Vault City Brewery is on the hunt for a ‘sourmelier’ — a beer aficionado tasked with tasting and testing all its sour creations before they hit the shelves.
Vault City co-founder Steven Hay-Smith
Vault City, known as the ‘mad scientists of craft beer’, are launching a crowdfunding campaign to help towards a new brewery fit-out. Aspiring sourmeliers can follow their dreams by contributing to the crowdfunder sale.
The initiative allows beer lovers to get their hands on beers and merchandise with at least 33% off. There ae special reward tiers, with one lucky fan set to land the coveted role of sourmelier, responsible for taste-testing new sour beer releases in 2025.
“This role isn’t for the fainthearted — we’re looking for a sour beer fan like no other,” said Vault City co-founder Steven Smith-Hay.
“It will involve a lot of sour beer drinking, so we’re looking for a very refined palette. Someone with a real understanding of the sour scale, who can present facts with no fluff, and who isn’t afraid to deliver raw honesty for the sake of the sour beer community.”
With demand soaring for Vault City’s weird and wonderful brews, the campaign aims to raise more than £1 million to bring the new brewery to life.
The fundraiser sale launches at vaultcity.co.uk on 15th April and will run for up to four weeks, offering all customers — in retail and the on-trade — the chance to grab a bargain. Each investment will also enter fans into the draw to be crowned the Vault City Sourmelier.
Vault City’s new 34,000-square-feet site is located at BioCampus, Scotland’s first dedicated national bio-manufacturing campus within the Midlothian Science Zone.
The new facility will allow Vault City to produce more than 10m litres of beer a year, increasing capacity by more than 8m litres. There is also scope for expansion up to 20 times its current size, with the crowdfunding campaign supporting its official launch and doors expected to open in October.
Vault City, which started in a Dundee kitchen in 2018, now turns over more than £6.8m and is stocked in over 250 bars. Stockists include Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose, and the brewery produces more than a third of the UK’s sour beers, exporting to more than 20 countries.
