Pastore

Pastore Brewing and Blending is a father-and-son operation based in Waterbeach, just north of Cambridge. Chris Shepherd had been brewing under the Kilderkin Brewery name before he and his son Ben decided to build something more serious. Ben brought academic credentials to the project, having studied brewing at Heriot Watt University and written his thesis on Brettanomyces, the wild yeast at the heart of so many sour and farmhouse styles. They started brewing on a ten-barrel plant in July 2019.

The brewery's focus is mixed fermentation. That means two distinct threads running through their range: fresh sours, co-fermented with lactobacillus and loaded with fruit, and wild ales, aged in oak barrels using their own house culture of wild yeasts and local microbes. The wild ales tend to incorporate East Anglian fruit in refermentation, tying them to their regional surroundings in a way that feels genuinely considered rather than decorative. In 2024, they expanded into lager, with releases like Molto Dry, their rice lager made with sake kasu.

Their alcohol-free offering, Sorbetto, applies the sour approach to an AF format. It's a fruited sour built around strawberry, cherry, and lime, and it carries the bright, lactic character of the fresh sour range rather than feeling like a separate, stripped-down product. For fans of the style, it's one of the more interesting alcohol-free sours available through UK specialist retailers.

Pastore is a small independent brewery with a taproom at their Waterbeach site. Their beers are sold direct, through their online shop, and via specialist craft retailers. The AF range is narrow, currently centred on Sorbetto, but the quality of the underlying brewing suggests it's worth keeping an eye on.

The Collection

Sorbetto Strawberry Cherry & Lime