Coming across what appears to be a sinkhole somewhere on your property might not seem like something to get excited about. But for one family-run Texas brewery, that exact discovery led to a novel way to age its ales.
In 2018, during the development of farmhouse brewery Roughhouse Brewing, the Pasternak family discovered a small hole on their property in San Marcos, Texas. Geologists later uncovered a natural 18-by-20 feet underground limestone cave during an environmental survey of the land.
“It’s hard as a brewer to see something like this and not think I need to put some beer down in there,” Davy Pasternak, owner and brewer at Roughhouse, says in a video on the company’s Instagram. “It’s a natural cellar.”
On Tuesday, the brewer announced its new “Underground” series of 100 percent cave-aged beers in a press release. The first of the series will be a collaboration with another Texas-based brewer, Jester King Brewery.
“We wanted to make a beer that honored the natural space we were given,” the release states. “[A] spontaneously fermented beer using all Texas ingredients was the most honest way to do that.”
Those looking to get their hands on the cave-aged beer will have to wait a while longer. An exact release date has not been announced at the time of publishing, but the brewery says preorders will likely be available in early 2021.
