Ferus Artisan Ales — Avondale’s Coby Lake Goes Wild in Trussville

The Review

Coby Lake knows how to use a brewery to transform a neighborhood. He did it in Avondale, where Avondale Brewing Company — which he co-founded — helped turn a forgotten historic district into one of Birmingham’s best nights out. When he sold Avondale Brewing to Good People in 2017, Lake didn’t retire from beer. He went wilder.

Ferus Artisan Ales opened in Trussville on October 24, 2019, and the name tells you everything: ferus is Latin for untamed, wild, fierce. The beers use wild yeast and bacteria, winemaking techniques, and barrel aging for up to two years to produce farmhouse ales and sours that have no analogue in the Birmingham beer scene.

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The Trussville taproom anchors the downtown entertainment district — Lake’s design is explicitly to replicate the Avondale effect — and the beer garden and performance stage give it a destination energy that extends beyond the beer. But the beer is the point. Wild fermentations that take months or years to develop, pulled off barrels only when the flavors are right, releasing when ready rather than when the calendar says so.

Something genuinely new has opened in Trussville, and it took the guy who built Avondale to do it. Pay attention.

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