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| - Two visits on 12/23 and 12/29. I wanted to like this place, I really did. Simply put, the beer is just not good. I do have experience in brewing, so I do have some sense of proper flavor profiles and the process.
12/23: The first thing that struck me was that out of the gate, they've gone for barrel-aged porters and stouts. Found this unusual as most new breweries perfect their base stout and porter before adding the complexity of barrel-aging. The Blonde was just undrinkable. It had a very off taste that reminded me of sanitizer. While I have had some bad beer in my life, I just could not finish this.
12/29: came back with a group (after my first experience was not enthused but wanted to give it another try). This was a mix of serious beer geeks, beer enthusiasts and people that just want to have a beer. To the person, there was unfortunately unanimous agreement that the IPA and Blonde were awful. The folks with limited beer knowledge described them as 'tasting like soap'.
After my first visit, I thought maybe someone got overly aggressive with their pint glass cleaning and didn't rinse them, or there was an issue with the tap lines. Seeing the same issues and in multiple styles, a week later, the batches are simply just bad. Best guess is there was some improper sanitization of vessels during the brewing process.
I've seen serious brewers with years of experience at some of the larger craft breweries at my home in CA, in their solo brewery startups, dump a batch for much less.
Short-term suggestion: dump the current Blonde and IPA, stop selling them to the public. It's already ruining your reputation.
Long-term: bring in a brewer with significant experience at an established brewery (or hire one to consult) to help you fix your recipes and tighten the process.
This is one of the downsides of the craft beer boom; eventually, everyone that has done a few homebrew batches thinks they can start a brewery and you end up with lower quality market entrants. Sorry to be harsh, but I dislike seeing this as it sullies the impression of the new/lesser-educated beer drinker as to how things should taste and turns them off from trying those that are doing it right.
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