Wasteland Brewing Co.

10/22/2017

Revisiting the Dirty Dozen (Part Three):

Yikes! We finished revisiting these beers two months ago but I forgot to put up the final post! Better late than never, I suppose.

Bottle 8: Ken Edwards Coffee Porter
No carbonation left. A shame, cuz this was one of the really, really good ones. It basically tasted like fizzy, alcoholic coffee. Even without the fizziness, it still retained it's strong coffee flavor and overall tastiness.

Bottle 9: FUBAR
That's more like it. This one I remember as being the best beer we ever made. And while I'm not sure it's still quite as good as I'd remembered, it's still pretty amazing. I'm always a big fan of bourbon-flavored anything, and this one was no exception. Take a smooth, well-rounded brown ale, and kick it up to eleven by adding bourbon-soaked oak chips during fermentation. This would be one to go back and make again.

Bottle 10: Wedding Hangover Ale
Still good. This was the first batch that didn't properly carbonate in the bottle, so we had to crack em all open and carbonation drops (sugar) and a pinch of champagne yeast to each bottle, which ultimately saved the beer. It's basically a good, hearty porter with a nice high-alcohol kick from the Jamaican overproof rum we added during fermentation.

Bottle 11: Splash IPA
Pliny the Elder + sage. a.k.a. Piney the Elder. This was fun to make, and still fun to drink. Like our Belgian IPA, this is one where I'm not sure if the hoppiness of the original recipe blends fully successfully to our added twist. So if we could go back and do it again, we'd probably cut back slightly on the sage added during fermentation. As is, it's still pretty great. I don't know why you don't see more sage in beers - it's very piney and refreshing.

Bottle 12: The Berninator
Saving the newest for last. In a pleasant surprise, this last bottle didn't spew out foam for five minutes when we opened it! Maybe it's settled down over the past few months, or maybe we just happened to get a good bottle. Either way, this is still really good. We mimicked the richness and flavor of Stone's legendary Smoked Porter pretty well, and the mild chipotle flavor that pops up in the aftertaste compliments it without overpowering the beer.

And that's it! Who knows what the future will hold for the crazy minds at Wasteland Brewing? Catch ya on the flip side!

07/30/2017

Revisiting the Dirty Dozen (Part Two):

Bottle 4: Coco's Irish Red Ale
Doing these out of order now because I wanna save the best for last. This one wasn't anything too spectacular when we made it, but it was a good solid example of the red/brown/amber ale style. Smooth, malty, roasty/nutty character. It's maintained those characteristics over the years, but unfortunately, our last remaining bottle has lost most of its carbonation, rendering it pretty much undrinkable.

Bottle 5: Fear the Beer!
This one was fun to make - brewed in honor of the Giants' 2010 World Series victory (time files!). It's a black IPA, and certainly looks like it, but you really don't get much of the hop character on this bottle. I remember when we made it, it turned out very good, nice & drinkable, but could've used more hoppiness. I dunno if it's mellowed further over the years, but it's almost like drinking a porter now. Either way, it's still good.

Bottle 6: Yo Mama
This was a batch that just didn't work. We brewed it as a saison in the vein of something from Allagash, but decided to tweak for formula by soaking some white wine in oak chips (and then accidentally adding the wine during fermentation instead of just the oak chips - oops). As a result, it's tastes somewhere halfway between a belgian strong ale and a chardonnay, without successfully being either one. And it still has carbonation issues. Oh well.

Bottle 7: Jovie's House IPA
A Sculpin clone fermented with a Belgian yeast strain. There's a lot going on here, maybe too much. You get the strong hoppiness and the Belgian tangy-ness, but I'm not totally sure the mix is fully successful. Still tastes pretty good though, nice & strong.

07/17/2017

Revisiting the Dirty Dozen (Part One):

When we starting homebrewing all those years ago, we bottled our beers and enjoyed them, but we also decided to save one bottle from each batch to have at some later undetermined time. Well, we haven't been buying a whole lot of beer lately, and we started to think that homebrews generally aren't meant to be bottle-aged for 8 years - so let's start crackin' em open and see how they've held up!!!

Bottle 1: Accidental IPA

We brewed this as a standard pale ale, but I plugged everything into beer recipe site one day and it said that we made an IPA. In reality, it's somewhere in between: maybe a West Coast Pale Ale, or an East Coast IPA. I remember this one being good for a first try, but nothing remarkable. To my surprise, not only is it still drinkable after eight years or however long it's been, but it's actually still pretty good. Easy drinking, with a nice amount of hoppiness. Good for a first try, indeed.

Bottle 2: Curly's Poifect Stout

This one is also still drinkable and has pretty much held up like I remembered it. Not too strong or complex, not much of an aftertaste, but still a solid, tasty dark beer. I remember being very happy with this one when it was done because it was pretty much on par with most of the basic commercially available stouts out there, and it holds up today, even if my own tastes have changed to crave something with a little more complexity to it.

Bottle 3: Seacliff Summer Ale

We brewed this as part of a wedding gift for Brandon and Gabby (man, how time flies!), and we named it after the offramp to the off-the-radar beach just north of Ventura that we used to spend most of the Sundays of our summers in our early-mid 20s. I remember this being a good, basic, easy-drinking wheat ale; not really my style, but good for what it is. I don't know if aging it in a closet for the past seven years did anything or not, but I'm drinking one right now and really enjoying it. Has a little bit of that homebrew tangy-ness to it, but it compliments the wheat style well. Light, refreshing... a nice summer beer, as was the intention.

More to come! We've got nine more beers to revisit - stay tuned!!

03/15/2017

Hey guys, long time no post. I just wanted to welcome our new members and just mention we're on a slight hiatus as we're trying to get a kegging system in place. However, fans of homebrew, we would like your opinion. What beer to brew first in our keg once we get it? Note to users, we like to have a tad bit of complexity so make it a bit challenging.

10/10/2016

07/10/2016

01/10/2016

Batch 8: no carbonation.
Batch 9: too much carbonation.
Batch 10: no carbonation.
Batch 11: properly carbonated.

11/29/2015

Drinking beer on brew day. Both of our teams won. It's a small victory. But it's our double sage IPA day.