Heretic Brewing Company

Microbrewery in Fairfield, California, United States 🇺🇸
Associated Venue: Heretic Brewing Company

Established in 2011

Contact
1052 Horizon Drive, Fairfield, CA, 94533, United States
Description
It all started with a neighbor sharing a homemade beer. Liz saw how excited Jamil was and bought him a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas. Jamil became obsessed with brewing the perfect beer and became a homebrew legend in the process by winning a first-place medal in every known beer, mead, and cider style category. Eventually, his passion to brew was too strong and Jamil and Liz decided to take the plunge and open Heretic Brewing Company.

We started by sharing a building with another brewery in 2011, but we always brewed our beer ourselves. Within the first six months we realized there wasn’t enough space for two breweries in one building, so we began the search for a new place. By 2013, we had built a new, modern brewery in the wonderful city of Fairfield, California and moved all our operations there, including our new distillery.

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7.6
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Pours rich copper with a fading head.Nose shows lots of malt with bready characters and some spicy, toasty rye. Lovely. Also some soft earthy hops.Very similar flavours, with powerful toasty and spicy rye alongside a spicy, earthy hop hit. Great length.Nice moderate carbonation.

Tried on 30 Apr 2013 at 18:27


7.6
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 7.5

Pours dark amber with a fading head.Massively hoppy aroma, smells like a freshly opened bag of hops. Some pine and resinous notes too, alongside sweet clean malt.Very hoppy flavours too, but there’s a fair bit of clean malt to balance things. Very resinous, with spicy hops too. Pretty tasty stuff.Spot on moderately high carbonation.

Tried on 16 Apr 2013 at 01:57


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

Draft @ Creekside Brewing Company, San Luis Obispo, CA. Pours a black color with a small tan head. Has a roasted malty chocolate aroma. Roasted malty chocolate and caramel flavor. Has a roasted malty chocolate finish.

Tried from Draft on 05 Apr 2013 at 05:46


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

Draft @ Jupiter Sour Sunday, Jupiter, Berkeley, CA. Pours a very dark brown ruby color with a small tan head. Has a fruity woody sour tart aroma with berry hints. Fruity woody sour tart flavor with hints of caramel. Has a fruiy malty woody sour tart berry finish.

Tried from Draft on 01 Apr 2013 at 05:27


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

Bottle. Mahogony beer with a tan head. Malt and yeast aroma with light spice and light fruitiness. Rich malt and toffee/caramel flavor with yeast and light spice. Medium bodied. Caramel/toffee lingers with yeast, spice, and light dried fruit.

Tried from Bottle on 14 Mar 2013 at 16:51


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

Draft. Bronze beer with a cream head. Toffee and caramel aroma. Caramel and dark fruit flavor. Medium bodied. Caramel and dark fruit linger with light toffee.

Tried from Draft on 12 Mar 2013 at 12:16


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

Aroma is dominated by moderate fruit esters with pear being the most prevalent and apple next. Light honey note with a hint of white wine and oak, but the barrel characters are faint. Not much malt character at all. Light alcohol note as it warms. Pours a cloudy pale golden straw with a medium thickness white head that has surprisingly good retention considering it wasn't too fluffy. Light lacing with medium long legs. I got a few yeast chunks but I didn't pour as cleanly as I could have. Lots of tropical fruit up front with pear and apple being the most prevalent. Some honey notes mid palate with a hint of banana. Some light peppercorn spice present as well. The finish is slightly drying with some oak and white wine notes. Not too strong, but the tannins do add a bit of acidity. Medium low bitterness and no hop flavor. The grain doesn't taste as fresh and crisp as I would like and instead a bit muddled and stale. Medium low alcohol spice in the finish. Medium full bodied with medium low carbonation. The beer seems a bit under carbonated. Low astringency and medium alcohol warmth. Overall this beer is alright, but I expect more from Jamil. It almost seems like the beer got exposed to too much oxygen either while in the barrel or during packaging. The carbonation is also on the low side. The fruit esters are nice and work well with the white wine character. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Tried on 11 Mar 2013 at 19:20


4.6
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3.5

From the March 2013 3R6P tasting. +++ Sampled from a 22 oz brown bottle this beer poured a black color with a medium sized brown head that faded quickly and left a bit of lacing. The aroma was dry, roasty, smoky and woody. The flavor was dry and roasty with notes of anise and smoke and old school McDonalds coffee (the really bad stuff). Medium length dry McDonalds coffee finish. Medium body. Pretty awful.

Tried from Bottle on 09 Mar 2013 at 14:32


7.9
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Tap at The Davis Beer Shoppe. Pours very, very dark with a creamy beige head. Aroma of dark sour malt. With some fruit. Med + body. Flavor is moderately sour. There’s hints of red berry, treacle and chocolate. Gets towards cherry with time. Some wood is present, but the flavors are too strong to get anything specific. Quite tasty, if a little bit overly malty.

Tried from Draft on 01 Mar 2013 at 12:42


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

On tap at Harry’s Hoffbrau in Redwood City. Pours a dark brown with red highlights. Brown head. Sweet malt aroma delicately balanced by the sour. This beer is amazingly complex and well balanced, and is a very carbonated, spritzy beer. Lots of mellow cherry on the flavor and sweet cracker marrying well with the sourness.

Tried from Draft on 17 Feb 2013 at 20:31