 | |
 The Rare Barrel's Berkeley warehouse and tasting room | |
| Industry | Alcoholic beverage |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2013 |
| Headquarters | Berkeley, California, United States |
| Products | Beer |
Production output | 400 barrels |
| Owner | Jay Goodwin, Alex Wallash, Brad Goodwin |
| Website | Official website |
The Rare Barrel is a brewery and brewpub in Berkeley, California, United States, that exclusively produces sour beers.
Founders Jay Goodwin and Alex Wallash met while attending UCSB. They started home-brewing in their apartment [1] and decided that they would one day start a brewery together. Goodwin started working at The Bruery, [2] where he worked his way from a production assistant to brewer, eventually becoming the head of their barrel aging program. [3] The Rare Barrel brewed its first batch of beer in February 2013, [4] and opened its tasting room on December 27, 2013. [5]
The Rare Barrel was named for "ph1" a barrel used to make the original batch of La Folie in 2000 by New Belgium Brewing based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. [6] In homage of the original "Rare Barrel", every year the brewery along with its customers and peers select the best barrel of beer and name it "The Rare Barrel" for that year. [7] The "ph1" barrel was gifted to The Rare Barrel by New Belgium in 2015 and as of 2016 is currently active, used to age dark sour beer. [6]
In November 2022, Cellarmaker Brewing Co. acquired The Rare Barrel and plans to reopen the facility late spring next year. [8]
The Rare Barrel only makes sour beers which are aged for an extended period of time in oak barrels; [9] all of their sour beers will age on wood for anywhere from six to 36 months. Their beers are fermented with a combination of Brettanomyces yeast and Lactobacillus and/or Pediococcus bacteria. [10] Lactobacillus and Pediococcus bacteria are both responsible for creating lactic acid and acetic acid, which make the beers acidic and taste sour.
The Rare Barrel currently produces its brews in small-batch quantities, which can range anywhere from one to 10 oak barrels in volume. The brewery's on-site tasting room provides an outlet for showcasing the brewery's single barrel experiments. The Rare Barrel also maintains the Founder's Club program that provides members with exclusive access to some of the brewery's limited releases. [11]
Several beers from The Rare Barrel have won gold and silver at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. [12] [9]
| Name | Style | Honors |
|---|---|---|
| Apropos of Nothing | Gold Sour with Raspberries and Lavender | 2015 Great American Beer Festival Bronze |
| Cosmic Dust | Golden Sour | 2014 Great American Beer Festival Gold |
| Ensorcelled | Dark Sour Ale with Raspberries | 2015 Great American Beer Festival Silver, 2014 World Beer Cup Gold |
| Shadows of Their Eyes | Dark Sour Ale | 2014 World Beer Cup Bronze |
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Berliner Weisse is a cloudy, sour beer of around 5% alcohol by volume. It is a regional variation of the wheat beer style from Northern Germany, dating back to at least the 16th century. It can be made from combinations of malted barley and wheat, with the stipulation that the malts are kilned at very low temperatures or even air-dried to minimise colour formation. The fermentation takes place with a mixture of yeast and lactic acid bacteria, a prerequisite that creates the lactic acid taste, a distinguishing feature of Berliner Weisse.
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Beer is produced through steeping a sugar source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in Sumerian writings, some of the oldest known writing of any sort. Brewing is done in a brewery by a brewer, and the brewing industry is part of most western economies. In 19th century Britain, technological discoveries and improvements such as Burtonisation and the Burton Union system significantly changed beer brewing.
Sour beer is beer which has an intentionally acidic, tart, or sour taste. Sour beer styles include Belgian lambics and Flanders red ale and German Gose and Berliner Weisse.
The Bruery is an American brewing company based in Placentia, California, founded by Patrick Rue and named as a portmanteau of his family name and the word "brewery". It opened in 2008 and has produced an average of 2,500 barrels of beer annually in their 15-barrel brewhouse.
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A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port. There is a particular tradition of barrel ageing beer in Belgium, notably of lambic beers. The first bourbon barrel-aged beers were produced in the United States in the early 1990s.
