New Santa Rosa brewery opening Friday

A new entrant in Sonoma County’s increasingly crowded beer industry will debut Friday with the opening of Cooperage Brewery in Santa Rosa, which is looking to carve out a niche by specializing in barrel-aged sour beers.

Tyler Smith opens his tap room at 981 Airway Court after working for the past five years at Whole Foods’ Coddingtown taproom, a job where he learned firsthand the likes and dislikes of local beer aficionados.

“We were always selling out of sour beers” at Whole Foods, Smith said. The tart and funky beers, which often derive their taste from wild yeast, are aged much longer than other styles, frequently in barrels.

A downside of Smith’s business model is his first sours won’t be ready for about eight months, he said. Thus, when his doors open at 3 p.m. on Friday he will feature four non-sour beers: a pale ale, an India pale ale, a Belgian pale ale and Belgian golden ale.

The beers will be only available on draft from his 100-customer capacity taproom as he does not have a bottling line yet.