I was in San Diago this weekend and took time to visit White Labs. My time would have been better spent at Ale Smith! I found it very hard to compare yeast in beers that went from almost no carbination to beers well carbinated. Also some of the tap lines tasted dirty. I use White Labs Yeast most all the time and will continue to do so. Disapointing that somthing I was realy looking forward to was a drag!
I am very sorry to hear about your disappointing visit to the White Labs tasting room. I read a blog about the White Labs tasting room (it was written just before it ‘officially’ opened up); see link below. That blog made the tasting room sound very intriguing. Yeast is a critical ingredient to brewing and for some beer styles the most critical ingredient (e.g., Saison). I always thought that tasting a number of beers which had a common wort but differing yeasts would be a great experience. It is a shame that White Labs is unable to maintain consistency in this effort. Cheers! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/feast/2012/mar/27/beer-touring-white-labs/
I read the same thing and that is why I was excited to go there for the same reasons you mentioned. take care.
Bummer. I went there about six or seven months ago and had the completely opposite experience.... The beers were very clean and yeast driven characteristics from different strains were very easy to pick out, and some of the beers were incredibly tasty. Sucks to hear that they may not be managing the tasting room or production very well. Could be possible that they're having trouble keeping up with tasting room demands and are just pushing out beer as fast as they can, which obviously is resulting in crappy beers on tap.
Does anybody know whether Johnnie O. is still brewing for the tasting room? It has been my extensive experience (from numerous local brewpubs) that who is brewing there makes a world of difference in the quality of the beers. “Johnny O., former brewer at Rock Bottom's downtown brewpub, is using a 20-gallon brewing system to produce a wide-ranging variety of beers at White Labs' facility” Cheers!
This is unfortunate. I want to visit them sometime and hope they turn things around. My guess is they will.
Well, Johnnie O has moved on. Thanks for that link. Hopefully his replacement at the White Lab tasting room can get them back to status quo. Cheers! P.S. I have been on the receiving end of ‘changing of the guard’ at numerous brewpubs. Sometimes the new brewer gets things back to ‘good’ after a few months and sometimes the beers just are not good for that brewer’s ebtire tenure and things don’t get back to ‘good’ until another brewer comes onboard.
I've always preferred Wyeast to White Labs (I know, a Ford/Chevy kind of thing). Sounds like Logsden's beers are better than White Labs'.
Something similar happened to me the first time I visited Weyermann's pilot brewery in Bamberg. Was expecting some great beers utilizing some interesting malts. The licorice porter and the wheatwine were both quite good, but the lagers were nearly universally disappointing.
