Best Sour Beer Breweries

Explore the world of sour and wild ales at these breweries specializing in tart, funky, and complex fermented beers. From fruited Berliner Weisses to barrel-aged wild ales.

By Christina Stein

Sour beer is the hardest category in craft brewing to do well. Wild fermentation, barrel programs, and multi-year aging schedules mean a sour brewery is making a generational bet on patience and process. The award shelf is what separates the breweries serious about that bet from the ones dabbling.

The names on this list earned their place — every brewery here has at least one published medal in a sour, wild, lambic, gose, Berliner Weisse, or saison category. Two stand out for hardware count: Alvarado Street Brewery in Salinas, California holds two golds in sour categories, and Devil's Club Brewing in Juneau, Alaska has four medals — one gold, two silvers, and a bronze — remarkable for a state where the craft scene is still finding its footing.

The list skews West Coast: seven of the twelve are California breweries, with additional recognized programs in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Norfolk. If you're traveling for sours, this list is your roadmap.

What we look for when we walk into a sour-focused brewery: a barrel room you can see (or one a brewer will talk about), a multi-style sour menu — not just one fruited Berliner — and brewers willing to explain the aging timeline. A Brett pellicle takes six months minimum. If every sour on the menu is freshly fermented and bright, you're probably not at a serious sour program yet.