Off Color Brewing Wari

Wari

 

Off Color Brewing in Chicago, Illinois, United States 🇺🇸

  Traditional Beer Rotating
Score
6.78
ABV: 3.8% IBU: 3 Ticks: 13
Chicha de Molle inspired ale

We have some friends over at the Field Museum because they like animals and beer and stuff and we like animals and beer and stuff. We started saying we should work on making different beers together from countries other than England and Germany. It just so happened Dr. Ryan Williams was part of a team who discovered an ancient brewery in Cerro Baúl, Peru. They found a mill, boiling and fermenting vats and remnants of molle berries all around the brewery. You can read about it here. So we thought it would be fun to try to make a beer inspired by the ancient drink known as chicha de molle. All we had to do was import some purple corn from Peru, mill it up, spice it with molle berries and pump the beer into the closest thing we had to a ceramic vat, which is our old, beat up lactobacillus tank. What came out was a beer-like drink with a dry, grainy funk and pepper spiciness, plus it was deep purple in color with pink foam lacing. Made us wonder if the Wari's wished they drank out of glassware rather than ceramics.

Availability: dependent on Peruvian purple corn availability

Malts: Pils, Peruvian Purple Corn, Honey Malt
Hops: The Green Kind
Secret Ingredient: Molle Berries, Excavation
 

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6.8
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

16oz can pours out pinkish topped with a white head. Nose is grain corn some light berries. Taste is more of the nice corn notes some spice and a little berries.

Tried from Can on 02 Nov 2022 at 02:21


7.1
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

16oz can at share. Cloudy golden with some violet hues. Light fruity aroma with a small amount of tartness. Taste is fruity also, berries, tartness, sweetness from the corn along with a snappy, savory finish.

Tried from Can on 06 Aug 2022 at 18:45


6.9
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

Draught at Barbes: pours pinkish red with a pinkish head. Aroma is fruity and corny... but not in the malt liquor way. Taste is sweet, a hint tart, king of fruity.

Tried on 26 May 2019 at 03:48


7.8
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

12oz, clear bottle with pretty colored liquid inside. Consumed at Bert's in Millersville. What a different beer. Dark rose color. A: Burnt crop is apparent. Interesting. Burnt from lighter greens. Tart n berries otherwise. None of that burnt in flavor. More just lite and tart berries beer. 947316 I guess I am against the grain on this beer or more like beverage since its rather no traditional. This was the stuff that I thought Off Color did well when they first came out. Nowadays, its too much hype and not enough substance.

Tried from Bottle on 06 Jun 2018 at 20:28


6.4
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

On tap at Aslan Depot, pours a clear pinkish amber with a small white head. Aroma brings out a fragrant berry character, with light spicy peppercorn. Flavour is lacto-y, with tart berries, light spicy peppercorn without the spice. Residual berries and peppercorn on the finish. Not the most cohesive beer, but it's alright.

Tried from Draft on 12 Mar 2018 at 16:46


7.5
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

12oz bottle. Orange-red body. Thin pink-beige head. A really nice, different beer. Medium bodied, easy drinking, well balanced. Pleasant lacto tones, not overboard but ever-present. The berry tone is there as well, adding a mild umami-type pepper tone. Well executed, tasty beer.

Tried from Bottle on 02 Dec 2017 at 23:19


6.1
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

Draft at the Mouse Trap, Chicago. Interesting purple looking appearance, small head. Read about how they make this in Peru. Tastes like someone chewed and spit this into the mash... ha ha no, just not for me. Mild lacto, floral, sour, harsh medicinal aftertaste. This sour is not for me but the Brewers overall, I really respect.

Tried from Draft on 29 Nov 2017 at 18:08


6.6
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Whole Foods Wheaton, in 8 oz goblet. This shows a unique pinkish brown with a very thin and short-lived. The smell starts with a whiff of cooked corn, but then shows a simple malt nose. The taste is most definitely tart. Off Color's description says they fermented the brew in their ceramic-lined lactobacillus tank, fitting the belief that ancient American beverages might have started by having women chew on maize kernels and spit them into the fermenter, meaning there's lots of bacteria doing the fermenting. Yes, sour. That's what they were going for, I think. After the initial shock of its tartness wears off, it shows some fruity character, like a sour cherry juice. More sour than funk, and it's quite pleasant. Hey, as a home brewer, I've had a batch or two get contaminated by bacteria, and the results were more than drinkable. So my total rating is more than the sum of its components.

Tried from Can on 01 Nov 2017 at 19:44


7
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Sampled from the tap at GTMW 2016. Pours a clear light pink with a white head that dissipates to the edges. Aroma has a good amount dark red fruit, grass, corn and some sweet grains supporting. Flavor has sweet light fruits, corn, some grass and a hint of sweetness.

Tried from Draft on 01 Jan 2017 at 16:32


6.2
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 8

Bottle. It pours a reddish color with a fizzy pink head. The aroma has light raspberry, cranberry and some wheat. The flavor is pleasant with raspberry and cranberry tartness. Pretty authentic flavor with a hint of corn. Very fizzy and light bodied. Interesting stuff.

Tried from Bottle on 19 Aug 2016 at 14:32