To hear some tell it, traditionally minded mixed-culture beers are an endangered species whose existence has been pushed to the brink by a fast-moving upstart—the quick (or “kettle”) sour. But for Bret Kollman Baker, cofounder of Cincinnati’s Urban Artifact Brewing, the evolutionary competition between the two species is more constructive than destructive.
“There are some brewers who feel that cannibalization is happening and making things more difficult,” he says. “I have the exact opposite opinion. I just think we’re running into a market-cap issue on barrel-aged sours, personally. The lower-price-point, more-approachable, not-challenging product that is pre-boil sours was always going to sell better.”
As one of the largest sour-only breweries in the country, producing about 6,000 barrels per year, Urban Artifact has a unique vantage point—they brew and sell both types. Quick-sour beers make up about 95 percent of that volume, with more traditional wild beers accounting for the rest. That divided approach and their divergent price points create an added burden for the company in how they tell these different stories to beer drinkers.