DURHAM (NC) - The Glass Jug and Sam's Bottle Shop, two of the Triangle area's premiere craft beer retail destinations, are partnering up to put on their second annual 2-day festival of wild-fermented and sour ales. "Where the Wild Beers May Potentially Be," first held in 2015, is the brainchild of the two stores, where each location features at least a dozen different wild and sour beers on draft. These specialty drafts will include local brews, as well as beers from across the US and abroad. This year's event will start at Sam's Bottle Shop on Saturday, then continue to The Glass Jug on Sunday.
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The Wonderful World of Sour Beer
As long as beer has been made, there has likely been sour beer. Now, it probably wasn't all purposeful, but since beer was being brewed before we had microscopes or knew what yeast was and it's impact on fermentation, most beers would have some level of sourness imparted by wild bacteria that assisted in fermentation. Sour beer is created by bacteria consuming the sugar in the freshly brewed wort (what will eventually become beer). When it consumes the sugar, one of it's byproducts is acid. Depending on what bacteria, it could be lactic acid or acetic acid, or many other (often less desirable) acids. The acid lowers the pH of the beer, creating a tart, puckering flavor and mouthfeel.
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The Monday Night Special
Mondays suck, right? I mean you've spent the last two days catching up on yardwork and chores, and now that you're finally a bit rested, you're ready to go hit the pool....except that it's Monday, so you have to go back to work instead. We feel your pain.
To us, that means that Monday is the perfect day to have a pint of beer, but for some reason Monday's are typically a slow day in the beer biz. So we decided to give you a little extra motivation...
We've begun offering select pints at half-price every Monday. This could be anywhere from 1 to 5 beers we're featuring, and they're always delicious. They taste even better at half the price!
And since we usually have several kegs that are close to empty after a busy weekend, we want to enlist you to help us kick 'em so that we can bring in some new beer for the week ahead. If you drink the last pint out of a keg, you'll get the opportunity to pull a prize out of our brewery swag bag.
The "swag bag" is...well...actually it's a box...but "swag bag" sounds better...we think. Anyway, the swag bag is where we keep lots of cool swag that has been donated by local and craft breweries. This is everything from glassware to t-shirts, bottle openers, coasters, and more. And you'll get to take your pick if you kick the keg.
So hey, maybe Monday's aren't that bad after all!
Why 16 beer taps?
In planning out the store, we knew we wanted to have a good selection of beer on draft and available to fill growlers via our counter-pressure filling system, but we had to make a decision as to how many different beers we wanted to offer at any given time. I would be lying to you if I said cost didn't play a factor in deciding on how many taps to install, but that is far from the only reason. We didn't want to open up with 40, 50, or 100 taps, even if we had the space and the money to do so. This may seem counter-intuitive to some, as our American mindset tells us that more is always better. But in this case, we didn't think so.
