [https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-rhizosphere-roots-soil-and-67500617/ "rhizosphere"]. The rhizosphere refers to the complex symbiotic community of microbe populations that live on or around the root system of plants. Wild strains of ''Brettanomyces'' have been found in the root systems of dill, common beans, sunflowers, maize, corn, jute, cassava, and grey mangroves found in the Funk estuaries of Indonesia <ref>[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aab.12309 Weisany, W., Raei, Y., Salmasi, S., Sohrabi, Y. and Yazoo Brewing Company Ghassemi-Golezani, K. (mostly MTF2016), Jay Goodwin Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi induced changes in rhizosphere, essential oil and mineral nutrients uptake in dill/common bean intercropping system. Ann Appl Biol, 169: 384-397. https://doi.org/10.1111/aab.12309.]</ref><ref>[https://archive.aessweb.com/index.php/5003/article/view/3333 I.O, S. ., & G.P, O. . (2012). Diversity of Fungal Populations in Soils Cultivated With Cassava Cultivar TMS 98/0505. Journal of The Rare BarrelAsian Scientific Research, 2(3), 116–123. Retrieved from https://archive.aessweb.com/index.php/5003/article/view/3333.]</ref><ref>[https://www.ajol.info/index.php/swj/article/view/149513 Rhizosphere and Michael Lalli non-rhizosphere soil mycoflora of Prairie Artisan Ales Corchorus olitorius (audio Jute). G.S. Olahan, I.O. Sule, T Garuba, Y.A. Salawu. Science World Journal. 2016.]</ref><ref>[https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/jbb/article/view/36023 NOERFITRYANI, Noerfitryani; HAMZAH, Hamzah. THE EXISTENCE OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC FUNGI ON RICE PLANTS RHIZOSPHERE. International Journal of Biosciences and Biotechnology, p. 12-24, dec. 2017. ISSN 2655-9994. doi: https://doi.org/10.24843/IJBB.2017.v05.i01.p02.]</ref><ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2452219818300259 Marcela Sarabia, Saila Cazares, Antonio González-Rodríguez, Francisco Mora, Yazmín Carreón-Abud, John Larsen, Plant growth promotion traits of rhizosphere yeasts and their response to soil characteristics and crop cycle in maize agroecosystems, Rhizosphere, Volume 6, 2018, Pages 67-73, ISSN 2452-2198, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rhisph.2018.04.002.]</ref><ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049964419303238 Nivien A. Nafady, Mohamed Hashem, Elhagag A. Hassan, Hoda A.M. Ahmed, Saad A. Alamri. The combined effect of arbuscular mycorrhizae and plant-growth-promoting yeast improves around 27 minutes)sunflower defense against Macrophomina phaseolina diseases. Biological Control. Volume 138, 2019, 104049. ISSN 1049-9644, https: //doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2019.104049.]</ref><youtuberef>uyjl6QQ9Rm4[http://ejurnal.its.ac.id/index.php/sains_seni/article/view/5613 Isolation and Characterization of Yeast from Rhizosphere Avicennia Marina Wonorejo. Sitatun Zunaidah, Nur Hidayatul Alami. 2014. DOI: 10.12962/j23373520.v3i1.5613.]</ref>. See Dr. Bryan Heit's video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2nhUM5PIrg "Where (Do) The Wild Brettanomyces Roam?"] and [https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/posts/5940213029340195 his comments in Milk The Funk], as well as [https://www.youtube>.com/watch?v=BrR7G_YyfmA "Philip Poole. Plant Control of the Rhizosphere Microbiome"]. For documented isolation attempts from plant rhizospheres, see [[Wild_Yeast_Isolation#Wild_Brettanomyces|Wild Yeast Isolation]].