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Posted on 05/01/21
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
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