Drink614: Random Precision very intentional about sour releases

Jason Grable of Random Precision Brewing Company has a decade’s worth of home brewing experience under his belt. Increasingly, that’s not exactly a big deal these days, but he was geeky enough to dabble with sours, which isn’t the path most home brewers follow.

Sours, you see, are tricky. Producing a sour takes a lot of time and a complex mix of microbes that sometimes don’t cooperate, forcing a brewer to dump large and expensive batches of beer. After years of wrangling microbes to produce sours at home, Jason decided to jump into the brewing business.

RPB is located in a newly erected steel building in Linworth, just west of the railroad tracks that cross West Dublin Granville Road. It was an arduous process, building from the ground up, and despite finally being open, the verdict isn’t in.

This is because the first round of sours will not be ready until Late October, at the earliest. It could be longer, because this part of the process is out of Jason’s hands. He’s just trying to be nice to those microbes.

There’s no brewing equipment on site. Instead, Jason brews at Zafting, hauling the sweet elixir known as wort to his facility where it gets transferred into oak barrels with the requisite blend of microbes. Saccharomyces, pediococcus, brettanomyces, and lactobacillus are the usual suspects.

The good news is that Jason seems to know how to wrangle at least two of those critters. He’s got two of his own beers on tap (neither sours). The Berliner Weisse is not nearly as tart as you’d expect it to be, drinking more like a Wit with just a hint of citrus on the backend. Jason did indicate that a more assertive version was on deck.

The star here, however, is the 100% Brett IPA.

Brettanomyces is a yeast that doesn’t behave itself. It works slowly and imparts a host of assertive flavors. In this case there are strong tropical fruit notes, but also herbaceous aromas.

As the beer opens up, there’s that distinctive barnyard character lurking, like straw and fresh cut hay. It sounds weird, but it works.

Going full Brett is a bold move. Most brewers offer Brett IPAs where just enough Brett is added to dial up a hint of funk.

The space is simple. Exactly what you’d expect walkingin from the outside. Long wooden tables and bench seating conducive to communal drinking. There’s also a selection of wine and a number of guest beers on tap. Random Precision is poised to shine on.

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