Vault City Classic Neapolitan Single Scoop

Style: Fruit and chocolate pastry sour
Producer: Vault City
Origin: Scotland
Size: 44cl
Alcohol: 4.1%
Price: 35kr
Systembolaget: 1031434 (sold out)

Vault City Brewing is a modern craft brewery based in Portobello, Edinburgh, founded in 2018 and best known for its bold, fruit-forward sour beers. The brewery quickly gained attention for pushing flavour intensity, often using large amounts of real fruit and experimenting with pastry-inspired concepts, and are regarded as one of the UK’s leading sour beer specialists. This has been flavoured with chocolate and lactose has been added to give extra body and smoothness. I voted Vault City as one of my favourite breweries of 2025, so I will be trying to have quite a few of their beers in my future tastings. Did this live up to the high standard of this amazing brewery though? It absolutely did!

This had a dull orange to red colour with a very thick haze. A creamy bubble bath style head formed on the beer and held for a long time. The aroma exploded from the glass and gave massive strawberry jam notes. Vanilla and a hint of blackberry followed through as well as minor notes. The creamy, thick mouthfeel coated the palate perfectly, letting the flavours evolve. Slightly unripe strawberry hit the tongue first then transitioned into a strawberry jam note after swallowing. The malts were not overlooked and helped support the fruity tones. The chocolate unfortunately is too light to be noticed, but the sweet vanilla is present throughout. The aftertaste was medium, with the red fruit clinging to the back of the palate with a low acidity.

This was an absolutely amazing sour, burst with life. Aroma, taste and body were all big and enticing, working in harmony with each other. I would have liked a bit more chocolate in the taste but that was only a minor note. This was another banger from Vault City, and I look forward to seeing what else they will create soon.