To begin: you do have your tickets to the Buffalo Brewfest, don’t you? We ask because it’s good beer, for a good cause. Oh, and we’ll be there too. There’s that.

I hinted on Twitter that we’d have something new for sale there. We won’t say what it is just yet: let’s build the antici… pation until next week. As I said then, though, it’s something that people have been asking for, and yet none of the owners can use it.

We’d like to thank the New York Cork Report’s Julia Burke for her glowing review of Rudy’s sour ale, Bug Farm.

Poured into a goblet, this sour shows gorgeous tiny bubbles with little head or lacing and a color that evokes biting into a grapefruit while watching the sun set on the beach. The nose screams the style: sweaty, musky sour yeast, intense apple cider, tart grape peel, lemon — the resemblance to a good Riesling made with deliberate controlled oxidation/skin contact is unmistakeable; the blurring of beer/wine lines is an art form here.

Stop, we’re blushing.

Not real bugs. This kind.

The question we’ve been getting since the article was posted is, of course, “when can we get some of that?” The answer, like so many teenage Facebook relationship entries, is complicated. Rudy loves sour beer. The rest of us do too, for that matter. Yet our plan remains to offer a pale ale and a saison, at first. So, in the short term, you won’t be able to get Bug Farm (don’t hold us to that name, of course, though I like it). Eventually, though… Eventually, we’ll see.

Speaking of Rudy, this weekend is Belgium Comes to Cooperstown, and he’ll be in the crowd, sampling with everyone else. If you see him, say hi! I was going to say he’d give you a prize if you went up and hugged him, but that would be a lie. And I don’t think he would be very happy with me. Maybe ask before the hug.

I’ll end this week by linking to an excellent blog post from Erik at Mystery Brewing, the first brewery to be successfully funded through Kickstarter. He details what he’s been up to, and it’s quite a series of trials and tribulations. We try, now and then, to hammer home the “step 2” of starting a greedy: the work, the setbacks, the delays. It’s a grew experience, and I don’t want to discourage anyone from starting down the path. Just know that it’s not all fun and excitement. Just, you know, mostly fun and excitement.

Eight days til the Brewfest! See you all then.