Kyle Harrop of Horus Aged Ales Launches IPA Brand Ferrous Falcon
For the past few years, Kyle Harrop has cornered the market on luxury imperial stouts under the name Horus Aged Ales. Commanding upwards of $40 for a 22 oz. bottle of adjunct stout, sometimes barrel aged, sometimes not, Kyle has created a loyal clientele that follows every post and every sale he mentions on Instagram. Lately, Kyle has been teasing these fans with very cryptic posts using a beautiful canvas painting of a falcon and as recently as yesterday, a post of some juicy looking beer passing through a sight glass.
While Southern California beer enthusiasts associate the name Horus Aged Ales with high profile collabs, luxury stouts and barrel aged sour ales, Kyle launched a fresh ale line dubbed Horus Fresh Ales out of Octopi Brewing in the Madison, WI area. While the fresh ale project helped get name recognition in other markets, that relationship has now ended. “Ultimately, I wanted my hands on everything, which is hard to do 2,000 miles away.” stated Kyle. We are happy to learn that Kyle and hardworking entrepreneur/publican and brewery owner Grant Tondro (Urge Gastro Pub, Local Brothers Provisions, Mason Ale Works) will be launching Ferrous Falcon, in which Kyle will be heading up a lineup of fresh IPAs for on-site consumption and to-go offerings.
We caught up with Kyle to get as much details as possible on this major announcement. We asked Kyle to spill the beans on Ferrous Falcon. “I’ve been wanting to bring fresh IPAs to my loyal, passionate club members and followers, and haven’t had the resources to do so. I’ve teamed up with my longtime friend Grant to do just that. My biggest inspiration has been the War Pigs concept.” For those not familiar, War Pigs is a joint venture destination brew pub combining Three Floyds Brewing and Mikkeller Beer. “This will be a place that I will brew and showcase my fresh IPAs, Grant will be able to showcase the well-executed, underrated Mason Ale Works beers, and we will put our brains together on beers. Before COVID-19, our plans were to have four destinations, but for now, we will be launching within the speakeasy area of Urge Gastro Pub & Common House in San Marcos, CA.”
Opening any business in the middle of a pandemic seems crazy if not nearly impossible. We asked how this is possible. “Grant and I are 50/50 owners, and this venture is loan funded. I was fortunate enough to fall into some amazing hop contracts brewers can only dream of with the help of my friends at Cellarmaker, Modern Times and Other Half Brewing. They sold me some incredible 2019 hops and even better, helped me land some great contracts in New Zealand. As soon as it makes sense, I will be over there selecting hops.” As mentioned above, Kyle teased us with an IPA in motion on instagram and looks to launch mid-November. Kyle has spent the last three years collaborating with every cool brewery in the world, so naturally, we wanted to know who’s in line to collab with Ferrous Falcon. “Of course, I’m collab’ing, first on deck is Parish Brewing from Louisiana, then Foam Brewers out of Vermont and of course, my good friends from Other Half.”
The amount of fame Kyle has gained in a relatively short period of time made us wonder if this was going to be a typical craft beer hype job, in which there will be short notice, online drops announced, coupled with the line down the street for 4 packs of beer. “I’m over the hype, I’m not into the hype. This project is because I want to make fresh ales and get it into the hands of as many people as possible. This will be all pre-sold online for pickup at Ferrous Falcon. People will be able to drink the beer on-site. We won’t be selling the Horus Aged Ales bottles out of Ferrous, at most, we will have a Horus Aged Ales beer on tap now and again.” Wondering how much beer will be made out of Ferrous Falcon, Kyle claimed 180 bbls a year roughly and hopes one day to send self distro type drops to bottle shops he has personal relationships with.
