In case anyone was interested, the Craft Beer Outlet in the greater NE Philly section has this awesome sour.
Sweet account that Bella Vista just scored. Cascade Brewing/Raccoon Lodge & Brewpub (Portland, OR) mostly does sours. Bottles of Sang Noir and The Vine are popping up all over the area now. Beer Heaven, Hawthorne's, and TJ's are a few that have em.
We've been getting Cascade beers for over two years now, albeit incredibly sparsely and I'm pretty sure it has been BV the whole time. Did they get the account from someone else or something?
I used to see the kriek fairly regularly and the apricot rarely. The apricot is fantastic btw... I cant wait to try these two.
BV posted a reply to this (on facebook oddly enough). Not sure I completely understand, but point is, they have the account now. "We have been appointed the Only and original wholesaler in PA for Cascade the entire time. Cascade has only been able to send PA beer 3 times in 3 years. On the contrary to a minority out there. Bella Vista has NOT had Cascade beers the entire time and then decided to send some out to general distribution. When we do get Cascade's sours we notify our key accounts and allocate them immediately. As you may or may not be aware, the demand for sour/wild beers is growing dramatically, all in the while the supply of these beers is not growing anywhere near the rate of demand. These beers require extra patience and boatloads of time to perfect. From batch to batch, barrel to barrel even with identical batch, the product and final taste can vary to the point where the brewers decides to either hold on to the beer longer, blend it into something else or worse yet, dump it. Therefore we ask for your patience when anticipating these types of beers in a market."
Was in Portland last month for a couple of weeks and spent some time at Cascade. Had a nice conversation with Art the owner, right now they still hand bottle everything but are currently installing a bottling line. He said they have the capacity to produce more beer and with the new bottling line we should see significantly more Cascade in PA. Let's hope so, they are doing things with the number and quality of sours they produce that no other US brewer is doing. I had THIRTEEN different sours from Cascade in the 2 weeks I was there.
Let's just say that there have been some issues with BV and BA accounts in the past. I can't seem to find one for them by looking for "BV" or "Bella"
Had sang noir the other night and it was fantastic.. I want another bottle. As far as blueberry, I believe it is brewery only, but if you can get it try it! Its fantastic
