Badlands Turns 2
Turn Two
So this blog is a little bit overdue. Not only has it been several months since our last post, but usually we would also post a blog about an event when said event is first announced. We’re about 3 weeks post-event announcement, and just getting around to the blog now… but hey, better late than never right!?
The truth is we’ve been running at what feels like an endless sprint since we opened the bottle shop (which is not to say we weren’t busy before that. We definitely were). But the extra bottling requirements of the bottle shop, combined with the extra time we now spend on retail, and continually working to make our beer garden slightly more than a patch of grass on our front lawn (new picnic tables right!?), has added a lot of overall man hours to what was already a pretty grueling schedule. In between all the above, we are still trying to maintain our regular production schedule while we also chip away at finishing our new building (epoxy is finally down so it can be used for storage now!)
As you can imagine this is a lot of stuff for a very small team of people to be doing while also working full time jobs, and the larger point I’m trying to get at here is that we’re very busy, and I haven’t been able to find a minute to sit down and write words. Also my computer broke a few weeks ago, which didn’t help the ‘ol personal finance or word generation situation.
Anyways, let’s talk Badlands Turns Two!
Activities
A lot has changed over the last rotation of the sun, so naturally things will have to be set up a little bit different this year. For example, there will be no “tag it” wall this go ‘round. As amazing as it was last year, I think we can all agree that it was a medium safe activity at best that also led to a lot of spray paint in places it shouldn’t be. Also we now live in our house in that area of the property, so there just isn’t really room for it. Hopefully everyone got their fill of sanctioned artistic vandalism last year! We are working on a slightly altered version of an art wall of sorts, and we should (in theory) still have a way for you to express yourself artistically.
It’s not all bad news though, this year we will have a real live owl! See you forgot about the tag it wall already. The owls name is Gidget and we are pretty stoked to have it and Jordan, the falconer, out to do owl stuff. The owl will be there for pictures and such so make sure you go over and say hi when they arrive on site.
We will also have our usual lawn games set up throughout the event so you can look forward to earning bragging rights over your friends in disk toss, giant jenga, corn hole and the like. There will also be cards etc as well if that’s more your speed.
Food
Chef’s roadhouse is back this year to cook up a storm for you. That means no sausages and giant pretzels from our BBQ, but instead the real deal, yumtastic excellence from Chef Thorntin. If you didn’t grab food last year, we highly recommend you plan to this year. This dude can seriously cook. The menu still hasn’t been set in stone but you can rest assured it will be diverse enough to accommodate pretty much everyone’s tastes and dietary requirements.
Beer
This year we are able to sell bottles as well as draft! Last year we didn’t have our on-site licenses so we were only able to sell draft through our SOP. However, this year we will be able to do both. So if you like the beer we’re slinging through our tap lines, there will be limited quantities available for take away as well. We went through a bit of a hell week last week trying to get ready for the event by brewing more than we typically would, so hopefully this means we will not completely run out of beer. We will have somewhere between 8 beers available in bottles and 6 on draft.
How it will work
Like last year we will be selling tickets at the entrance for beer pours. All beers will be served in 12oz cups. Tickets will be $2 each.
1 ticket = 4 oz
2 ticket = 8 oz
3 ticket = 12oz
The lineup of beers this year is:
1) Table Distorted – Table IPA – 3.4% ABV
A fresh reinvention of our table IPA. This year we tweaked the recipe a bit to pump the body of this little squirt even further. The goal was to build a big enough body that it could a) support the hop load we wanted to throw at it, and b) drink like a luscious beer above its ABV weight class.
2) The Kid With the Golden Shoes – IPA – 6.5% ABV
Golden shoes makes its return! It will also be the inaugural label drop for the beer that was named shortly after our first year event. It only makes sense to bring it back for year 2!
3) Secret Wave – IPA – 6.5% ABV
A beer we waited way too long to release again. This was one of the first beers we ever released (the 10th to be exact). But it was one that we wanted to save until we had a proper label for it. But the whole bottle shop thing took a while and all of the sudden this beer was initially released almost 2 years ago. But, it’s back now with a fresh label, which means it will continue to enter our periodic release schedule. Hopped with Vic Secret and Citra its a pineapple, citrus, mango party.
4) Copy Cat – Technically a Root Beer Vegetable DIPA Collaboration with Barncat Artisan Ales – 8.2% ABV
We got together with our friends at Barncat to make a DIPA. Their collabs usually have fruit involved so we thought we would flip the scrip and get some vegetables in there. We added 10kg of beets, which initially contributed a crazy amount of pink, but then faded into a more subtle mauve. Turns out heat has an impact on the color of beets. It was then dry hopped with Nelson and Galaxy.
Notes of peach, gooseberry, citrus.
5) Sour DIPA w/Pink Guava Collaboration with Rouge River – 8.2% ABV
We teamed up with Rouge River to make our first ever sour double IPA. They brought their house lacto culture and we knocked out a big sour DIPA that was then re-fermented with 42lbs of pink guava puree. We then dry hopped it with Citra and Mosaic.
It tastes like a big ol guavalicious DIPA with some citrusy hop aromatics and a tart finish.
Bottle Availability
There should be around 120 bottles available for each beer above and we have roughly 100 bottles left of the releases from last weekend. We don’t plan on imposing any purchase limits, but if we find we’re running low on anything too quickly we may do so. If you would like more than 4 of any one beer, I would show up early is what I’m getting at.
We will be pouring all 5 of these beers on draft during the event and we will also be offering our Oat lager as well.
Parking
This year we will be opening up the pasture so that you don’t have to park on the road. You are certainly welcome to park on the road if you prefer/are just stopping by for a quick grab and go pack of bottles. However, we would prefer if you use the parking area just so that we aren’t blocking the road too badly.
Where do I buy bottles and Merch?
Bottles and merch will be sold out of the bottle shop. We will have all the above bottles listed. We will also have T-shirts, hats and our 14oz sensorik glassware.
I think that is all for the pertinent details. If you have any other questions about anything at all, please do not hesitate to either email us or hit us up on one of the social medias!
We look forward to seeing you all on the 17th!
Badlands Crew