Vault City Brewing

Of all the craft breweries brewing great sour beers at the minute, it’s perhaps Vault City that’s the best of the bunch.

They seem to have achieved this through becoming specialists. In fact, this brewery makes sour beers… and almost nothing else.

This Scottish brewer is unreservedly bold: sours might be rising in popularity, but they’re still shunned by the masses, who flock to hops. It’s a fact Vault City seems to disregard, continually offering up new twists on the one style.

Vault’s confidence is born from their passion for their product, and with each new, funky brew their passion is evident. What’s more, Vault City focus on freshness and local produce for a refined output, and the local ingredients that go into their sours are always the stars.

Take beers like Cherry Skies, Pear & Vanilla Sour, or even Farm To Fermenter: Strawberry. All use fresh fruit to ensure the final product sings. It’s easy for heavily fruited beers to lose direction and descend into a gloopy, sweet mess, but this is why we love Vault: they manage to retain a tart sourness in nearly all of their beers that overrules any sweetness to keep the beer drinkable. There’s also an incredible real-fruit flavour to Vault City beers. No additives, flavourings or other such nonsense. Just true, beautiful, fresh flavours forever punching through.

What’s more, Vault City consistently pack huge ABVs into their beers that are never noticeable (at least to taste) – an incredible feat on it’s own accord!

Plus Vault City are true to their roots. Earlier this year, for example, they were fortunate enough to secure a single listing in a major supermarket. Where others have immediately abandoned early partners at such a sniff of success, Vault City accepted the placement, but listed the very same beer (their session sour) at a lower price through independent bottle shops, so as not to alienate the indies that had aided their success.

Finally, they’re advocates of the 4-day working week. Vault City; what’s not to love?!