USA, NY: The Buried Acorn Brewing Co. expects to launch in Syracuse in late spring or early summer

It’s taken almost two years to get The Buried Acorn Brewing Co. up and running - and it’s still not quite there, Syracuse.com reported on February 6.

But that deliberate timetable sort of fits the theme for Syracuse’s next brewery.

Buried Acorn expects to open a brewery and taproom in late spring or early summer at 881 Van Rensselaer St., at the corner of Hiawatha Boulevard in the Inner Harbor. It’s just down Hiawatha from Destiny USA.

When it opens, it will be the 15th brewery operating in Onondaga County.

While owners and brewers Tim Shore and Sam Kim will make some “standard” beers like IPAs and stouts, they will specialize in barrel-aged beers, plus sours, farmhouse ales, and various Belgian styles that often require extra time and attention.

Some of those beers are already aging in used wine barrels at the brewery.

“We’re going to be a mixed fermentation brewery, with a Belgian focus,” Shore said. “But in the end I think we’ll make ales of almost any kind you can think of.”

The "about" section on the Buried Acorn web site puts it this way: "We specialize in Barrel-Aged Sour and Farmhouse Beer, but don't worry hop heads, you will get some love too."

That means everything from rich and strong barleywines to tart, low-alcohol Berliner Weisses, plus saisons and some that are even more obscure, like a Belgian “grisette.” That’s a low alcohol beer from the French-speaking part of Belgium. Grisette was once known as a brew for working men like miners and factory workers.

“That’s recognition for where we’re located, in the old salt-making part of the city,” Shore said. Buried Acorn will also make the style called gose, which uses salt as an ingredient.

Some of the beers defy standard style definitions. During a tour of the still-under-construction brewery, Shore poured a sample from one of the barrels. It’s a light colored beer, made with brewing yeast and a strain called brettanomyces. “Brett” often gives beer characteristic like tartness, fruitiness and, for lack of a better term, funkiness.

This beer, Shore said, has some of the character of a sauvignon blanc wine. The working name for the beer is Ghoster Blanc. It still needs a few months of aging before it's ready.

Shore and Kim considered a few different locations for their brewery, including DeWitt, before settling on the former storage building owned by Len Montreal, who has developed several projects in the Inner Harbor.

“We’re really excited to be part of the rebirth of this area,” Shore said.

07 February, 2018