Beard Science Sour House in The Colony is one of the newest breweries in North Texas. It’s understandable if the wait for the sour-only brewery to start pouring has felt rather lengthy. The brewery’s construction has been happening in plain sight for visitors to one of the hottest day-drinking spots the northern ‘burbs has to offer.
Beard Science is next to the sprawling Truck Yard in The Colony’s Grandscape development. Since the second D-FW Truck Yard location opened in the summer of 2019 (with another one planned for Fort Worth), revelers have had a first-row seat to the construction of not only Beard Science, but also of a soon-to-open tiki bar.
Situated just to the side of the outdoor live music stage, Beard Science opened in December 2020. As the name suggests, the only brews available to customers are of the sour variety, with an emphasis on tart, acidic kettle sours and funky wild sours brewed with natural yeasts.
Beard Science brews can be taken out of the brewery to be enjoyed in any other spot of the Truck Yard, or beverages purchased from one of the many other bars can be brought into the brewery’s seating area.
Also notable is that the brewing operations here are helmed by veteran brewer Dennis Wehrmann. The German-born Wehrmann is well-known in North Texas as the founder of Franconia Brewing in McKinney, where he served until leaving in 2020. Franconia’s calling card was in its long-held following of German beer purity law, also known as Reinheitsgebot. Certainly, Beard Science’s ales filled with lactobacillus bacteria strains fail to fall under the strict, short recipe list of barley, hops and water that Reinheitsgebot allows.
For the uninitiated, a maiden trip to Beard Science is likely similar to the first time someone visits Bishop Cider Company in Dallas or Breaking Brew Meadery in Farmers Branch. Many will walk in with a narrow set of preconceived notions as to what they’re about to drink, but probably aren’t truly aware of just how varied the flavors of the beverage can be.
Case in point, on a recent visit to the brewery on a sunny afternoon with live music filtering in through the building’s massive, open garage doors, the two least pucker-inducing beers we sampled featured ingredients often associated with the mightiest of puckering. With a hazy yellow appearance, the pickle sour gave off a distinct pickle aroma, but yielded an entirely mellow sip. It was an almost alarming experience to be geared up for a highly piquant flash, only to taste something so well-balanced.
Immensely refreshing and effervescent, the lemon cucumber is the kind of beer that can make hard seltzer fans convert in a snap. The easy-drinking nature of this specific selection was made even more successful by being paired with the early afternoon sun washing over the area for the first time in days during our visit. The lemon sweetness, not tartness, was the star of this glass.
With eight sours on draft, there was a wide range of flavors to sample, yet there were some vital through-lines connecting most of the beers we tried. None of the sours were overpowering, favoring balance over intense jaw tingling. The caramel tart apple offered a pleasant combination of the happy mediums in both the sweetness of the caramel and the apple’s sour snap. The fizzy, pink raspberry cherry used the dry end of the flavor spectrum from the two main ingredients to create a bright, and again, well-balanced drink.
As extreme as some of the sours may seem when reading the menu board, each brew provided a clean finish and often left little lingering aftertaste. The Woodruff, which was described to us by our bartender, Becky, as “earthy” might’ve been the best example of just how versatile the sour brewing style can be. With a flavor more savory than sweet, it’s easy to see pints of the Woodruff being poured next to the turkey on Thanksgiving.
Regardless of how it may sound, there’s nothing weird about the sours at Beard Science Sour House.
Beard Science is located at the Truck Yard in the Colony, 5959 Grove Lane, The Colony. beardsciencesours.com.
