Photo by zmurciuk_k/Thinkstock
Ardent Craft Ales calls it “The Donkey Barn” or “The Sour Garage.” The building behind the brewery currently houses the brewery's sour beer program. The team at Ardent has been toiling carefully about the property, aging various beers in old and new oak for almost two years (ages varying from one and a half to two years).
While most ales take two to three weeks to mature, sours can take two to three years or longer. The result has some real funk, a good thing when it comes to sour beer. The first release of Ardent's wild fermentation passion project, helmed by brewery Production Manager Chris Rommel and Brewer Rob Quicke, will be this Saturday, July 1. Ardent will release two beers, a mango sour ale and a raspberry sour ale. The mango beer is a combination of 60 percent mango sour and 40 percent blonde sour, while the raspberry is 50/50. Both are zippy, pucker-inducing brews.
“We have been tasting these pretty regularly to see when we felt like they were drinkable now. The raspberry is definitely more forward and in-your-face. The mango, because of the more watery nature of the fruit, has a little less punch. I’d buy two bottles of each, one to drink now and one to store,” Rommel suggested at a private tasting event held inside the souring facility on Wednesday.
The brews will be available only at the brewery, on draft and in 330 ml bottles. Ardent plans to continue releasing the sour beers as they become ready, noting that they may continue to add fruit or release them as-is depending on taste.
Richmond has seen growth in sour and wild beer — and, of course, beer in general. Down the road, Hardywood recently started a sour program, The Veil Brewing Co. has been making sour and wild brews since they opened, and Isley Brewing Co. is experimenting with kettle-souring.
