Wayward Brewing
This week we head back into Sydney’s Inner West and Wayward Brewing Co.
As I mentioned previously when writing about Staves Brewery, Sydney’s Inner West suburbs are brimming over with good craft breweries. Full disclosure here, my brother and sister-in-law are investors in Wayward Brewing. So I’ve been lucky enough to be aware of them for a long time and see the growth from a gypsy brewery to a producer of an extensive range of delicious beers with their own awesome beer cave in the back streets of Camperdown. But I promise that I can objectively say that they make an extremely tasty range of beverages.
But first the brewery/taphouse itself. It’s a really cool beer cave down a back alley in Camperdown. Once you track it down, though, it’s a welcoming, cozy place to enjoy a beverage or several. The décor is very cool with the requisite beer kegs lights, multitude of industrial but comfy tables, and a display motorcycle for good measure. The back rooms are especially cool looking like they’ve been carved straight out of the bedrock (although one caveat, don’t expect mobile reception in the back reaches of the beer cave).
The bar staff is extremely friendly and always keen for a chat or to offer a recommendation. In addition to the impressive in-house range of beers, there’s usually a couple of usually local, but always unique, guest taps on offer as well. While there’s no kitchen, free bowls of popcorn are always on offer, pizzas can be ordered to be delivered straight to your table, and, on weekends, there’s a rotating line-up of fantastic food trucks that set up shop out front.
As for the beer itself, Wayward has an excellent core range of beer that I’d be more than happy to drink any day of the week. The real appeal of going to the beer cave, though, is the unique seasonal releases you’re sure to find on tap. Of the core range, my favourites are the Everyday Ale, IPA, and Red IPA. The Everyday Ale is the ideal summer beer in my book. It’s got a pop of hops, but still light enough to enjoy several of over a summer’s afternoon watching the cricket, relaxing in the back yard, or doing anything really. The IPA, and especially the Red IPA, a big hoppy, happy punches to the mouth. Not quite a sessionable as the Everyday Ale, by jeez they’re tasty. Even though I get a bit more verbose in my descriptions of some of the other six beers I had on my most recent trip, the Red IPA is definitely my favourite. I might lack the words to do it justice, but it is fantastic.
On my last visit there were a number of the aforementioned seasonal releases available as well. And there were some great beers there as well. My favourites from that line-up were the Appalachian Mist NEIPA, Slapshot Black IPA, and Beach Yeti Coconut Lime Sour. Now that the mad rush of every craft brewery tripping over themselves to get out a super trendy NEIPA has passed, the NEIPA’s left on brewery taplists tend to be genuinely good beers that are there because they’re delicious, not just trendy.
Appalachian Mist is just delicious. It’s got the citrusy fruitiness of the cloudy NEIPA style, but it serves to complement the hoppiness rather than overpower it. Far from just being a trendy taplist inclusion, it’s genuinely one of the best NEIPA’s I’ve had. The Slapshot and Beach Yeti represent beer genres that are not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea (or beer). But the Slapshot is a super hoppy and dark tasting, but light in body brew. The Beach Yeti, on the other hand, is extremely unique in that the tastes of the coconut, lime, sour beer arrived in 3 waves of those exact flavours. The first sip is of coconut before it’s replaced by a blast of lime and then slowly fades away to leave a lingering tasty sour beer flavour. Even though sours aren’t always my favourite, I really enjoyed this one.
On the whole, Wayward Brewing is a great place to frequent. The upshot of Sydney’s Inner West having so many great breweries is that there’s a lot of competition for your beer-going time and dollars. But Wayward’s cellar bar (beer cave) is more than worth a visit and distinguishes itself both with its quality of beer, variety of taplist, and cool surroundings in which to enjoy both. The beer is delicious so very much worth a purchase if you happen to see it in your local bottle shop. But if you can, I highly recommend getting down to Camperdown to enjoy it at the source.