Amid the new breweries opening and established breweries expanding with second (or third or fourth) locations, craft breweries are launching new beer lines, often with a focus on something extra hoppy, sour, or funky. Check out a few new beer lines (coincidentally, all from Southern California breweries), what they have to offer, and when to expect them.
From The Bruery: Bruery Terreux
Early this summer, Orange County’s The Bruery announced their new brand of “farmhouse-style and sour ales, both traditional and modern,” with a new tasting room in Anaheim, California, to boot.
Bruery Terreux (which translates to “Earthy Bruery”) “first and foremost takes inspiration from the earth, presenting flavors in as natural of a way as possible, as nature intended,” according to the press release.
Part of the production for Terreux will shift to the new space, too; the brewery says it will brew the wort at their brewhouse and truck it to the new Bruery Terreux facility a few miles down the road for fermentation, barrel aging, and packaging. Already established Bruery beers made with wild yeasts or bacteria, such as Saison Rue, Oude Tart, and Hottenroth Berliner Weisse, will also be moved down to the new facility. The Bruery launched the brand at the Great American Beer Fest in Denver in October, and you can follow along on Twitter and Facebook for updates on the new funky farmhouse ales. The new Bruery Terreux tasting room is slated to open in late 2015.
From The Lost Abbey/Port Brewing Company: Hop Concept Brewing
Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey have launched a third line with an extra hoppy focus and an emphasis on freshness. The first release from the new brand, Hop Concept Brewing, is The HopFreshener Series, a quarterly series of “uncomplicated hoppy beers from the people who know how to make them.” It’s hard to argue with that, with standout IPAs such as Port Brewing Wipeout and Mongo under their belt.
The starting lineup includes Dank and Sticky IPA, due out in February; Citrus and Piney IPA, in May; Lemon and Grassy IPA, in August; and Tropical and Juicy IPA, in November. They will be released in 22-ounce bottles and distributed in Southern California and throughout The Lost Abbey and Port Brewing distribution network starting in February 2015.
From Beachwood BBQ & Brewing: Beachwood Blendery
The Beachwood BBQ & Brewing team has an ambitious new venture: a lambic-style blendery housed in a 1,000-barrel-capacity temperature-controlled aging room. The brewery, which has locations in Long Beach and Seal Beach, will split its focus among traditional, old-world Belgian-style brewing of koelschips; spontaneous fermentation and aging in French oak wine barrels; and a modern approach with new-style sour beers, non-traditional ingredients, and steel and oak-barrel fermentation.
“I don’t know what it is that makes a Cantillon gueuze a Cantillon gueuze, but I want to start ticking off boxes of what it isn’t,” owner Gabe Gordon says in a release. “To do this, we need to break down sour-beer-making to its basics and build it back up from scratch, tracking variables, testing theories, and taking notes for the next batches along the way.”
First up is the Propagation Series, made with different yeasts and bacteria to see how they perform, the results of which will factor into their lambic-style beers. The Blendery will start brewing this month and expects to launch its first releases and a tasting room, with ten taps of house beer and wine from vineyards whose barrels were used to ferment the beer, by mid-2015.