Beer of the Week: Salted Rim

From the Beer Writer: Sitting on the couch with my laptop open and a Zoom window up, interacting with brewers 15 miles away. Yep, it was your typical collaboration brew session…in the age of COVID-19, anyway. And it’s how me and the brewing team at Bear Roots Brewing came up with a fun idea for a San Diego Beer News collaboration beer that will debut at both of their Vista tasting rooms today: Salted Rim. All it took for our collective light bulb to switch on was Head Brewer Ben Gardner mentioning they were about to get in a sizable load of limes and Bear Roots marketer Sierra McKay sharing her affinity for sours. We needed to use those limes (and a touch of salt) to make a kettle sour that would taste like a Margarita. Not only would it make good use of their citrus score, but the resulting beer would be great ammunition for fighting off the oppressive summertime heat that has bled into autumn. Salted Rim comes through on both counts, mimicking the cocktail it’s based on thanks to a lack of sweetness which allows it to come across as the genuine article versus a sugary pre-mixed interpretation. And best of all, this collaboration beer will raise money for a good cause!

From the Brewer: “It’s been a very long and exhausting year for many of us. We just want to get down and party, but we understand that some parties are just as easily done with a pint in hand and a video chat with all our friends. Bringing the excitement to you is what Ben and I do best, so we put our heads together with Brandon at San Diego Beer News and whipped up an exceptional 4.4% alcohol-by-volume kettle sour that features a heavy dose of lime peel and pink Himalayan sea salt, balancing out a wild fermentation that captured lactobacillus and Brettanomyces…the ultimate party pals. With that, we’ve also decided to donate 100% of the profits to the San Diego Food Bank. We hope you enjoy something new from us and feel even better helping us to give back to our community.”—Lu Moceri, Lead Brewer, Bear Roots Brewing