Sour beers used to sit solely in the expert realm of the Belgian specialist or the hardcore beer nerd.
But these days, sour beers are bursting into the mainstream more and more – especially as sour beers are no longer just for summer.
So with that in mind, in this post we look at some the best sour beers and sour beer makers operating both here in the UK and abroad.
Whether you’re just getting into sour beers or you’re expanding your repertoire, these are breweries you’ll want to check out.
Most of the very best sour beers are either seasonal or one-offs. Craft breweries make them, at most, once a year. Then they try to make something even better.
That kind of means that looking for the ‘best sour beers’ in general is a bit futile – because that list changes month by month.
So what you really need to take note of is the best sour beer makers. Because – trust us – their latest sour concoctions will always be amongst the best sour beers you can buy at any one time.
Still with us?
Great.
If you like sour beers, then you need to check out what the latest beers of the following breweries…
Like their name suggests, Vault City used to be pretty hard to come by – almost as if they were only accessible to beer-tickers armed with bumbags and tasting notes booklets.
Recently though someone unlocked the gates, and beers from these Scottish sourmeisters are now popping up in most good bottle-shops and online beer shops with their weird an wonderful wares.
One thing that should sharpen your attention towards this brewery is that they are sour specialists – and to be more specific, sours are all they make.
At the very heart of Vault City Brewing lies their house mixed-culture. A bit like the sourdough starter yeast, a sour brewery’s house culture is their foundation. It has to be pretty special to create something so unique.
Vault City use a blend of Kveik and Lactobacillus strains which provide us with delicious tropical esters and a deliciously tart acidity. These esters are added to the pulps of real fruit in Vault’s amazing concoctions to make fresh, smoothie-tasting brews.
They have created “straight up” versions like Strawberry and apricot session beers, and have an amplified version of these too – typically reaching 8 or 9% ABV.
If you fancy something a bit more wild they have dabbled with spiced pumpkin, tayberry (it’s like a redcurrant I’m told) and vanilla.
Latest fun releases include a cheeky Vimto sour and a Havana special! I don’t think there’s a better UK brewery at using natural ingredients in their sour beers. Vault City beers are very much worth unlocking.
We first stumbled across Polish brewery Maltgarden when one of our best customers told us in glowing terms about some of their hoppy beers which he’d managed to wrangle on a beer-swap night.
Knowing Charlie was a bit of a top-end craft beer nerd, we knew they must be something special so we got hold of some swiftly to try for ourselves. He wasn’t wrong; Maltgarden make huge hoppy modern beers.
Then we discovered their dark beer range which was even better – full of peanut adjuncts with lashings of coffee, toffee, banana and chocolate all over the show (there’s even a wax topped can but that’s for another time).
We then learned that they made mad sours too – is there anything this brewery cant do? (They actually haven’t made a lager but that’s not the point!)
Maltgarden are certainly a brewery to seek out if you want a range of flavours that really push your palate. The newest sours from them include additions of dragonfruit and mango.
As we say, they like to play wizard a little bit and don’t be surprised to see the juxtaposition of nuts and spices added alongside the sour notes to really compliment but also throw your tastebuds.
If a warm can of Tyskie is your only experience of Polish beer change that right now!
Pastore Brewing and Blending is a mixed-fermentation sour and wild brewery, and everything about this brewery hints at the exotic.
The name itself makes your mind maybe wander to a small, hidden Spanish village, and Pastore’s can artwork and font drag your thoughts out to a sleepy Moroccan fishing village. Almost disappointingly, Pastore are actually based on an industrial estate near Cambridge.
Where Vault City are possibly the UK’s best sour makers for fun brews, Pastore are a more refined and subtle competitor.
The emphasis here is on accessible, fun, modern takes on mixed-ferm brewing (which just means using different yeasts in one brew, including wild ones), and the technique helps ensure Pastore sours deliver every time.
Although the basis of all their beers is in the old school of sour brewing, there’s enough fun ingredients and flavours poking through to open the doors to the non-expert beer fan. The newest beers on our shelves are perfect examples of this.
Torta Di Morello, for example, is a cherry pie pastry sour, conditioned on morello cherry puree, cinnamon, vanilla and almond. How good does that sound?!
They are a brewery we love supporting. Not only do they make some of the most rounded sours about, they are a tiny operation even by craft beer standards, a story made even sweeter by the fact the brew team are family father and son combo of Ben and Chris Shepherd.
We get new Pomona Island beers in pretty much every week, and with good reason.
Again Pomona Island are a brewery that seem to be able to nail all the styles of modern beer going. It’s testament to their quality that we can talk about their sours when we could easily feature their dark offerings or hoppy monsters in round up posts elsewhere. It’s also testament to their amazing beer that we tend to cherry-pick their beers from the fifty or so new beers we get each week to drink ourselves for pleasure (yes it’s one of the worlds best jobs!)
Pomona sours somewhat launched the brewery to the relative mainstream in craft beer circles with brews that were tart but not too tart, flavoursome but not messy and crazy but easy drinking. It’s a hard thing to manage, especially time and time, again but Pomona manage it.
A relativity small operation based in Salford near Manchester, Pomona seem to bring out a pale, IPA and sour each week, so there’s always something interesting and new to go at!
Whatever sour you end up drinking – enjoy.
Thanks for reading out craft beer blog this month. Drink and be happy.
Oli, Craft Metropolis founder
Five years ago, when my online craft beer club (as it then was) first sprang into existence, Craft Metropolis stocked only beers from specialist, London-based craft breweries. It gave the club a new slant on an existing concept. It allowed us to operate as a tiny business in a market dominated by one or two major players. And, as was the case more than once in the early days, it meant I could drive around London to pick up stock and deliver orders whenever a ‘reliable’ supplier let me down. More than a few companies go on about their commitment to personal service these days. I wonder how many of their owners are willing to drive to their customers’ homes to meet delivery deadlines?
That was five years ago. In time, we began to branch out. Tastes developed. As did demand. Today, as well as continuing to support local craft breweries, we’re increasingly supporting some carefully selected craft breweries from outside the UK. Seeing as we all love good beer, could I maybe introduce you to three such gems?
Gamma Brewing, Smedeholm, Denmark
It’s an unavoidable fact that imported beers are pricey. The cost of shipment needs to be accounted for. And increasingly these days, breweries favour cold-chain shipments (keeping their beers cold all the way from production to sale, for freshness). It’s another factor that eeks up the price. So when you look for imported beer, it’s pretty crucial you don’t end up wasting your furlough payments on brews that aren’t up to scratch. Gamma brews, I reckon, are among the best bang-for-your-buck imports anywhere in existence.
There are two sides to Gamma’s unmistakable MO. On the one hand you’ve got their clean, hoppy, smooth and expertly executed beers. On the other, there’s a rotating smorgasboard of murky hop-monsters. There’s an air of Burnt Mill about the brews on offer (Burnt Mill being a UK-based brewery I also love). Just like at Burnt Mill, the Gamma brewers seem to take a lot of time and care over all that goes into each of their creations. From ingredients and flavour profile to design and even can art, there’s something in these beers that signals nothing was rushed and no corners were cut.
Gamma are a wonderful example of the art behind brewing great beers.
Amundsen Bryggeri, Oslo, Norway
It’s quite something that, despite being a craft brewery, Amundsen has become Norway’s biggest brewery. It’s a well deserved accolade for a brewery that prides itself on their craft. ‘Created by Craftsmen’ is the brewery’s motto, and a delve into any of their wares will return a strong reward for anyone looking for something unique and unconventional.
Sweep aside the (perfectly good) hoppy beers and shuffle straight to Amundsen’s loopy section – dark, sour, barrel-aged; this is where the real fun is. The DIC (Dessert in a Can) series is a great example of what this brewery does so well. These imperial stouts have none of the grown-up appeal of, say, a Kernel or a Buxton beer. Instead they swing right to the other end of the spectrum, combining high sugar, heavy adjuncts and 10%+ ABVs to create beer monsters and flavour freaks. Who’s for a can of Chocolate Covered Salted Toffee Popcorn? Or a Hazelnut Praline Chocolate Truffle stout? A Unicorn Sprinkles Strawberry Doughnut? You get the idea. Wonderful, wacky stuff.
The cans themselves reinforce the madness, adorned with glooping marshmallow-style text as they almost always are. While the concept isn’t for everyone, just to think about making such unorthodox beers – let alone going ahead and making them – is a triumph. And as the brews have helped make Amundsen the biggest brewery in the land, they’re clearly much more than the gimmick purists might suggest.
Equilibrium Brewery, NY, USA
If you want the best hoppy beers in the world then America is where they are. Said a sheep-like beer drinker. More than once. It’s an oft-argued ‘opinion’ that inevitably leads to discussions on craft beer’s beginnings.
In the early days, the discussion goes, the UK made ‘real ale’. Decent stuff, and certainly an improvement that curtailed the exponential rise in mass-produced lager. The Americans tried it. They fell in love with both the idea and the product. So enamoured they were that they took real ale back to the States and started tinkering with it. They added some experimental and out-there hops. They brought it back. It was amazing, the revolution was born and the UK has been playing catch up ever since.
That’s one way of interpreting the current state of play, anyway. The flip side is UK breweries such as Pressure Drop, Polly’s and DEYA are all making beers at least as good as, if not better than, their trans-Atlantic counterparts. But whichever way you look at it, it’s hard not to agree that the US has historically been and remains a driving force for the changing face of craft beer worldwide. Today, the UK and US seem to rely on each other for new ideas and inspiration and team up to push the boundaries of craft brewing ever further. It’s against this backdrop that the appropriately named and Equilibrium Brewery continually comes up with some of the most sought-after beers either side of the pond. Whether it’s enjoyed via Equilibrium’s lactose-laced Double IPAs or their juicy Triples, the quality here is always assured. If you want to see what all the whoopin’ and hollerin’ you hear about stateside brews is all about then look no further. Equilibrium showcases all.
Thanks for reading out craft beer blog this month. I hope you enjoyed it.
Oli, Craft Metropolis founder.
In craft beer circles, every year that unfolds eventually becomes the year of something or other. Certain yeasts, for example. Or certain varieties of hops. More often than not, certain beer styles take the annual ‘year of’ crown – like back in 2018, when everyone seemed excited about brut IPA. I’ve reported before that every year seems poised to become ‘lager year’ (and every year, it never is). This year, there’s a clear title winner already: 2020 is the year of the triple IPA (TIPA), a beer style characterised by an intense hop profile and an ABV that regularly climbs beyond 10%. This year, everyone’s been brewing them. Who wore it best, you ask? Here are three of my personal favourites.
It’s hard to not start with the easiest drinker in the category. Let’s be honest, when you’re dealing with beers that regularly come with double-digit ABVs – especially when they aren’t fireside sippers like imperial stouts – then ‘easy-drinking’ is quite a sought-after quality. Brew by Numbers have always delivered great beers with higher ABVs than the corresponding flavour profiles suggest. Anyone that’s ever tried one of their 55 Double IPA series will almost certainly agree. Would their new 85 Triple IPA follow suit? And what particular nectar variety might it bring us?
Sweet fruit juice is the answer! The current version in the BBNo’s 85 series is a beer that pours very hazy and delivers wave upon wave of ripe (and overripe) stone fruit like peach and mango from the trio of hops BBNo’s brewers use. What really sets the beer apart is the smoothness from the oats the BBNo team add to the brew’s malt bill. It’s a quality that dials down the bitterness (that’s just about lurking) and makes 85 Triple IPA insanely drinkable. It’s complex, juicy and scarily easy to drink! From DIPAs to TIPAs, I’m not sure there’s a UK brewery that consistently delivers high-ABV, hoppy beers better than Brew by Numbers.
With Brew York, you always know they’ll take on a challenge. You can also be pretty certain they’ll serve up on-trend brews, so it was hardly a surprise to see them brewing a triple IPA as soon as it looked like it may be flavour of the season. Brew York is the brewery that brought us delights like Tonkoko – a coconut and tonka bean stout – and Extra Brownie Pints – an absolute chocolate slab of an imperial monster. To put it mildly, the brewery has the darker stuff nailed. But lighter stuff always receives more scrutiny; it’s tough to hide suspect subtleties in lighter beers. With their new triple, however, Brew York have not only cracked the of-the-moment style but have gone and scored bonus points by using of-the-moment yeast kveik while doing so. Brew York’s TIPA couldn’t be more on-trend if it tried (which, thinking about it, it probably did). Go Big & Stay at Home uses the famous Norwegian yeast strain that imparts an added earthiness and spice to the beer that could be overpowering – but isn’t – and leaves Go Big & Stay at Home slightly drier than other beers of its style. The tweak balances brilliantly the booziness of the TIPA and compliments the slight hop-burn you get from the 10.5% ABV. It’s certainly a combination that works. If you’re looking for a beer that throws together everything new that 2020 brewing has to offer, then this is pretty much it… all in one glass.
Polly’s doesn’t really brew a bad beer. The team also knows plenty about getting the best out of the hops they use. Still, until the latter part of 2020, Polly’s had been serving up soupy IPAs and pale ales only. Obviously keen to join this year’s hop-race with a triple of their own, Polly’s have now brewed not one but two TIPAs in the space of a few months. The result has been nothing short of phenomenal, with a lot of people calling their fist triple – Spur – the beer of the year. Spurred on by this acclaim (sorry), the team set about brewing their sophomore TIPA to quell the calls of those clamouring for more. The result is Patternist. Just like Spur, Patternist has a supercharged hop bill responsible for the bucketloads of flavour on show here. Apparently, Polly’s poured over 60kg of El Dorado and Simcoe hops into Patternist (I’m told that’s a LOT for one Polly’s brew). The hefty hop helping makes this beer – despite its 10% booze levels – pure unadulterated juice! There’s next to zero bitterness in the body and the hit on the tongue is straight up mango, passionfruit and papaya. It’s a joy to behold, and it may be my personal favourite of the three.
Beers of the TIPA strength, of course, have long been the drink of choice for certain park bench gentlemen. But natural brewing evolution has escorted us to a wonderful place, where 10% beers are no longer something to be endured rather than enjoyed while wincing in Belgian-beer-house bravado contests.
Stand alone, hefty TIPAs are genuine beer of the year contenders and any brewery worth their salt should be adding one to their catalogue – assuming they’re up to the challenge of brewing something drinkable despite such high alcohol content. Enjoy TIPAs responsibly. And whatever you do if you sample them, don’t go pouring these three back to back to test my tasting notes – it might be the end of you!
Craft Metropolis is an online beer shop and taproom stocking Triple IPAs, amongst brews of a more sessionable strength!
Without wanting to dwell on the obvious, summer 2020 feels like no summer before. Hopefully as you read this the sun is shining and, while your industrious neighbours busy themselves revamping gardens and installing patios, you’re lazing around in true Idler style. You’ll need good beer to compliment your summer lounging, of course. So I have one or two suggestions to make.
If you can, hunt yourself out a can or two of DEYA’s Steady Rolling Man. It’s difficult to put into words what makes this beer so alluring. It could be the whimsical musician on the can. Even more likely is the seemingly careless extra 60ml of the stuff you get, pushing the volume up to half a litre. Perhaps it’s the uncompromisingly subtle yet floral liquid inside? Or all of the above and more packaged together?
Whichever way you look at it, DEYA have nailed the summer pale ale here. Many claim it’s the best in Britain. It’s proved so popular via the Craft Metropolis website I’ve had to impose a limit of two cans per order. It’s not all that easy to come by. If you get the chance, grab a can, light a roll-up and prepare your uke for an evening in the garden, man.
If either of the next two recommendations have made it onto your radar already, congrats. You are truly a beer king. I say as much because, for me at least, both are what I’d call “I told you they would be amazing back in summer 2020!” beers. If you too are so insecure that you also try to impress strangers with frightfully useless beer knowledge, then take note, first of all, of S43 Brewery. S43 has been kicking about since 2012 but has made a serious impression in the last six months. After rebranding (the brewery was formerly Sonnet 43 – a nod to the local Durham poet Barrett Browning), S43 has focused on getting its beers out into the wider world. Previously, S43 brewers were cask champions. Today they make the kind of modern and hazy juice-bombs advancing markets applaud. Fortunately, the new focus seems to be more than a marketing ploy: the brewers themselves admit that their tastes have evolved as modern beers have emerged.
Keep half an eye out for S43’s Snickers-themed You’re not You When You’re Thirsty (a 9% peanut butter fudge stout), but go ahead and seek out Juice Cannon this summer. The latter is one for the sunshine. As the name suggests, the beer is tropical and fruity with popular notes of passionfruit and mango. Somehow, it’s also smooth and creamy. Best enjoyed from a deck chair.
The second of my “new breweries to look out for” is Pentrich Brewing. Thinking about it, you’d be forgiven for mixing these guys up with the reborn S43. The cans themselves are similar. But that’s hardly where the similarities end. Again, Pentrich is another “long standing” craft brewery that has been chugging along since before the true craft beer boom. The tale is a familiar one: pre-2013, home brewers Joe and Ryan had eyes on something more. We hear it time and time again in the industry; beer lovers hoping to make a buck from doing something they enjoy. And it’s fair to say the (growing) team has smashed it since inception. They’re hardly retiring just yet, but the beers here are so damn good that, assuming they end up garnering half the attention they deserve, it won’t be long before the founders will have the freedom to do so.
Pentrich’s name comes from the Derbyshire town where the beer is made, the best of the bunch being the aptly named Birthdays in Isolation. This is a 10% Imperial IPA made with a smash-bang-wallop of citra, simcoe and nelson hops. Don’t be afraid of an overpowering ABV. Birthdays in Isolation will blow more than your socks off on the flavour front.
My last recommendation for summer 2020 brings us back full circle. We started with a much-talked-of must-have in DEYA’s Steady Rolling Man. Arise by Burning Sky snuggles into the same corner.
Without wanting (or at least intending) to create a theme here, Burning Sky is another brewery that straddles the “old” and “new” beer worlds. Still incredible cask producers, Burning Sky’s brewers aren’t afraid to both embrace the traditional and plough on with the modern. It’s a philosophy that ensures all Burning Sky beers deliver, cask or keg. With Arise, the brewery has a flagship pale that’s hard to fault. It’s as bright and hoppy as you’d hope. It’s just the right side of ripe and flowery. At 4.4%, it’s far from a monster, and the fruity notes from the hops sit in perfect harmony with the malt bill. Glorious and easy-drinking, it’s a perfect summer pale ale.
Grab yourself one of the above. Or grab them all. Then sit back and let the bees buzz (note: Bill Anderson’s column will likely have more appropriate advice) and the long evenings whisper on. Happy drinking and stay safe out there.
Kveik, Mild, Helles and Brut. At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into the travel section of the Idler and were exploring potential retreats to a Scandinavian island. Thankfully not. Kievek, Mild, Helles and Brut are all in fact beer styles, and with brewers gearing up to showcase their takes on rather more challenging and on-trend styles during this year’s festival season, now is a great time to explore each. Pale ales and stouts are two a penny – the beers below are beers not to be missed.
Northern Helles by Donzonko Brewing
With every year in craft beer labeled as ‘the year of lager’, it’s important to never dismiss the classic and understated style of beer. Helles beers tend to have a sweeter and lighter edge – hell meaning ‘light’ or ‘bright’ in German. Unfortunately, it’s rare that anything actually lives up to the billing. Donzoko’s Northern Helles, however, does. Quite simply, if you don’t like this, you won’t like modern craft lagers. That’s a bold statement, I know. But Northern Helles is just about as good as it gets for a UK-based brew. Slightly malty and dark with a sweet edge, it’s a beer that flows down and one you can turn to time and time again. It’s so well executed you’d expect it to come out of Germany rather than Donzoko’s base in Hartlepool. It’s no surprise that Donzoko harbours a fixation with German brewing. The brewers label this “our version of a Bavarian Style unfiltered lager. Sweet malt, subtle floral hops and a crisp refreshing finish. Inspired by lazy days by the river Eisbach, this is our flagship beer that will change what you think about lager.” We can’t argue with any of that and, if Northern Helles is anything to go by, this really IS the year of the lager. Until next year, of course.
Haakon by Drop Project
Kviek is certainly riding a wave in the brewing world at the moment. It’s a type of Norwegian Farmhouse Ale yeast and, when used to ferment at certain temperatures, it “provides plenty of fruity esters and tropical top notes.” That’s basically a pale ale with a bit of funk, and it’s showcased wonderfully in Haakon, a full-flavoured pale ale by the new startup brewery Drop Project. The yeast is a little more sour, more acidic and more raspy (all in a good way, you understand), which leads to a more powerful beer. You still get all the classic pale ale notes but what you tend to get at the end of the sip is an interesting bite. Normally breweries would use bittering hops to give their brews a lingering flavour, but here Kviek takes over, making for something slightly different to your average brew. One to try from a brewery worth watching as they grow.
Zero Gravity by Lost+Found
Onto Brut. This little known beer style is exactly what you think it’s going to be… although if you’re thinking of an 80’s talcum powder you’ll be disappointed. Brut beers have risen in popularity over the last year as breweries seek out a sweet spot somewhere between a lager and a pale ale. This style bridges the two well and at the same time brings an air of sophistication to both. The name comes from brewers using champagne yeast or similar to drive the dryness of a beer down to near desert levels.
In the case of brut IPAs, all the wort’s sugar is converted into alcohol during fermentation thanks to a special enzyme called amyloglucosidase. With no sugar left to caress the palate, the resulting beer is totally dry. This all sounds rather specialist but in Zero Gravity Lost+Found have created a brut beer that’s as drinkable as the day is long. Too dry to be a beer but not winey enough to be wine, brut styles have historically been something of a flash in the pan. New styles keep popping up though, and with summer just around the corner you’ll be sure to find some somewhere near you.
Dark Mild by BOXCAR
When you think of a pint of mild, most minds conjure up an old midlands boozer with uninspiring cheap beer piled on every table as smoke lingers in the air mid-afternoon. “What’s wrong with that?!” I hear you cry. Admittedly not much… but the point remains that mild has long been in need of a resurgence, and it’s happening! BOXCAR are one of the most up-and-coming breweries in London (which itself houses a great many up-and-coming breweries), and they’ve taken on the challenge of making an exciting mild. The result is mild, yes. But not as you know it. Dark Mild has all the classic mild flavours but dialled up a level or two. It’s slightly sweet, brown and delicious. It’s about as far from a working men’s club as you could get – but, thankfully, still not a million miles from mild’s true roots. Look out for this – and a whole raft of other experimental beers – in good beer shops near you.
Welcome to winter! Chilly nights and falling leaves… I kind of like it. The headline news is we are 4-6 weeks away from the first Craft Metropolis bar in SE20 London! More info to follow on the newsletter but first a quick bit of news about what’s new this month:
Our top news for beers this month is the Introduction of mega-brewery Cloudwater to our shelves. With the forthcoming bar and shop the time to update the site and the type of beers is upon us starting with one of the best! We covered most corners from a Small Pale (which just shows what a sub-3% beer can taste like without the big booze) though to a Belgian Bitter. We also made sure Lager fans had their hit as well a a brilliant DDH Pale and a classic juicy IPA. Limited as hens teeth on dodo, grab ’em quick!
Second up we grabbed a whole load more Redchurch brews. Lots more experimentation coming out of the brewery thins month including an Apricot Pale (with Vibrant Forest no less) and an Experimental IPA. Both excellent. There’s a movement and trend towards brewing German marzen beers and we’ve added this to the roster too.
Next up one of London’s finest and who says summer is over (other than me at the start of this newsletter)?! Pina Colada from BBNo brings back a glimmer of that summer sun in the gloom of the darkening evenings. It’s full of pineapple and coconut and is a cracking brew. Another nod to summer is also introduced in the form of a limey Mexican lager and a cracking three hop DDH Table beer. Our pick has to be the Pina but a close second is the Sour IPA. Loads of hops but still lots of pucker from the sourness. Great beer as always from BBNo.
We have two new breweries up next (for CM) in the shape of Forest Road and Rock Leopard.
While Forest Road are bring a top lager in Posh and a classic pale in Work Rock Leopard bring big soupy hoppy brews. The imaginatively titled Distant Cousin of a Mu Mu Cat IPA is our pick!
Last but not least we some partizan (can you tell we love them yet?) and new cans beers from One Mile End. The 4am Juicy sold out in record time last time and is our pick from them but there’s a ton to go at from Partizan too.
Old favourites like Raspberry and Lemon Saison return and the mega 8% Stout too. But there’s new and intriguing brews like L’Intensa and Beer? If you’re looking for flavours you’ve not had before grab a Partizan or two!
I hope you enjoy picking and trying these brand new craft beers as much as I enjoyed hunting them out for you/me!
Cheers in beers!
Oli
Step 1
We trawl the globe tasting great beer
