Unintentionally soured to intentionally unsour

Alas, alack!  It has been so long since I have updated the blog, but honestly, there hasn't been much to update since I've been both at home in MA on winter break and on tour through the southeast with Westminster Choir.  Here are a few updates:

• Smoked Brown Ale: a strange issue here...all seemed quite well when I checked on it around the first week of January.  Beer looked good and it had previously tasted excellent.  To my dismay, when I returned from tour there was a huge, white pellicle on the beer, pretty as a picture.  I have NO idea how this happened, as my sanitation methods are quite thorough.  Well, the pellicle looked so perfect that maybe it will make this into a nice, "horsey," smoked farmhouse ale of sorts.  I really hope this will be the case.  I feel so gypped though...I really hoped that my first sour/funky beer would be, well, intentional.  At any rate, I'll taste this one and see if it's worth saving.
• Westminster Porter: the beer is beautifully cleared and deliciously dark, and when I tasted it in early January it was awesome, big and roasty with great chocolate/coffee notes.  The only thing I perceived was that it was a tad on the bitter side, but there's a decent chance that that has mellowed out by now.  At any rate, that will probably the first beer that I tap this semester, and it will probably happen soon!
• The Future: Well my most recent intrigue has been to brew up a clean-style rye Kentucky common beer.  While Kentucky common is often a style for which people do a sour mash, this will basically be a clean, amber-colored cream ale with rye, dark caramel malt, and some corn to lighten the body.  The malt bill will be very much inspired by whiskey/moonshiners, hence the rye and corn.  This will be great, because I love session beers and I've been looking for a good way to do a sort of "American mild."  Also, I'll be using the yeast cake of the KY common to do my partigyle brew day of American barleywine/bitter, so that will definitely be awesome.

Recipes and more updates coming really soon!  Hoping to get some brewing/kegging done this weekend.