Omnivore - Orpheus cans launch, Georgia gets first packaged sour beer

The Atlanta brewery releases the Peach State’s first packaged sour beer today

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  • Courtesy Orpheus Brewing
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Orpheus Brewing makes Georgia beer history today, releasing the Peach State’s first packaged sour beer, Atalanta. The brewery’s popular tart plum Saison (CL’s 2014 Best of Atlanta critics pick for Best New Beer) rolls out in aluminum cans along with Lyric Ale, a slightly hoppy, dry Saison. Both will be packaged as six packs available at area stores such as Hop City on the Westside, Marietta’s Sprayberry Bottle Shop, and Doraville’s Tower Beer, Wine & Spirits.

Orpheus brewmaster Jason Pellett tells Creative Loafing that Orpheus will stick with those two core cans for now. In early March they plan to start canning their rotating India Pale Ales, beginning with Transmigration of Souls. They’ll start canning their rotating sours after that. Orpheus has a number of beers currently barrel-aging as well, including a Brett Saison in Sauternes barrels, an Atalanta in Sauternes barrels with fresh plums, Sykophantes aging in cognac barrels, and their next IPA, Truth.Body.Soul., which will be partially barrel-aged and fermented with Brettanomyces. Pellett hopes to release his first barrel beer in January.

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While Georgia’s brewers have — along with the rest of the country — taken to making more sour beers in recent years, none have been featured outside of brewery taprooms, bars, and growler shops, all on draft. Burnt Hickory Brewery’s Freak Flag and BlueTarp Brewing Co.’s Fünk Weisse were a couple of the first, and notables like Wrecking Bar Brewpub’s Flandiddly-anders and Three Taverns Brewery’s A Night in Brett Belgian IPA have popped up here and there since. More recently, Wild Heaven Craft Beers and Red Hare Brewing Company, among several other Georgia breweries, have announced they have sours in the works.

Back in May, Creature Comforts Brewing Company (CCBC) launched in Athens with its Berliner Weisse, Athena, as one of the brewery’s a core offerings — cans of which will roll out into the Georgia market next week. Like Orpheus, CCBC currently has a number of specialty sours in the works. But Orpheus’ Atalanta will be the Georgia’s first sour available in a can or bottle.

“When I started brewing years ago, a big part of my desire was to be able to have sour beer that I could drink regularly,” Pellett said in an announcement on his brewery’s website. “With Atalanta now in 6-pack cans, that dream is a reality.”

Local artists Brandon Sadler and Peter Ferrari did the label designs for Atalanta and Lyric Ale, respectively. Orpheus has been farming out its labels to local artists since it opened in May. Previous to the cans, Molly Rose Freeman made limited-edition prints for their new fig sour, Sykophantes, and Lela Brunet Raymond did the art for their Wandering Blues blueberry sour.

“Part of what we love about beer is the stories that happen around it, and their art really heightens that experience,” Pellett writes on the Orpheus blog.

Following the cans, the next notable Orpheus release is The 12th Labor, a stout that will make its debut at Wrecking Bar Brewpub’s second-annual Strong Beer Fest on Dec. 6. “It’s a big, thick, 13% stout,” Pellett says. “The name is really appropriate—it completely filled our mash tun, took about 30 hours to brew two small batches (totalling about 30 BBL), and regularly dosing the fermenter with dark candy syrup was kind of a pain. But it’s delicious and unlike and other stout I’ve ever had, so it’s worth it.”