This New Belgium beer was actually illegal until 2017

New Belgium Brewing‘s Where I Live is a dark sour blended with TRVE Brewing’s mixed culture beer. It features 100 percent Colorado-grown malt and whole flower lavender. Oh, and it was illegal until a loophole emerged just two years ago.

Wait, what?

Lauren Limbach, New Belgium Wood Cellar director and blender, and Nick Nunns, founder of TRVE Brewing, have long dreamt of blending their sour beers. Though blending wood aged sours is an ancient Belgian tradition and deeply rooted in New Belgium’s heritage, until recently it wasn’t legal between domestic breweries.

“When we first started talking about this collaboration at GABF 2016, it wasn’t even legal,” said Limbach. “U.S. brewers couldn’t send beer to each other for this kind of project.”

In December of 2017 the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform legalized brewery-to-brewery tax-free transfers of beer, allowing this dream collaboration to become reality.

“That changed in late 2017, paving the way for what we think is the first beer of its kind in the U.S. — legally, at least,” Limbach said.

More about the beer

Where I Live uses malts from Troubadour Maltings in Fort Collins to create the base beer, which was fermented on Norwegian Kveik yeast. The beer was blended with a foeder-aged dark sour, then further matured with TRVE’s mixed-culture in one of New Belgium’s French oak foeders. Just before packaging, the beer is circulated over whole-flower lavender grown on the Western Slope of Colorado by Two Bears Farms.

The result is a floral-infused, malt-driven, crushable sour full of friendship and intent.

Where I Live Mixed Culture Sour

• ABV: 6%
• Yeast: Kveik
• Description: Wood-aged dark sour blended with TRVE’s mixed cultureand featuring 100% Colorado-grown malt and whole flower lavender. The result is a floral-infused, malt-driven, crushable sour full of friendship and intent.
• Availability: Available Black Friday in CO, MN, WI, PA, NC, SC, AZ, FL, VA, CA, NV, MO, CT, KY and NY in 16-oz can four-packs and kegs.