It’s not possible to leave the taproom of Primitive Beer in Longmont, Colorado, without knowing more about spontaneously fermented beer than when you walked through its doors—and you’ll probably love it more than when you walked through the doors, too. That’s because the brewery’s educational approach to this rarified niche is less academic and more, well, sponsponbingbong.
The catchphrase—a nonsensical reference to spontaneous beer—is framed in a place of prominence on a wall near Primitive’s bar, alongside tin tackers from Cantillon and Oud Beersel. The juxtaposition is a metaphor for what Primitive cofounders Brandon and Lisa Boldt are building in their five-year-old blendery: deep reverence for traditional Belgian lambic and gueuze, injected with whimsy.
The husband-wife duo will be the first to acknowledge how weird Primitive is. At a time when other breweries are recognizing the need to diversify into new styles or go “beyond beer” to appeal to more drinkers, Primitive remains steadfastly in its lane: producing only 100 percent spontaneously inoculated, oak-fermented beers, and selling them primarily out of the taproom. While they initially conceived of Primitive as a brewery focused on barrel-aged wild beers, extensive travel to Belgium convinced the Boldts that even that was too broad a focus.