It\u2019s a vessel credited with popularizing wild and sour ale in the United States and one that has since formed a bond among a half dozen breweries over nearly three decades. But the wort Laffler placed in that barrel a year ago \u2014 its wooden staves a repository of all the wild yeast strains left behind by the brewers who previously used it \u2014 was no longer there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not think I was such a high-strung person until this,\u201d he\u2019d later say.<\/p>\n
A day earlier, Laffler and his team had transferred the finished product from a packaging tank into about 700 375-milliliter bottles and three small \u201csixtel\u201d kegs after judging about a month ago that the beer was ready. Word had started to spread that packaging of Off Color\u2019s pH1 beer was imminent. Laffler hoped to stage a late July release party alongside a visiting Peter Bouckaert, the brewing legend who first took the former wine barrel and used it to craft New Belgium Brewing\u2019s \u201cLa Folie\u201d wild ale in the early 2000s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/060925-Off-Color-Brewing-Vaunted-Barrel-Colin-Boyle-4480-1024x682.jpg\")
John Laffler, owner, leans on Off Color Brewing\u2019s rare vaunted beer barrel at its The Moustrap taproom, 1460 N. Kingsbury St., in Goose Island on June 9, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle\/Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n
But first Off Color\u2019s pH1 beer had to survive the packaging process. Oxygen could harm the beer\u2019s character and knocking around the liquid\u2019s suspended yeast too much could also ding its overall taste and quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst of the damage would be seen immediately or overnight,\u201d Laffler told Block Club later that day, after opening one of the still-then-unlabeled bottles and pouring a few fingers of the beer into small plastic cups. \u201cIf it\u2019s f\u2014ed, we\u2019re going to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is not f\u2014ed,\u201d Laffler declared. \u201cI\u2019m quite happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late Thursday afternoon, about a week after Block Club\u2019s visit, Off Color confirmed that it\u2019ll be throwing a party at 5 p.m. July 24 to celebrate pH1\u2019s release. Bouckaert will indeed be there and an \u201cextremely limited number of bottles\u201d will go on sale in-person at the Mousetrap taproom at 1460 N. Kingsbury St.<\/p>\n
More than a year after Cory King, the head brewer and co-founder of Side Project Brewing in St. Louis, shocked Laffler by showing up at the Mousetrap to hand over pH1, Off Color\u2019s signature whimsical mouse is now branded on the barrel\u2019s face alongside the California, Colorado and Missouri breweries that nurtured it before.<\/p>\n
Inside the barrel, Off Color\u2019s wild yeast strain \u2014 which Laffler prizes for its imparting of delicate, floral impressions \u2014 shares a home with the burlier, more acidic expressions of Side Project and California\u2019s Russian River. <\/p>\n
Off Color is just the sixth brewery to make a wild ale using pH1.<\/p>\n
Laffler said the finished product is a blend of a wheat-forward wort that initially rested in the barrel and one of his brewery\u2019s Belgian-style saisons. He said he entertained the idea of dry hopping the beer as a send-up of Off Color\u2019s refusal to ever brew an IPA \u2014 but he deemed the thought too much of a gimmick to impose on this iconic barrel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Still, he saw to it that what emerged from this past year of tinkering and hemming and hawing was a distinctly Off Color take on a barrel that can be assertive. While tasting the beer\u2019s progress, Laffler enjoyed trying to place the characteristics the barrel imparted to the previous brewery from which it came.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reflection of all the other breweries that have contributed to it and used it, which is why this project was so special to us,\u201d Laffler said. \u201cWe are part of the lineage. It\u2019s not us making this beer. It\u2019s us contributing to everybody else who\u2019s making this beer. And it\u2019s not one brewery, it\u2019s not two breweries, it\u2019s us as U.S. craft brewers.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Off](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5519-768x1024.jpeg\")
Off Color is releasing its \u201cpH1\u201d beer July 24 after aging the wild ale in the famed eponymous barrel since May 2025. Credit: Stephen Montemayor<\/p>\n