Sky Kombucha on Tap

Sky Kombucha at Kokua Market

Ask a kombucha enthusiast, and there’s no such thing as bad kombucha. We know better. After a couple of years of following the fermented tea health trend, we can say with confidence that there is good kombucha and there is bad kombucha. Because if we can’t get past the smell, it’s not getting past our lips. So, what makes good kombucha? (Or rather, good-tasting kombucha. It’s all good for you, we’re told. We get that.)

David and Shannon Yarber, the couple behind local kombucha brewery Sky Kombucha, seem to understand that not all of us are down with the super sour, ultra earthy kombucha brews that give the stuff a bad rap. Granted, when you’re drinking fermented tea, there are bound to be some unusual flavors in the mix, but when you come across a bottle of sparkling, pleasantly tart and preferably fruit-flavored booch (as it’s lovingly nicknamed by its followers), it can be—dare we say it?—good.

The Yarbers make their kombucha in crowd-pleasing flavors like grape, coconut, lilikoi, strawberry and mint, and they sell it on tap at Kokua Market, which means the drink is ultra fresh and extra cold (it’s got to be cold if we’re going to drink it).

At the Sky brewery, they ferment sweet tea until the sugars are converted to probiotics and healthy acids (that’s what gives the kombucha its purported health benefits), they add natural flavors and then keg, refrigerate and carbonate the brews for tapping.

Our favorite Sky flavor is the strawberry: The infusion of fresh berries makes it just sweet enough without losing kombucha’s signature tang and sparkle. The mint is good too, though it tastes decidedly more … healthy. We won’t get the ginger or the cherry again. The ginger needs more ginger—as it is, it tastes too much like the ground in which the ginger root grows. As for the cherry? Too medicinal for us. If we want to swallow something that’s going to make us feel better, we’ll take cough syrup. Cherry flavor. But that’s just us. A few of our kombucha-loving friends dug all the flavors—and went back for more.

Sky Kombucha at Kokua Market; $4/pint; available daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., while supplies last, skykombucha.com