I actually visited Faultline last week but was only able to get to writing this post today. I decided to take a couple of days off from writing anything. Even with something you enjoy a little break now and again is good to recharge the batteries, to get you back in the right frame of mind. Anyway, here it is.
There’s an old saying that has to do with a cobbler and his children not having shoes. Basically, the cobber is so busy making shoes for other people that his own family gets neglected. Sometimes I feel the part of the cobbler while the South Bay breweries close to home are the ones to go “shoeless”. Sammy and I have traveled pretty far and wide this year in search of good beers that we forget there are places right in our “backyard”. I decided to take a first step toward reacquainting myself with the local beers the other day by visiting Faultline Brewing Company in Sunnyvale.
I was having a pretty lousy day at work. Due to many factors both within my company’s control and out of, situations have arisen that have put a great deal of stress on many people. There’s a huge shit sandwich and everyone’s taking a bite. To wash the taste out of my mouth, I decided to hoof it over to Faultline Brewing Company, which is just down the street from me.
It was a late lunch. No other way around it. Lucky for me, Faultline was fairly empty. Either I had just missed the crazy lunch hour or it was a slow day. I strolled up to the bar and noticed they had an Octoberfest-style beer on tap. There’s also a huge-ass ribbon next to their kölsch. Apparently it took 1st place in the California State Fair. There was also a poster of some hot looking chick wearing a durdl promoting their Octoberfest beer special. If you order any German-style beer smaller than a pint, it’s only $2. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately for me I had already ordered a pint of their Octoberfest. What I was soon to find out was paying a little bit more was the least of my problems.
Octoberfest
This beer pours out caramel brown, clean with a beige head. Sweet malt flavor, slightly grainy, slight Vienna malt character (I think). Medium hop flavor and bitterness. Medium-bodied, medium-high/high level of carbonation. I found this beer to have a fairly bland malt character. Octoberfest beers are supposed to be clean and fully attenuated with rich and complex malt character but I didn’t really find that in this beer. As the beer warmed up, what I did find was a slight acidity in the aroma. The flavor changed as well with cider-like qualities appearing in the beer, a slight sourness. The high level of carbonation gave off a tingly feeling on my tongue and mouth. I wasn’t enjoying this beer but I was thirsty and needed to get a little buzzed so I just killed it. Luckily my chicken quesadilla arrived and I was able to mask the beer flavor with all that cheesy goodness.
Kölsh
I ordered a $2 sample size of this beer. Actually, I ordered both the kölsch and their pilsner at the same time. Might as well as give both beers a chance to warm up at the same time to really experience their full flavors. After the Octoberfest, I was ready for something good. After all, they did win 1st at the California State Fair.
The kölsch pours out brilliantly clear, is straw-yellow in color with a white head. At the initial pour, it is nearly odorless. Verly slight malt flavor with low bitterness. This beer could easy be confused for a lager. Being the lightest (in color) of all the ales, it often is mistaken for a lager. The flavor is clean with a slight tartness in the finish. It is light, refreshingly cold and effervescent. Low body with medium-high carbonation. So far, so good.
It’s amazing what temperature can do to a beer. I had taken some time out to take some initial notes for the pilsner. Returning back to the kölsch, I was surprised that it’s aroma had changed dramatically. Whatever subtleness I experienced in the aroma earlier was gone. In its place was a glass full of what I could only describe as butter. Diacetyl is the chemical found in beer that is responsible for buttery flavors. In low levels, it can be described as “nutty” while in higher concentrations it tastes a lot like the fake butter you put on popcorn. Diacetyl also leaves a slickness on the tongue. Some people can smell it before they taste it while others can feel it more than taste.
I was definitely tasting and smelling this on their kölsch. I just couldn’t finish it. It made me wonder who judged this beer in the California State Fair. Then I remember a conversation I had in my BJCP class that basically said the judging in the State Fair was pretty bad. I guess in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, this beer did start off well enough that I probably would’ve given it a decent score, something in the low 30s. When I compare it to some of the other kölsch’s I’ve tasted in the past, I can’t help but wonder where was the subtle complexity? Where was the restrained, yet fully discernable palette of flavors? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on me!
Pilsner
Like the kölsch, this beer is brilliantly clear, gold in color with a white head. Sweet pils malt flavor up front with slightly biscuity/bready notes with medium-low hop bitterness. I picked up some DMS (cooked corn) in both the aroma and flavor. Hop bitterness lasts into the finish but isn’t very harsh. Medium-low/medium body with medium-high/high level or carbonation.
At this point, I may have just conditioned myself for another disappointment. Maybe the placebo effect was playing tricks with my mind but I was not enjoying this beer either. For a German-style pilsner, I found this beer to be lacking in the hop bitterness department. Up until the development of the American Pale Ale and IPA styles, West Coast in particular, the German pilsner was the poster child for bitter beer. This pilsner seemed to have the malt character down but was definitely lacking a level of hop bitterness I would’ve expected from this style.
While DMS is considered a flaw in most beers, the use of pilsner malt results in trace to low amounts of perceptible DMS in the aroma. So the DMS I picked up on earlier was within style. Yet after allowing this beer to warm up, I was also picking up diacetyl in the aroma and flavor, just not as prominent as in the kölsch.
Conclusion
In the end, the pilsner was the best of the three beers I sampled. That’s not saying much though. You could also say the pilsner was the lesser of three evils. Not exactly a glowing endorsement. If you’ve kept up on this site for any amount of time, you’d have noticed that I don’t have too many negative things to say about most beers. I’d like to think that I’ve been drinking some really good beers. It’s hard for me to justify saying too many good things about these beers. The octoberest was unremarkable and unmemorable. The kölsch’s true colors showed once it warmed up and it wasn’t pretty. The pilsner ended up being the “best” of the day but was flawed nonetheless.
I want to like Faultline, I really do. I would like to support the South Bay brewpubs an breweries but I’m finding too many faults in their beer. I’m hoping the next time I go it’ll be a much better experience but I’ve been there to enough times to know that they can be hit or miss. Today, it was a miss.
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