Good Available Sours..

Truth

 

Can someone explain Black Projects distribution methods? AFAIK, the bottles have been brewery 'bottle release' events only (or via membership), and they recently opened up distribution via Shelton Brothers to other cities that they go to festivals in, so they can drop bottles when they go to the festivals.... but as for Denver, I've never seen any bottles or heard of any bottles hitting the retail store shelves. But now I find out bottles have gone to Fort Collins?

As a local who lives in Denver and been shut out of bottles before waiting in line, this kind of sucks. They are already extremely limited releases. (it's been getting better tho!)

Related to this thread: Check out Baere sours, I really have been digging them

 

Reminds me of when Crooked Stave was a rare sight in Denver (and most of the country) and a friend of mine was buying it off the shelf in Nuremberg

 

I used to train at that easton bjj that is now baere, I can only imagine all the wild yeast strains that were in that place.

 

AFAIK, Baere's not doing any spontaneous stuff, so not sure how much that would matter.

 

Funkwerks, Trinity, Paradox.

Cheers!

 

Crooked Stave (Obviously!)
Avery Apricot Sour, Raspberry Sour (both should be available), gold foils
New Belgium Le Terrior, La Folie, tartastic
Odell has many available, some older than others
Powder Keg
Great Divide has made some
TRVE brewing makes lots of them in bottles, widely available
AC Golden are hard to find, but they make several diff ones
Funkwerks are generally only mildly acidic, but some are moreso like Oud Bruin

 

From what I know just a few of the early releases from last year saw distro to places like CBC where they will drive to pick up a few cases. Now everything is sold out pretty much on the Saturday they release. The Shelton Bros deal is so they can ship beer to festivals since they were getting bigger and couldn't do it under the radar any more. I would not expect to see distro from them any time soon. Maybe next year when the barrels from this seasons coolship are ready.

 

Guess I was wrong looks like BP is making drops at liquor stores when they do events in certain areas. May be able to find a few bottles here and there in the wild.

 

I just had a powder keg fruitful union at a bottle share. It was incredible, how limited is that beer?

 

I believe it's a once a year kinda release, people lined up for it? I don't think it hit distro. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

Ska Cru d'etat is delicious.

 

Surprised they didn't name it RUDE d'etat.

 

I was remiss in mentioning Paradox for available sours.

Paradox had a couple years of hit or miss production, but IMO the hits have been a lot more frequent lately. They are pretty price-competitive and have produced some wonderful beers lately.

Check untapped ratings for their newest releases. Oh, and I personally age all the Paradox about 6 months before I open the bottle. Seems to work well for me.

 

I see ac golden turding it up in parker. Three or four different varieties

 

AC Golden's stuff is fantastic. The only knock on it is the price, and that's apparently intentional.

 

Yes, AC Golden stuff is all great. I think the price reflects the limited quantities / long aging times. I'm OK with it. Of course, I'd probably buy more if it was cheaper.

2 recent beers from Funkwerks, Bramble and Peachy King, have both been excellent beers. A little steep ($17-18) but totally reasonable for BBA sour beers in 750ml format.

 

No clue how common it is, but A-Town Pizza recently had a keg of Funkwerks Luminoso. I guess it's a sour blonde blended with another kettle sour. I think it's fan-freakin'-tastic.

 

Gotta pay for that barrel time. Now if they do kettle sours at this price all hell may break loose.

 

Hey All,

As of right now, we're still brewing everything ourselves (no contracting wort) on a 4-bbl (120gal) system. In the past, meaning before the small, 100 bbl, 800 sq ft expansion/cellar/coolship room, we didn't have space to hold back bottles. So, we'd bottle, condition, and then sell them. The majority of bottled beer went out of the tasting room during our once-a-month bottle releases and that was it. I'm not kidding when I say that James and I would take home maybe one or two bottles a release, hold back one or two cases for cellaring and R&D, and that was it.

Fast-forward to now: we have bottles available on-site nearly 100% of the time. Our releases have gotten bigger and we're able to usually offer bottle limits before the release so you're not crossing your fingers in line hoping to get more than one bottle. I know your time is valuable, there are a ton of fantastic breweries where you could be spending your money, and we try to respect that by keeping communication open, offering free coffee the morning of, and sometimes even food and surprises for stuff on top or in bottles.

We recently hired a Production Manager who is kicking ass and really has a handle on volumes and availability of finished beer. Our plan moving forward is as follows (we've been dabbling for a few months now with cases at Divino and CBC in FoCo):

1. Keep bottles available in the taproom at all times
2. Hold back 3 cases per release to be distributed to various liquor stores. Honestly we'll probably stick with a handful at this time, people we value and friends we've made. Divino and CBC, probably Mile High, Mondo Vino, and a few others that have reached out. We like selling beer and we consider ourselves loyal people; we like selling it to those who have stuck by and supported us while we've gotten our feet under us. We are also providing regular kegs to Goed Zuur and Morning Collective as well as a few here and there to other establishments.
3. Continue sending pallets to Shelton for various festivals. Right now we're sending about 1 pallet every other month or so, which will be distributed around the area where we are participating in a festival. Since we're no longer participating in WW's Fest, we'll be sending a pallet to MA and do a few events up there this summer. In August we have a fest in Sweden and a tap takeover in Iceland, then BA's Wood & Beer in Sept and FoBAB in November.
4. It is 100% in the plan to get beer available to-go from our tasting room at all times. Or, most of the time. It may just be something simple like DREAMLAND, or our new one being released like CLOUDMASTER, but that's the goal. In order of importance, however, it's Agents first, Releases second, on-site third, to-go fourth (because we'll have cases around town and releases once a month).

This is a slow process because we make slow beer. Believe me when I say that we could EASILY pitch Brett and Lacto in a barrel and churn it out in 2-3 months and sell a hell of a lot more beer. But, we don't want to move quickly. We value time as an ingredient. And truly, with using wild microbes, they are unpredictable and sometimes you have to simply wait for a weird off flavor to metabolize into something beautiful. The majority of our beer (and in particular, our bottled beers), take AT LEAST 8 months to make, and up to 3 years in the barrel. Over the next year we plan to move to 100% spontaneous but by that point we'll have beer in barrels that will be ready, so we'll have a pipeline going.

I know methods and philosophy seem strange sometimes. But that's where our heads are at. I'm up for crowd sourcing though: if you have a different thought, please send me a message on FB and let me know. We ultimately want to keep you happy, but we also want to stick to what we know: that time is the ultimate, irreplaceable ingredient.

Thanks for listening,
Sarah Howat