To date, all of our sour blends have comprised our pale sour base beer, which we have an extensive history of working with. The logical next step in our evolution was to strive for the perfect dark sour base beer to begin experimenting with. Logically, we rang up our friends at Omen Brewing who happen to specialize in dark beer styles. We discussed the characteristics we were looking to work with and formulated a plan. Somewhere in the discussions of mixed culture bacterial fermentation, we had an interesting idea. What if we actually showcased the effect of mixed fermentation cultures on a traditional style? How would we demonstrate the non-saccharomyces contribution to the blend? We walked through all steps of the scientific method and talked through all conventionally accepted control and observe principles and settled on creating a first-hand look at the before and after. A new kind of collaboration was born. What excited us collectively about this collab was the opportunity to demonstrate the highest level of technical skill from both breweries. We decided on the Belgian Dark Strong (appellation respected) as our working base beer style. All wort was to be produced by Omen, and the batch split into two parts for fermenting. The Omen portion fermented into a clean Belgian Dark Strong; the Trial & Ale portion hauled back to the barrelhouse - destined for barrels to become something entirely different altogether.