A brewery specialising in sour beers has hit the sweet spot with the opening of a new bar in Portobello.
Vault City Brewing, supported by £45,000 raised by crowdfunding, has enjoyed a busy first month since it opened its doors in the former Skylark in the beach town’s High Street.
Porty Vault has 36 taps featuring 24 of the brewery’s own double-fermented fruit flavoured beers with the remainder fonts featuring guest beers, wines and mead.
An authentic American smoker imported specially produces a range of “slow and smoked” BBQ style foods and snacks with vegan options.
Vault City Brewing head of marketing, Richard Wardrop, said: “Our brewery is only a short walk from Portobello High Street but opening the Porty Vault feels like we now have a real connection with the community. We enjoyed a really strong start with people from Portobello out in force supporting us.”
The bar and smokehouse is also enjoying a “mini pilgrimage” with customers from Vault’s other bar – The Wee Vault at Haymarket – heading down to Portobello.
Richard added: “We’ve seen quite a few people from our Haymarket tasting room make the trip and hopefully it means there are a few more people wandering about Porty taking in a bit of the seaside.”
Vault City describe their beers as “fruit forward” with the beers fermented initially with yeast and culture, followed by a second fermentation with up the 40% fruit content adding the distinctive flavours and colours.
Most popular so far has been Cloudy Lemonade and Strawberry Sunday beers – both of which are available in iced slush versions for takeaway on hot sunny days. The beers range from a typical 4% ABV all the way up to the powerful Kärleksmums Imperial Pastry Stout at 12% which is described as having chocolate, coffee, coconut and vanilla flavours.
Porty Vault plan to introduce guest cask beers in time and there will be future collaborations with other breweries with tap takeovers.
Stephen Rafferty is a former crime correspondent at The Scotsman and was a staff reporter for the Daily Record and Edinburgh Evening News. He has freelanced for many of the Scottish and UK national newspaper titles. Got a story? Get in touch - stephen@theedinburghreporter.co.uk
