Philadelphia, PA - Referend Bier Blendery crafts some of the finest spontaneously fermented sour beers around, if not in all of America. Their success can be attributed to how Aaron Priest works his magic with ingredients; technically speaking, Kutztown, PA startup doesn't call itself a brewery but rather "bier blendery." This means that no actual brewing takes place on-site.
Priest takes his recipes to other breweries equipped to produce certain varieties of unfermented beer known as wort, then pumps the boiling wort through a mobile coolship vessel to cool before fermentation and brings back non-alcoholic wort to his own brewery to be spontaneously fermented in oak barrels - he may be one of only one or two in the country operating using this strategy and business model.
At the blendery, beer is poured into barrels for four years of aging. Priest adds various fruits and spices sourced from local citrus farms, such as calamansi, bergamot, and yuzu, as well as cherries, raspberries, apricots, nectarines, blackberries, elderflowers. He makes every effort possible to use New Jersey ingredients.
Priest's brewing journey started after tasting Cantillon Gueuze while working at Baxter Brewing Co in Maine. The beer struck a chord with him, reminding him of experimental music or surrealist poetry, two things familiar from his studies in English and music at college - inspiring him to open his geuzestekerij (or lambic brewery).
