Love me some Sours, future for them?

Sours seem like the "it" beer in the PNW right now so I don't think you should be lacking in sours in the coming years. Up here in Seattle Two Beers, Schooner Exact, and Fremont all have young sour programs...Up in Vancouver BC both Storm and Driftwood have some impressive sours under their belts. Oregon has Block 15, Cascade, 10 Barrel is starting up, I think some of Ale Apothecary stuff are wild ales, and I think Commons are doing some stuff too.

Block 15 sours are definitely worth checking out...there is a release coming up in Corvallis on June 1st...Enchantment, Oud Bruin aged in whiskey barrels (it was great on tap).

 

De Garde brewing from Tillamook just started making it's way into PDX and its quite good. I had their "Loak" on tap at Apex and it brought to mind comparisons with Cascade's Bourbonic Plague. Definitely keep an eye out for them; I think Cascade is going to have some major competition coming their way.

 

Never heard of them, thanks for the tip!

 

shhhhhhhh about de garde!

I love how bu weiss and loak have a similar drinkability, yet one is 2.1% abv and the other is 11.7% abv. Very impressive I will be trying anything i see from de garde.

 

Surprised Red Peak hasn't been mentioned yet

 

Except better and at a much much better price point.

 

more affordable, no...they will get more and more expensive. More popular and available, yes...almost all breweries are making them now a days. If you are in Portland, stick with Cascade but there are a lot of good sours in Portland

 

La Tache and El Cuatro are sours. Sahalie is a tart saison. Grabbed a bottle of each this past weekend in Bend. NOT. CHEAP.

Well... cheaper than Cascade's latest pricing tier, but still not cheap.

 

Loak blew my mind. More: http://www.portlandmercury.com/Blog...ave-like-20000-more-pints-of-bu-weisse-please

 

I don't know that sticking with Cascade would be the recommendation of most locals, but they make solid beer, and everyones opinion is valid.
I also think we'll see a stabilizing of prices in the sour/wild beer realm as competition increases. They'll never be as cheap as the majority of styles given the cost and time involved in production, but it becomes hard to charge $30 a bottle when you've got numerous competing options.

 

i second this, i have only had banks - a sour ipa aged in gin barrels. super unique and amazing sour, i cannot wait to spears, loak and bu weisse. i think these guys are really doing something special!

 

Thank you. That's incredibly kind. I would like to clarify about 'Banks' though, as there (understandably) seems to be some confusion going around:
This beer is a special blend we did as a thank you to Baileys Taproom. We took ~40% of our spontaneously fermented, gin barrel aged, Double India Wild Ale 'Regards' and blended it with some of our first mature barrel of 'Unblended Bueze,' our lambic inspired brew. A single keg at first, though we are delivering two more to them this week. Both of the components will be around town starting this week as well. Only a few kegs of the Bueze though, but that's a longer story...
Thanks again for the support. We'll do our best not to let you down!

 

Haven't had the chance to try anything from y'all but gonna hunt down some of your stuff on draft when I'm in Portland this weekend. Heard really good things about Loak and that looks to be on tap at a few places. Any recommendations on where I can find more of your stuff on draft? Heading down Friday night and back Sunday so don't have a whole lot of time.

Oh, and please send some kegs to Seattle, we're sour deprived up here!

 

I think the best option this weekend would be Apex. They're tapping five of our beers during their anniversary on Saturday. I have to be honest though, I would not be upset if you didn't try any of ours, because it sounds like they've got a lot of great beer lined up that day. Bonus: you can possibly still get Loak (and check out their awesome bottle selection) across the street at Beermongers this weekend. Others who live in town can probably give you more advice...

We are bringing up a couple batches to our distributor on Friday, but I don't suspect that they'll be pouring by this weekend. There's still some kegs around though, but they don't seem to last long on tap in general (which is awesome! Thanks all!)

Seattle is looking like it'll be awhile. We had planned to distribute into Washington sooner, but as demand is greatly exceeding our expectations, we are just trying to take care of Oregon first. As our longer aged barrels start coming into fruition late this year, and as the novelty of a new brewery dies off, we should have more product available, and that may enable us to revisit the possibility. I mean, right now we're brewing two batches for every one that gets out because of the lag time our brews take. The turnaround on even our hoppy stuff is measured in months, not the typical weeks. Sorry!

 

Thanks for the info! I'll definitely be hitting Apex after getting back from the Block 15 bottle release in Corvallis so I'll have a chance to try some of your stuff. Really looking forward to it...Only challenge will be making it through the Block 15 release and the Apex birthday while remaining somewhat coherent for my in-law's retirement party at 5 or 6 haha.

 

Easy, at b15 you have the awesome brunch to soak up alcohol and while at Apex you can order Los Gorditos, you're set!
And shouldn't you be somewhat inebriated whilst being subjected to your in-laws retirement party?

 

Don't forget about Central Oregon!

 

Working on it this week. I'd expect kegs in Bend the near future. Sorry we don't have more to go around.

 

Anyone in Seattle know of other sour events over the year? Already missing sour fest.