Horus Aged Ales

Horus Aged Ales in Oceanside is a Californian brewery dedicated to providing customers with beers brewed and aged in oak barrels. The brewery ages its beers in a combination of wine and spirit barrels and ferments it spontaneously after adding exotic fruits to provide flavor. Horus Aged Ales believes in brewing beer following a spirit of experimentation and with the due patience required for barrel-aging beverages.

Origin and Ethos

Kyle Harrop, the founder of Horus Aged Ales, is also an accountant who juggles both careers with finesse along with familial responsibilities. In 2017 alone, Horus Aged Ales collaborated and produced 55 beers in association with other breweries.

Kyle had been homebrewing and nursing the dream of opening up his own brewery for a decade before Horus Aged Ales came into being. Unlike other breweries, the beers made available at Horus Aged Ales are produced in collaboration with other brewers and breweries.

Horus Aged Ales focuses on creating exclusive barrel-aged beers. The inspiration for designing a brewery of this kind was picked up from brewing projects such as Brasserie Cantillon, Belgium, and Side Project, Missouri. The primary brew offering at Horus Aged Ales is barrel-aged sours. Although, Kyle likes to mix this up with barleywines and barrel-aged imperial stouts as well.

Situated at 4040 Calle Platino, Ste 120, Oceanside, California, 92056, Horus Aged Ales is placed at a mile’s distance from the new Belching Beaver facility in the Rancho Del Oro locality. The Horus Aged Ales brewery contains three separate rooms clearly demarcated for sour and non-sour barrel aging.

Housed in a 3,200 square feet area, the brewery has enough room for expansion if desired in the future. Kyle Harrop is the chief man-in-charge of all operations at Horus Aged Ales, but his wife has helped him amply to pick out the decorations and furnishings and decide the layout of the brewery.

Brewery Information

Horus Aged Ales started with 80 oak barrels, a 27 BBL foeder, and a handful of puncheons. While the majority of barrels here are red or white wine barrels, there is also a selection of gin, bourbon, rum, whiskey, and other unique spirit barrels. Depending on the style of the particular brew, the beer could be aged anywhere between six months and three years at Horus Aged Ales.

Besides the fruited and non-fruited wine barrel-aged sours made available here, don’t forget to sample Kyle’s special bourbon kind. Unlike the barrel-aged dark sours available in the market, he provides saisons and blondes that have been barrel-aged and contain vanilla and oak essence.

Horus Aged Ales offers patrons with barrel-aged sours brewed using fruits that are not typically used by other breweries. So besides the berry sours, you can also expect fruit sours with added starfruit, apple, or pear here.

Experimentation is key to the brewing process at Horus Aged Ales. Spontaneous fermentation is another aspect of brewing that excites Kyle Harrop, and he exercises it in the creation of the brews offered by his beer brewing endeavor.

In addition to the collaborative beers sold at Horus, there are also a handful of originals. These are usually named after Egyptian birds or other influences drawn from the area. One of the core beers on the menu at Horus Aged Ales is a wild ale, which has been fermented using black raspberries and aged in a Port Wine Barrel. It is a tart, berry-forward brew with funk flavors derived from the wild yeast used to ferment it, providing a well-rounded subtle sweet finish from the Port Wine Barrel aging.

Horus Aged Ale Collaborations

Some of the more recent collaborations of Horus Aged Ales have been:

• TBD: ABV 6% American Wild Ale, brewed in collaboration with Beachwood Blendery, Long Beach
• It’s Just a Question of How and Why: ABV 12% Provisions Ale Beer, brewed in association with Stoup Brewing, Seattle
• Lyphe: ABV 12% English-style Barleywine Beer, brewed along with Mumford Brewing & Don’t Drink Beer
• Crème Supreme: ABV 12% Imperial Cream Ale, brewed with Mikkeller, San Diego
• 3-Day: ABV 6.8% New England IPA, brewed in collaboration with Burgeon Beer Company, San Diego
• Just the Trip: ABV 11% New England Triple IPA, brewed in tandem with Heist Brewery, Charlotte
• A Bird to Explore All Shores: ABV 12% Imperial Stout Beer, brewed with Kane Brewing, New Jersey

Customers Speak

When Kyle Harrop flagged off Horus Aged Ales, he was vocal about his penchant for pastry stouts. The pastry stouts on offer at Horus Aged Ales have gained immense customer praise. Patrons have likened the dense stouts made available here to biting off a coffee-flavored candy bar or tasting a slice of chocolate cake. Much to public disappointment, Horus Aged Ales does not have a taproom at the moment. The facility is only open for bottle sales, so you can visit and choose your bottles to-go.

Every sip of a brew at Horus Aged Ales speaks for its complexity of flavor, and you can tell the attention of detail the brewer has incorporated into the beer. If you aren’t able to visit Horus Aged Ales, you could chance upon a bottle sale elsewhere. Kyle conducts occasional off-site bottle-sales.

He also sells bottles online sometimes and is very active towards responding to customer queries on social media. So customers not only appreciate the delicious dessert beers and other nuanced brews at Horus Aged Ales, but they also note the terrific customer service provided.

Horus Aged Ales is careful to maintain its exclusivity. On-site bottle sales are also opened up for small batches in limited hours. It specializes in barrel-aged sours and barrel-aged stouts. What will stand out when tasting the beers sold by Horus is the exotic fruit ingredients used.

If you wish to contact Horus Aged Ales, you can do so by visiting their official website and filling out their contact form. Similarly, you can also reach out to Kyle on the Horus Aged Ales social media pages on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Horus Aged Ales prides itself on extending a satisfactory customer experience and will readily respond to any queries made.