This is a special episode of the podcast, made possible by the underwriting of New Belgium Brewing and our collaborative series, Into the Wild.
Last week, New Belgium kicked off their Sour Saison blending tour, starting in California, pulling this rad vintage trailer behind a pickup truck and parking it at bars and breweries across the country. I joined them for that leg of the journey, and again recently here in my hometown of Chicago. Right now, it’s headed back to Denver and then L.A., so you still have time to link up with the tour.
One of the reasons this collaboration is so special for us is because it’s helping us devote a portion of our editorial, this podcast, and our design team to a category of beers we love—wild fermentation, sour, wood-aged, mixed-ferm. Those beers that are keeping alive an ancient tradition for a new generation of drinkers.
In addition to the articles we’re writing, we also published a print mag, which we’re handing out for free at the events. And we’ve been able to put together some one-off podcast episodes, like this one, featuring Jay Goodwin of The Rare Barrel, and Dick Cantwell, formerly of Elysian, and now the owner of Magnolia brewing, not to mention the author of numerous books on brewing.
So while the taproom at The Rare Barrel was full of people sampling and blending Sour Saison, and Dick was demonstrating how to take apart and re-build an oak barrel, we got together on the stage and struck up a conversation about the state of the category.