The tasting room at White Labs has been open a short time and I have visited twice. What a great experience. One batch of Saison was pitched with 6 seperate and different yeasts. Set up all six in front of me and tasted the difference. Made a change from from the saison blend to saison ll for the batch I did on father's day with my son. They will be presenting many brew and yeast varitations in the future. I am going to be a regular.
White Labs Tasting Room
- Thread starter wainswo1
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FredTheNuke
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Good stuff! I typically brew 15 gallon batches and ferment in 3 buckets each with a different yeast. Wow - it sure does give a variety of final results!
Until just recently, I lived about 2 miles from White Labs.
Now I'm 10 miles away.
I'm going to have to get there one of these days. Sounds fascinating.
Jlem, I'm not good at describing the nuances of flavor but suffice it to say that each yeast had a very distinct and different flavor. I picked saison ll over the blend simply because my pallet prefered it. On another note I went to WL today to get yeast for an oatmeal stout that I will brew tomorrow. As luck would have it they had a brown ale on tap w/ 4 different yeasts. I picked wlp 1060 american ale yeast blend. Again because I prefered the taste. This such an awsome resource and 5 min. from where I live.
SO I just visited this tasting room today. It is pretty awesome to live in San Diego and have so many interesting and high quality breweries very accesible to me. The room itself is very nicely put together and the bartenders were very knowledgable and friendly. But, I have to say I was a little disappointed with the quality of the beer. I understand they are not brewers by trade, and they are not trying to make quality beer, rather showcase the variety in their yeast strains. But I had 6 IPA samples and none of them tasted like an IPA, even the ones fermented with suitable yeasts. It was great to try different yeast strains that have fermented a similar wort and I did get some ideas for my next brew. But its hard to trust the yeast qualities from the samples I had given the mediocre quality of their beer. From info gleaned from various sources, it sounds like all of their fermentation occurs in a temperature controlled room. This may account for the mediocre homebrew quality of the beer, but personally I think they should try a little harder to ferment the beer properly and produce at least decent beers. I bet there are plenty of local homebrewers who could do a great job with that situation.
One of discussions that I had with the server at White Labs indicated that they trim back on hops in order to not overwhelm the yeast. They are about selling yeast not beers. The brews do cycle very quickly so I wouldn't judge the overall quality by one visit. One of the stops I made was offering a collaberation with Ballast Point brews. I would expect that other brewers will do the same. I hope I don't sound like I am trying to defend them, but I go there to try the yeast strains. If I want to sample beer I go to a brewery. On that note if you get a chance try the new Mother Earth brewery tasting room on Main st. In Vista.
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