(Courtesy Stone Brewing)

Stone Brewing is renowned for its big, bold West Coast-Style IPAs, but they’ve just released a special sour beer collection that’s very impressive.

Stone Mission Warehouse Sour – 2018 Mosaic Wild Ale

While hops are typically downplayed in sour beer styles, Stone couldn’t resist bringing two very different traditions together. Mosaic hops are prized for their wide spectrum of flavor and aroma elements, and they’ve lent themselves to numerous successful Stone beers since their debut in 2012, so Stone chose them to enhance its fourth release ii its Mission Warehouse Sour series.

Starting with the brewery’s semi-traditional sour base beer made with aged hops and unmalted grains, this beer then underwent aging in wine barrels for 18 months before being re-fermented with Lactobacillus Brevis & naturally occurring wild Brettanomyces strains.

Mosaic hops were added just before packaging, adding a pungent combination of pear, peach, citrus, and tropical fruit aroma that compliments the refreshing acidity and subtle funk of this beer.

Stone Mission Warehouse Sour – 2018 Blackberry and Black Currant

Black Currants are a longtime favorite of Stone’s co-founder Steve Wagner and are very traditional in European sours. So the brewery knew they’d be perfect for a Stone Mission Warehouse Sour series beer

For this creation, Stone again used it semi-traditional sour base beer made with aged hops and unmalted grains. The beer was then combined with Titania Black Currants, Black Diamond Blackberries and Marionberry Blackberries, then barrel-aged with Lactobacillus acid-forming bacteria and Brettanomyces claussenii yeast for 15 months.

Stone Mission Warehouse Sour – 2017 Apricot

This inaugural sour release is brewed with 500 pounds of apricots squeezed into four barrels of beer throughout different stages in the 18-month brewing process.

A base brew was soured and then blended with barrel-aged barley wine and a highly-hopped, high-ABV, barrel-aged triple, both of which were aged with three strains of Brettanomyces yeast.

Stone Mission Warehouse Sour – 2018 Sauvignon Blanc

This extremely limited sour release is a complex blend of a traditional sour base beer fermented in wine barrels with California Sauvignon Blanc juice with Belgian and wild yeast.

This was then combined with Stone Cali-Belgique IPA that had been foudre aged for two years with three strains of Brettanomyces yeast.

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(All image credits: Stone Brewing)