USA, OH: Homestead Beer Company set to open in Lancaster around the end of summer

A new brewery is set to open on the Barrel & Boar BBQ Factory property at 1217 S. Broad St. in Lancaster, the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette reported on January 6.

The Homestead Beer Company of Heath's Restless Meadow Sour House will produce a sour brew that owner Adam Rhodes will distribute through the central Ohio Barrel and Boar locations of Canal Winchester, Delaware, Gahanna, Heath, Marysville, Newark, Westerville and here.

Restless Meadow will be located in the barn behind the Barrel & Boar BBQ Factory and across from Utica Park.

“Our initial sours will be borrowing heavily from Homestead flagships," Rhodes said. "Tenpenny Amber Ale will be a major provider of the initial beer going into our barrels. Moving forward, we will be borrowing heavily from our experience with the Pilot Series to produce unique, imaginative sour beers.”

He said the first sour batches should be out around the end of summer because of the long process it takes to make a sour beer, sometimes up to a year. The company also has to go through the state licensing process, which Rhodes said can take four to 12 weeks or so before it can even start brewing here.

"The initial plan is that we'll have some strains of yeast we're hoping will produce product a little bit faster," Rhodes said. "And then strain the yeast that we know take a year and longer. So we're hoping the first beers on that faster yeast will be done in that late summer window."

In the meantime, the company is getting the new Lancaster brewery ready to go.

So what is a sour beer?

"Normal beer is made with a very specific family of yeast," Rhodes said. "They produce what's referred to as clean beer. That's beer that's hoppy or it's malty or it's redolent of pineapple and apple and all these various things."

Sour yeast is another family of yeast.

"They produce flavors that are sour," Rhodes said. "Like pickle sour and that kind of family of stuff. So what we do is we produce clean beer and then we add in fruits and other kind of things to add a little more sugar into the finished beer. Then you put in the sour yeast. The sour yeast referments that beer and creates a sour beer."

Homestead will get its clean beer from its Heath production plant and go into barrels with sour yeast in the Lancaster brewery to ferment.

"We're really excited as we pivot through the current economy and look for new opportunities," Barrel & Boar owner Stan Riley said. "We're looking to build a casual concept and the partnership with Homestead made that real possible. It felt like a really good time for us to come together."

He called the new addition to the partnership "a really good fit."

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