Tag Archives: Sour Beer

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Dry River Brewing – Los Angeles

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Dry River Brewing is located in Downtown LA not far from Mumford and a few other downtown breweries. Though getting to it from the freeway requires a bit of maneuvering. They have a small tasting room surrounded by abandoned warehouses. They focus on sour and Belgian style beers so those beers are fairly standard prices even at $10 an 8 ounce pour. I ordered two different beers there on my way South.
I started with Razberet, an oak aged saison aged with raspberries. It had a white cake base with prominent sweet raspberry and just a hint of tartness. I finished with Jungle Boogie, described as a sour dubbel with five types of berries. I wouldn’t have guessed this was a dubbel base if they hadn’t said anything. It tasted like an excellent wild ale aged on berries though. The beer had a ton of funky tart character and intense tart berry notes on a nice soft body.
If you are a fan of sours, it is worth giving Dry River a visit. I did not taste everything they had but the Jungle Boogie suggests that they know how to make a sour and are a spot to watch. They also brew the occasional IPA but they didn’t say what their house approach is to the style.  Shortly after my visit they started canning certain beers and now have the occasional beer to-go in cans.
Known for: 
Come for sour and Belgian inspired beers

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Casa Agria Specialty Ales – Ventura California

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Casa Agria is located in Ventura California and depending on traffic it could take you an hour to two hours to get there from Los Angeles area. We made a special trip to visit the brewery from San Diego and stayed the night nearby so we didn’t have to do a huge amount of driving in a single day. The tasting room is fairly mid-sized. Many people were stopping by for growler fills. They have a variety of beers mostly into three categories. Sour and farmhouse ales, hazy IPAs, and stouts.
I started with Strickland Ranch, a mixed fermentation wild ale brewed with honey. The beer was dry and funky with a nice blend of vanilla, mild honey, oak, and white cake notes. I moved on to the fruited sour they had available, a blend of three varieties of stone fruit. It was a bit more acidic and the stone fruit blended nicely with notes of white cake and mild funk. I could have used more fruit with this one but it was still quite good.
I ordered a pint of Tints while I was at the brewery, a hazy pale ale. It was creamy in body with intense tangerine notes and mild vanilla. I left with a growler of their other hazy IPA, Transitions and Interludes. This beer was also thick and creamy but with more notes of tropical fruit. They have really nailed the thick mouthfeel for the style. I also tasted one of their imperial stouts with coffee, trying a few sips from my husband’s beer. It was thick with toasted malts, nutty coffee, and mild sweetness like a candied pecan.
I was overall quite impressed by Casa Agria during my visit. They seem to do all the various styles they brew quite well, making it a great spot for people who live in the area.
Top 2: 
El Besado
Creepy Crawly

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Helix Brewing – Sourworx and some non-sours

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I had not previously visited Helix Brewing until they announced their Sourworx program. I was glad to see that they ensured they had a variety of beers available for the launch. Their goal of having the entire three boards full of barrel-aged sours is impressive. I tried two that were fruited and two that were aged for the longest to get a general taste of the quality of the sours released. From what I tasted, I would sooner make the drive to Helix over visiting my neighborhood California Wild Ales because they have the complexity and level of flavor that I crave. They also have enough to differentiate their sours from others on the market to draw visitors. They are one of the few breweries that allows for growler fills of sour beers and they currently have no plans to start bottling.
I started with a raspberry and a passionfruit sour. The raspberry was a light red color as expected while the passionfruit was hazy yellow and closer in appearance to a hazy IPA. The raspberry was a bit more subtle than I would have liked and restrained on the fruit. It had a good balance overall with nice caramel base and low acidity that at times resembled raspberry pie. I like the decision to add cherries to an already red base beer. The passionfruit sour was juicy with strong passionfruit flavor at the front and a nice mild funk on the finish combined nicely with medium oak and mild vanilla. This was my favorite of the day and I am excited to see how they work this style into future versions with other fruit.
On the non-fruited side, I asked for the two beers that were aged the longest and was suggested the Walking Through Windows and Betting on Stars. Walking Through Windows was intensely oaky, dominating over other flavors. In the back it had mild caramel and notes of brandy with a lingering tart finish. It was interesting to get the prominent oak when many breweries choose to blend various beers together to reduce it somewhat. Betting on Stars, a dark sour aged in port barrels, was smoky on the nose with notes of cherry and roasted malts. Flavor wise, it resembles more of a sour stout than anything else and the wine barrel gives it a unique flavor. It is refreshing that they chose not to simply make their attempt at a Belgian style Lambic but instead chose to do their own versions of an American Wild Ale.
Clean beers next door 
After the four sour beers I was ready for some more classic styles. With my palate already used to the sours, I found both beers to be quite sweet, likely more so than I would have if I started there. I decided to order a half pour of Prague Nosis, a red lager in the style brewed in Prague, and 1492 IPA, the freshest IPA they had and also one they described as the most balanced.
The Prague Nosis was delicious and easy drinking with notes of crackers and caramel and a light sweet finish. The IPA was nice and balanced with notes of pine and light herbal hops with a subtle bitter finish. I enjoyed seeing the contrast between the two buildings next door to each other. This allows for a welcoming atmosphere that the sour fans can drink with others who may not be interested in sours. The Sourworx side had a much more sophisticated feel to it as compared to the homey tasting room feel of the main brewery.
Top 2: 
Future Futures, passionfruit sour
Walking Through Windows, golden sour

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Indian Joe and Battlemage – Vista San Diego

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Indian Joe

Indian Joe Brewery is in Vista and I didn’t get up to visit the brewery until recently, mostly because I don’t really hear much about them. What made me want to stop by was their choice to expand into a larger facility. I tried a few tasters and while I was drinking a few beers I was invited to check out the beers barrel aging in the back. That was where I realized that they are a real hidden gem.
I started with two berliner weisse style beers. One with dragonfruit and guava, and another with apricot and peach. Both were a bit sweet for the style and also stronger than usual at almost 6.5% abv. The guava dragonfruit was not particularly fruit flavored but mostly sweet with a light tart finish. The apricot peach was also pretty sweet with a white cake base and some mild apricot notes. I didn’t really care for either but thankfully I was introduced to their proper sours shortly after.
The head brewer took me and one of his regular visitors back to the barrel aging area where there were a variety of sours and imperial stouts in different manner of oak barrels. What impressed me for most of the barrel-aged beers was how dry they all were. Lots of beers over 9% alcohol tend to be thick and sweet with all the residual sugars. All the beers I tasted in the barrels were fully attenuated and had a dryer finish more like wine, both stouts and big sours.
Two that most impressed me were the dark sour aged in cabernet sauvignon barrels, which was incredibly balanced and had lots of red wine notes. Another impressive beer was the imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with chocolate. It was also incredibly dry and had tons of fudge notes.
My experience with the barrel aged beers led me to order a strong dark barrel aged sour immediately after finishing. This beer was brewed with blackberry and blackcurrents. It was incredibly dry with lots of jam and berry notes with a light tart finish. While tasting the beers, I asked the head brewer why these beers aren’t released in some sort of online pre-sale or as limited bottles in the tasting room. He answered that he wants them available for the regular visitors so they simply tap them when ready..
I finished with Indian Joe IPA which was dry with notes of cirtus and pine with a mild bitter finish. The beer had a nice balance and was properly west-coast style. Beer geeks I suggest avoiding the various fruited berliners and stick to the IPA and stronger barrel aged sours and other barrel aged beers if they are available.
Indian Joe is one of the few local breweries that impressed me where I hadn’t heard much about them before hand. To me this makes them more underrated than most local spots.

Battlemage

I tried four tastes while at Battlemage. I liked the RPG theme, which made it stick out among the other similar breweries in the area. They appeared to have completely moved from any West Coast IPA to brewing full hazy IPAs based on the tap list.
I started with the alt beer, a german style tending towards the malty flavors. This version had notes of cherry and caramel with light hop notes. While it was fairly authentic, it would be even more so if they served it on cask. If you missed it, I recently posted my experience visiting Dusseldorf to try the alt beer at its source. The brown ale was roasty with notes of cherry and light smoke. The beer had a dark red color and mild bitterness on the finish that balanced with a nice roast.
The hazy pale had tons of tropical fruit and citrus with a good thick body and medium hop acidity on the finish. It was the best balance of the two. The stronger hazy IPA had notes or herbal hops with melon and pine and a lingering bitterness. While they nailed the mouthfeel on this one, it was a bit too bitter for the style. Both hazy beers were well done and up to the level of most local versions.
Battlemage had some solid beers and is a great spot to visit if you are up in the Vista area. They seem to have the hazy mouthfeel down even if they tend towards a bit of a west coast style by giving them additional bitterness.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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Almanac Brewing Company – San Francisco and Alameda

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Almanac has been around for quite a while though they only recently opened two large locations you could visit. They were originally known for their barrel-aged sours, which was for a while all that they produced. I remember enjoying both their series of fruited sours with local fruits and dry-hopped sours usually with a single variety of hops. With the opening of two new facilities, they also started brewing other styles of beers. Now they have a variety of options available not just sours.

On a recent visit to the San Francisco Bay Area I checked out the two locations for Almanac brewing and decided to visit the one in Alameda because I was staying with family nearby. I also selected that location because it is a larger tasting room as opposed to the brewpub in San Francisco. Brewpubs tend to get more crowded with the addition of food. The tasting room is in the same old naval yard where Faction opened their brewery. It has a similarly large building that appears to be a re-purposed hangar.

There are numerous picnic tables to sit at inside plus bar seating and more picnic tables in an enclosed outdoor patio. Even with the high ceiling the inside area was noticeably louder than sitting on the patio so we moved outside once seating opened up. During my visit I tried two sours, a hoppy pilsner, and a hazy IPA. I left with cans of the pilsner and cans of an oak-aged vienna lager. They also had a crowler machine for beers to-go.

Apricot sour.

Of the two sours, I was most satisfied by the Interstellar Apricot. Though it was a saison as a base beer, it had plenty of apricot so that it had a thick creamy mouthfeel. The beer was like apricot puree and went down easy thanks to low acidity. The cherry supernova was a bit more subtle with the fruit despite a name that suggested a similar fruit explosion. It was well-done but I would have preferred more prominent fruit. It was only slightly more fruity than most of the fruited beers from Societe in San Diego, which I find to be too subtle for my tastes.

Two sours side by side.

The pilsner was true to style except for the addition of modern hops. It exploded with citrus and bubblegum hop aroma without much bitterness. I have enjoyed a few cans since visiting the brewery and really enjoy this one. Of course if you want to enjoy the hop explosion, make sure that you get fresh cans. The oak-aged vienna lager I only tried briefly at the brewery but have had a few cans of since leaving. The oak gives it mild butter character to blend nicely with the caramel notes of the base beer. It also has some notes of plum.

Pint of pilsner.

I finished my visit with a pint of the Hazy IPA brewed for Ales for ALS. The beer had a nice creamy body and prominent hop aroma with notes of pineapple and mild herbs. The beer was mildly bitter and low in hop acidity making it quite crushable. I have seen their hazy cans outside of the brewery but hadn’t tried them yet because so many breweries label new IPAs as hazy when they are simply imitations. This is the real thing.

With such easy access to Almanac beers throughout California, it isn’t essential to visit them at the source. Though they were selling vintage bottles to go they didn’t have rare bottles for on-site consumption. If you happen to visit family in Oakland or Alameda though, it is worth taking a stop by the Alameda tasting room. You could visit Faction during the same trip.

Known for:
Almanac is known for fantastic barrel-aged sours and recently branched out to brewing other styles. They had a solid hazy IPA and fantastic hoppy pilsner.

Paul McGuire

Paul McGuire is a craft beer enthusiast. He likes to travel with his husband and enjoy the great outdoors. In his day job, Paul is a divorce attorney serving clients in San Diego California.

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